Today I did a job in Sherman, CT, which is on the western side of the state at the north end of Candlewood Lake. The customer’s house was in one of those lakeside communities where the house lots are small, and the roads are narrow. There was barely room to set up the mill and move the truck out of the way.He had a number of short hemlock logs from a tree taken down last fall. The tree used to support a clothesline pulley, so we knew there was some metal in one log. We pulled out a hook that was still visible at the surface, and another one nearby that had become completely embedded, but the metal detector said that there was still metal in the log, which we were unable to find, so we eventually sawed around that section. There was also some unanticipated metal in another log that we found with the mill. One medium sized nail that caused the blade to dive about a quarter inch. After digging out the rest of the nail, and changing the blade, we continued sawing without further incident.
We produced a nice stack of lumber in a variety of sizes, which the customer plans to make into furniture. At the end of the day, we had to turn the mill around by hand. This was the first time I’d done this, but it went smoothly enough, and I was soon on my way home.
