I have a 20’ shipping container that I framed the inside with 2x4’s and then had closed cell insulation blown in. Since the container is opened on one end, I really need to come up with a rail system like you have. Great looking lumber!
Wow. I read everything you contribute on The Forestry Forum, but really glad to discover your UA-cam channel. Thanks for the fantastic content and for making me a better sawyer. I have a Woodmizer LT40HD diesel, and am a small-timer with hopes of getting bigger/better.
Just came across your channel today (3/9/2022) truly enjoyed the lesson on drying and how careful you are in the drying process. I've been a woodworker for 40 plus years and have bought a lot of kiln dried wood but never realized the importance of the process. Now I understand why a few of the items I've made didn't retain their shape. Cherry is my wood of choice, I hope you share some shots of the various grain patterns of the wood you cut. Again, thanks for sharing what you do.
Robert, GREAT JOB !!!! I love your setup, that complete tra k setup is brilliant and would make a great video to show us what the components were before being used in your high cude reefer. Your very informative and easy to understand which makes you a good instructional mentor on UA-cam. Thank You for what your doing and teaching.
Please keep up the great work Iam fixing my kiln just like yours do you have any photos of how you did your Racks that you roll in your kiln curious how you did the wheels and framing
I weld up the kiln carts myself, and used heavy duty V groove wheels. The cops of the tracks are steel channel with 2" angle iron inverted so the angle fits into the V groove wheels. Much like a train track. Thanks for watching!
No, depending on the kiln cycle being used, drying the wood will only make the bugs thirsty. We probably get a call a week from customers who have bought kiln dried wood from non professional operators that has powder post beetles coming out of it, sometimes years later. Very common, and very expensive problem to fix if the bugs get a foothold in a house.
Yes sir. I assume most kilns meet the required temp and time needed to exterminate. Guess it’s all how you go about what you have at your disposal. My solar kiln here in Texas gets so hot you could ruin the wood if you don’t watch out , ha. You sure have a great set up and a nice life.. thanks for sharing friend.
So glad I found your video, was very helpful finding another person from Alabama that does this... what type of kiln wood you recommend for starting out!?!
The best and easiest to begin is a Solar kiln, it's the Easy Bake Oven of the kiln world, and the one that we started with. It will teach you the fundamentals and will generally not destroy any lumber. Thanks for watching!
We have a Nyle L200M with the moisture probes as well. Materials on kiln drying wood recommends taking samples that are checked every day (although the publications are geared towards conventional steam kilns rather than modern DH kilns). Do you take samples as well or do you use solely the probes? Do the probe holes make that wood unusable? Thank you!
I used to do daily samples, using the oven dry method. Now, I know the offset between the true moisture values and the Nyle Pin values, but in reality, they all start to read the same as the moisture goes down and the internal resistance of the wood goes up. I pit my pins into the sides of the boards, not the faces or the ends, and the holes get edged off later.
You mention around the 1:00 minute mark that the cell walls collapse and water cannot be absorbed back into the wood. Does this mean that kiln dried wood no longer has the ability to absorb moisture and it will stay at 6-8% moisture content?
Yes, to a point. The spaces within the cells walls can never rehydrate and bound water can not be reintroduced, however, unbound water can be reabsorbed so the wood can come up slightly. Any moisture that gets back into the wood as unbound water will come out as readily. For example, if a board was put in a pond, it would certainly go up in moisture content, but when removed it would dry out as quickly and return to its equilibrium moisture content in a meter of days instead of months. This sounds like a good topic for a video.
@@HobbyHardwoodAlabama Yes, I think it would be a good topic for a video. Maybe take a kiln dried board and an air dried board that were both stored inside and completely dry. Then set them outside under cover and see if they both reached the same moisture content and if one did so faster than the other. Then you could also bring them back inside and see how they dried back out comparatively.
very nice setup. however; I am slightly confused as you speak to how slowly you apply and remove heat from your wood in your kiln and then when removing your weight plates you talk about those being heat sinks allowing you to speed heat your kiln up quick. seems like that would be the complete opposite of taking your time to get the wood acclimated to the temperature change. I run solar kilns and have found that my heat and cool down cycles each day really allow my lumber to dry and relax with minimal splitting. It has definitely been a lot of fun drying beautiful wood.
