through those logs like a knife through butter.

It was great that we were out the front, because people could see wood from log, to mill, then inside from planer to lathe, to finishing...the full process in action.

Scott from the Forestry Forum was the guy who donated the logs and he was a nice guy.  We ended up with some Oak, Spruce, Pine and some spalted Maple. Yeah, I didn’t know what spalted was either and Chris didn’t know how valuable it was until we were throwing it in the rubbish pile and people were practically falling over themselves to get a board!

After speaking to a wood turner from the Western NY Wood Turners Club, we found out that the fungus that spreads through the sugary maple wood when the tree has been dropped, leaves a remarkable pattern and some fantastic colouring… something that turners would die for! That guy, Paul Mazuchowski, ended up being a good friend by the end of the show.  He turned Craig, Chris and I a pen

Maple blocks

each out of the Maple. He also turned a couple of bowls, one of which Captain has, and the other, our log supplier’s mom got to keep… lucky! We started selling blocks of Maple for $5 each, boards for $10 and a couple of slabs, and made over $500!  Unfortunately, it only bought us a couple of beers each and the rest had to go to the lumber owner… fair enough.

The Skillmill gets it's first run on US soil.

The first day, we must have been really anxious to cut some wood, because we went through 7 of our 15 logs!  (It was only a half day too!)  The next day we took the spalted Maple slowly, Chris and Craig even cut a slab (and sold it for well under what it was worth… but that’s a long story haha).  Both the mills went just fine, no problems at all. The Skillmill did a fantastic job, and aside from a couple of bent bolts during transit, it was in good

shape… although it’s a little worse for wear now that Chris knocked the teeth out of it when he ran over an EZ Dog! Hehe.

A guy showed up on our second day, asking if we could go cut some logs he had downed at his suburban property. We went that afternoon and checked them out and the boys said they’d take the job - easy money! We got there today, straight after we’d packed up at the show, and Chris and Craig worked the mill like they were in a shootout - real fast, even uphill - and they were great. We actually had a bit of a crowd by the end of it - neighbours

Urban milling at its best.

who came to check it out from a street over.

So tomorrow we head off to Ohio, to get ready for the Paul Bunyan Show. I can't wait for that one . .. I'm going to get the chance to run the other portable sawmills that are out there on the market. Wish me luck!!


Layla

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