Timber Trip II to the woods we go..hi ho!

Almost a year a go next week we went to the District Directors Ranch and cut down some cedars that were damaged in past storms. We just topped them and then took the main trunk that would give us some pretty cedar boards. We then cut that into 30" logs. Loaded it up and hauled it back to the Ranger Annex and stored them until they dried a bit.... this time I will seal the ends on the green tree's we cut I did get some checking on the green trees. The other trees that were dead it didn't matter on them no checking on those.

The boys will then resaw them into boards 5 3/4" wide the depth of my bandsaw with a resaw blade on it.

I made this fancy resaw table with sliding table last year and found out it was over kill...a great idea that just didn't work..(It happens me to me too). I learned through EXPERIENCE to just take a pattern board the same length as the log and the 1" thickness that I wanted and after running the log down the bandsaw 3 times I could take a sharpie and use my pattern board and mark out a fairly straight line for the boys to follow and they could cut it out. One pushing the log the other receiving the log.

We made 2 pallets of lumber air dried stickered that was 8' long by 30" deep by 24" tall. Worked pretty well.

So that is what we will be doing Sunday after next. After church during the sunday afternoon and be back in time for Rangers Sunday night. It will be a good but long day. GRIN!

Mark Jones
p.s. I got to get a new chainsaw blade and don't forget each boy needs a set of gloves and some safety glasses if they are chopping off limbs.

Well..now what do you do when you go to saw down a 16" cedar tree with a brand new blade with 8 Ranger standing around watching you coach them on how to fall a tree.

(Change the blade because you put it on backwards)    then after suffering normal humiliation and some good ribbing by my Ranger boys... we cut down the trees and hauled off non useable stuff to the burn pile... yet on the burn pile... in all that black ash was..... a 4' long copper head snake. He found that black ash was pretty comfy warm until that shovel cut his head off.. one of the boys took the body of the snake home to tan.

We didn't quite get as much wood as last time but the wood we did get was more heart wood because it's from a larger tree.

Left the Ranger Annex at 12:30 after church and was cooking ravioli and stew and chillie over one of 7 small campfires the boys built to cook their can of food.

About 2pm we started cutting down trees. Left a 4pm stopped a McDonalds, then back at the Annex we unloaded and stowed the stuff with 20 minutes for games before the nights meeting took place.

I think we will schedule one more timber trip in the next 30 days to get some more wood. The next 2 trees are less work.

Mark Jones

Hey you guys should have had a snake handling service...  

Mark Jones wrote:Well..now what do you do when you go to saw down a 16" cedar tree with a brand new blade with 8 Ranger standing around watching you coach them on how to fall a tree.  

(Change the blade because you put it on backwards)     then after suffering normal humiliation and some good ribbing by my Ranger boys...

OOPS!  funny.

sounds like you guys had a good time  

Well the District Director looked at my saw and said... you have the chain in backwards.... I smiled so broad and big and said you don't say.. I just matched it up like the other one I took off that didn't cut worth a hoot.... (double dumb) or would that be triple dumb...
Anyway.. District Director told the boys... boys it happens to the best of us... I know cause I have done it too...HA! A teachable moment. They think I walk on water...

I didn't tell anyone the other tree I cut down fell the exact opposite of where I wanted it to fall... Tops were broken out of these trees so they had unbalanced limbs... but o well. Can't expect perfection out of someone that has only done something a few times..HA! most of my cutting experience has been in the down tree department. HA!

Mark Jones

You know what is funny. If we are so serious we can't laugh when we make mistakes then we are just going to be grumpy. GRIN!

On the Black Powder shooting line one of the FCF VP's was shooting next to me... he forgot the powder.... GRIN! The new NRA rep made a few mistakes on the range this time as well. None perfect, no not one. I tell my bosses. If you watch me long enough you will find out I ain't perfect. GRIN!...even though I try to be right the first time. HA!

Mark Jones

absolutely right

gotta be able to laugh at yourself  

We are taking the Rangers to the woods again on the 10th. A few more trees will come down. I am hoping the outpost will buy a 15" planer for our shop. If not we will make do.

Mark Jones

We had a good turnout.  We had 8 on this trip.  Cut down about 6 trees and have  some nice cedar logs to work on.

I had all of my boys make it to the woods this year except 2.   I will most likely let grace allow them to use the wood they didn't bother to collect but it's God's way.  My flesh would rather just let them sit in the classroom and color in a coloring book while the rest of us are making cool stuff out of wood..... but that's not God's plan.  So come on boys let's get'er done.

I wanted a dead tree for swedish fire torches so we found one in a cluster of trees and asked if the boys wanted to cut it down themselves with a bow saw and delimb it.   They did.  Dist. Commander and I were working on 2 other trees about 70 feet away and we looked over there and I said well do you think they will kill anyone over there... we hope not... I yelled outyou guys be careful over there.    They hauled it to the trailer and then elected it would be a good idea to cut it in half so it would fit in the trailer.  Boys are fun.

After a supper at McDonalds we headed back to the Ranger Annex unloaded and cleaned up and they played some zombie tag game..I updated records for the COA next week.  

In our Rangers meeting...
We bolted up the resaw table onto my bandsaw and put the aux legs on it.    Laid out floor protection cardboard and we are ready to start resawing logs into lumber.  Broke into several groups and did a bunch of stuff.  Ropecraft is always a great time filler and I have about twelve 6' long pieces of rope laid out on our cedar saw horse for times like these.  I think the boys are finally learning the knots.  We refresh them about once a month for a few minutes.

Got the new Dewalt planner but haven't unboxed it yet.  Will do it this week.  

Sr. Commander said ..do you think you have enough logs?  I said...we have twice the number of boys as we did last year.  GRIN!  Praise God a break for a few weekends.  Awwh.  I will come up with something to do... naping.  Watching TV.  Computer clean up... BORING!  HA!

It's all good then there more work to it. GRIN!  

Mark Jones

Here is a report and pictures on the stack of logs we got.

http://readyrangers.tzo.com/2013Timbertrips/2013TimberTrips.htm

Nice stack of wood!

I just read through the thread. You had me for real laughing out loud about the backward chain on your saw. There is a lesson there though. Just because something was "done like that before" doesn't make it right. It all comes down to results.

That's the beautiful thing about doing things God's way and staying away from sin. God doesn't want us to stay away from sin because He doesn't want us having a good time. He wants us to stay away from sin because it just doesn't work! Just like backward chainsaw chains don't cut trees!

I love it!

Yes it's a good memory and a great devotion. Thanks
I have sharpened that chain now 3 times. Iam getting good at it. Been stopping by the Ranger Annex and cutting the logs into boards on my lunch and break times when in route by there. Lots of slag wood. Yet lots of purdy red cedar as well.
Mark Jones

I think we will add this to our project list his year. It's easy and we should be able to do this one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cB9poc9xHk

Mark Jones

I like it! I was wondering if it could be made food grade and then he clarified that question. Very cool.