DH kilns run at constant temperature, based on a kiln schedule, from 100 to 120 F, so the computer won’t start the drying cycle until it has reached a threshold temperature, which is augmented by 4KW heat strips in the kiln. Using a thermal mass as a heat sink accelerates the initial warm up cycle and can save many hours of time to get to the point where the computer can start controlling the wet bulb and dry build so the faster the heat up, the faster the controller can control the air conditions to prevent splitting and over drying. Unlike a solar kiln, where heat is applied very rapidly, too rapidly, and so the kiln is designed to not operate at night, which basically provides a 50% duty cycle and at night and the wood is equalized at night to account for any drying stress incurred during the day. In a DH kiln, drying stress are controlled, so it’s important to get the controller to a minimum warm up temperature as soon as possible so it can go closed loop.
@Hobby Hardwood Alabama thanks for the information. So it's not about cranking the heat in your Kiln either. That's more clear to me now. And I have to say static weight over strapping any day of the year is better. I envy your loading skid with that sweet set of train tracks.
Love the care you take with your wood. The local lumber yard that offered high grade products and varieties closed years ago (San Jose CA). Is there a story behind your kiln-train? Impressive. Custom built? Thanks for the video!
I don't know everything about other wood processers and how They go about drying wood and coming out with a high quality product but I have come up with A process that's great for drying wood completely straight and true flat as a pancake lumber, even on scraps that are normally thrown away or sent to the chipper, if it will at least make a 1x2. It's revolutionary. And it's inexpensive.
Thank you for the tour and explanation of process. Your sterilization process, do you do this when the wood first goes in as part of the overall drying or was this a separate step in manufacturing? Also, how long is your process from log to market? I can tell there is a lot of experience under your belt, could you recommend a reference for air drying and kiln times? Thanks!
Bringing wood up to sterilization temperatures must be done at the end of the drying cycle, because if does at the beginning it will cause the wood too get off drying schedule and crack or otherwise defect. The actual temperature requires for sterilization are published in various FDA regulations, and although all commercial mills do it, very few small operators do it, because it takes time and electric, so costs money. One of our customers is a professional big remediation expert and he gets tens of thousands of dollars of contracts every year from people who tried to save a few bucks buying wood from kilns who didn't sterilize their wood. Very bad. The actual time a load of wood stays in a kiln is dictated by a "Kiln Schedule" which lists the time, wet bulb, dry bulb temperature steps and ranges that a load must undergo to not dry too fast or too slow. There is an optimum drying rate for every single species of wood, some of which we develop here at Hobby Hardwood, and if the rate is exceed, or not met, the wood is ruined. This is the difference between drying very high quality wood, and garbage. These kiln schedules are published in many documents, and there are classes taught on it. If you buy wood from other kiln operators, ask the question - "Has this wood been sterilized, and at what temperature?" If they don't know, or say "Well, its kiln dried so its sterilized" - Wrong answer. Yes, we have a fair amount of experience, and do what it takes to produce some of the finest quality lumber on the country. Just this year, we were ranked the number 1 quality lumber producer in the entire state. Thanks for watching!
Hi Robert, How much weight do you figure your stone pallets are that you put on the stacks? I'm assuming you have those on when air drying too? I was thinking instead of dumping turtles on the ground when building at our place, I could make pallets and forms with wire mesh and have them dump the excess concrete to make weight blocks on the pallet. I calculate about 6.5" thk 8'x46" would come out to 2500 lb. Never mind. I just re-watched it and heard you say 3000 LB.
The stonecutter I get my waste from estimated they weigh about 3,000 lbs, but not more than 3,500 lbs, and that’s what they feel like when lifted by the forklift. I’ve got an earlier version made out of concrete pieces and it is two 3.5” thick pieces of slab stacked on each other, so 7” thick, and it’s not as heavy as the stone ones. However, it is heavy enough and I have a video coming out this week that shows me taking it off a pallet of live edge walnuts slabs, and they are dead flat. I don’t air dry with these, although it would be a good idea. I use other packs of wood as weight and alternate which is on top about twice a an air drying cycle, or as I have to move them for the next kiln load. Most times, as long as the wood is not too air dried, if there is bow and cup, the weights during the kiln drying and sterilization cycle will take it out. If the wood gets “too dry” air drying, down in the 15% range, they will not have enough time or moisture left to make them flat. So it’s possible to “too air dry” wood, I prefer to put it in the kiln about 20%, which is perfect to finish in the kiln but also allows enough moisture to be removed to let the wood flatten as it finishes drying. Kind of like a Pringle’s potato chip, once the wood is too dry, it can’t change shape whether it has weights on it or not.
Hey Robert, got a quick question for you. Just bought a container and doing a set up like yours what size of pallets do you use? If you don’t mind give me those dimensions I found a local pallet company that will make them for me. Thanks Robert
No, although vacuum kilns have some good points, they have just as many negatives. Every piece of equipment has tradeoffs, and kilns are no different. I have looked at vacuum kilns for years, know people who own them and use them, but for our purposes, a conventional kiln is still the most productive and useful cycle.
