Successful players

[Three]

I'm a woodworker, spent many years on a table saw with the guard off because I do so many different things with that saw. I still have all my fingers(and I"ve seen enough guys who don't) because I made safety a habit I didn't even have to think about.

I worked on a long multi-year project in which I kept having to order custom cut wood of rare materials that were quite often huge pieces of wood. Like 30 foot pieces. You had to go to a sawmill to order it to be custom made to your specs. I worked with dozens of sawyers at at least a dozen sawmills trying to find the right materials and the right sawyer. I have yet to find one that wasn't missing some or most of one hand. You get too comfortable doing what you are doing and you make that mistake...

Anyway he speaks the truth about those constantly using power saws on wood. The odds are very small but you do it enough and it is almost certain the odds catch up with you. Congrats on not earning the nickname stumpy. As you are well aware of it happens to quite a few that do what you do. It is simply a matter of understanding what you are doing and making sure risk is minimal by making wise choices. Like you said it is what you should be doing at the tables.

[fjrider]

I worked on a long multi-year project in which I kept having to order custom cut wood of rare materials that were quite often huge pieces of wood. Like 30 foot pieces. You had to go to a sawmill to order it to be custom made to your specs. I worked with dozens of sawyers at at least a dozen sawmills trying to find the right materials and the right sawyer. I have yet to find one that wasn't missing some or most of one hand. You get too comfortable doing what you are doing and you make that mistake...

Anyway he speaks the truth about those constantly using power saws on wood. The odds are very small but you do it enough and it is almost certain the odds catch up with you. Congrats on not earning the nickname stumpy. As you are well aware of it happens to quite a few that do what you do. It is simply a matter of understanding what you are doing and making sure risk is minimal by making wise choices. Like you said it is what you should be doing at the tables.

Sounds like an interesting project T. I worked in all mesquite when I worked for myself, buying from all small mills. What a pain trying to get properly cut, properly dried wood. A big part of why I don't do it for a living anymore. Also worked for a large factory for a couple years as a manager. Applying bandages to a bloody mess a couple times sure reinforced my good habits!!

I guess the ultimate BJ training would be a "Deer Hunter" kind of school. Tie on the red scarf, sit down at the table, and if you make a bad decision something gets cut off. Wouldn't be boring, eh?

[Three]

The toughest to get done right and find the materials was the 30 foot tapered American Chestnut beams. The trouble is because of the chestnut blight american chestnut dies before they get big. Only one stand in Virginia is known to be blight resistant. I can't remember whether we got fresh chestnut to mill or he found some old barn beams to taper cut. Memory says one sawyer came up with some from an old building they had cannibalized for the wood. I was working with one and it fell off the make shift set of benches onto my foot. The project required hand tools as much as possible to look authentic. The skinny end was dove tailed 4x4 and the fat end was notched 8x6. Gravity held everything together but there was a pin through the dove tailed fittings. The end that landed on my foot with my steel toed boots and drove the bit sticking out of it through my boot and foot. Wouldn't you know it, it had to be the fat end. It bounced up and I pulled my foot out before it came back down but the next morning my foot looked more like a grapefruit than a foot.

This was the first house built in this region. It was built before the 1770's. I can't remember exactly when. The first thing they did was set up a sawmill and a big log house. They cleared the trees and milled them at the mill. Once settled in they built a much fancier house than the original. The original house was basically condemned but we restored it to its historic state by totally disassembly it and raising it again after replacing everything that had gone bad. I could never work wood with an adze today. LoL
Lots of adze work, base and bit drilling, and chisel work. Since some of the wood was milled at the sawmill we could us a sawmill to make the replacements and sand off the saw marks and make new saw marks that fit the original sawing method when we couldn't find mills that could match the technique original used. They had a saw pit and used a long two-man whipsaw in the original build. One man on top and the other in the pit. At least that is what the historian said. The original roof beams were tapered beams that were cut straight as an arrow. They must have been quite skilled.