I purchased some wood at auction that was sold as kiln dried. Is there any way to confirm that? I'm more concerned with bugs than moisture content. Thank you.
Yes, if the wood was recently kiln dried, the wood should have a relatively low moisture content, under 9%. It's virtually impossible to get it that low when air drying. Also, kiln dried wood will shrink the cell walls of the wood and will raise the grain slightly. It's a very distinctive look on rough sawn wood. Unfortunately, however, there is no way to tell if the kiln operator performed the separate sterilization cycle. Just because the wood is kiln dried, doesn't mean it has also been sterilized, some species of insects simply go dormant in kiln dried wood. They just get thirsty. It takes heat to kill them, we go to 150F and many kiln operators don't do that. If the wood was professionally kiln dried, then it would be. If it was "non professionally" kiln dried, it's a flip of the coin.
@@HobbyHardwoodAlabama Thank you. The wood showed signs of infestation (holes), but it's hard to tell if that was prior to the kiln drying. And it has already been surfaced by the previous, deceased, owner. I guess to be safe I will treat it before I use it. I appreciate the response.
If you dig through the wood, search the galleries, if the wood was infested and sterilized, you will see dead bugs looking like little burnt hot dogs, just a lot smaller.
Where do you get your stickers from? Notice a difference with those profiles vs solid? I saw mainly oak and tired of cutting oak stickers and looking for an affordable supplier. Thank you. Looking forward to more videos especially on the kiln operation.
Yep, it's a lot more $$ than that! We used to be a true production sawmill but I was doing "Zombie" sawing, the same stuff day after day. So after a B-Train pulled in 2 semi loads of crappy little oak sticks to saw up for pallet wood, I called the pallet shop to say the logs were terrible, and he said "Don't worry, I'm not looking for quality, I'm just looking for wood, they are pallets, and nobody cares. Hurry up." Well, that was it, and by the end of the month we had fulfilled all our contract obligations and said were weren't doing that low grade lumber production anymore. I'm not going to be anybody's "boy." However, I kept getting calls from them and other companies. So I finally renamed our company to Hobby Hardwood so they would know we we're serious and would go away. For the most part it works, but we still get big calls. For example, Woodcraft called me last year to be their lumber supplier, and sure enough I just said "No." So that's one reason we showcase production sawing techniques sometimes, because that's what we used to do. Very good questions and maybe a topic for a video. Thanks of for watching....
Great video Robert,
Thanks for the tour of your drying operation. Looks like you have some great equipment and systems in place!
Absolutely love your videos. I have a hobby sawmill on my ranch for projects on my ranch.
Great! Thanks for watching.
I have a 20’ shipping container that I framed the inside with 2x4’s and then had closed cell insulation blown in. Since the container is opened on one end, I really need to come up with a rail system like you have. Great looking lumber!
Try to find "tracks" from old circular sawmills. I have a set of 20 footers. They are stamped West Virginia RR .
wow, fantastic
Thank you!
That’s a great setup. I really like the rails
Wow. I read everything you contribute on The Forestry Forum, but really glad to discover your UA-cam channel. Thanks for the fantastic content and for making me a better sawyer. I have a Woodmizer LT40HD diesel, and am a small-timer with hopes of getting bigger/better.
Our pleasure. I had an LT-40, it is a fine sawmill.
Love to watch people who know their trade
Thanks, I appreciate it.
Thanks for the video! I had no idea there was this much to drying out wood - I’m a new woodworker and love your place!
Glad it was helpful!
Wow. I first thought you had that train of wood coming out of the dryer on a merry go round. It kept coming. Beautiful drying job.
Great video with great information good job
Very educational and very efficient operation.
Boy, Id like to hear more specifics about that kiln, how long it runs, cost to run, etc.
I'll do some videos on it in the future. Thanks for watching.
Just came across your channel today (3/9/2022) truly enjoyed the lesson on drying and how careful you are in the drying process. I've been a woodworker for 40 plus years and have bought a lot of kiln dried wood but never realized the importance of the process. Now I understand why a few of the items I've made didn't retain their shape. Cherry is my wood of choice, I hope you share some shots of the various grain patterns of the wood you cut. Again, thanks for sharing what you do.
Thanks and welcome
Very nice operation, very interesting
Robert, GREAT JOB !!!! I love your setup, that complete tra k setup is brilliant and would make a great video to show us what the components were before being used in your high cude reefer. Your very informative and easy to understand which makes you a good instructional mentor on UA-cam. Thank You for what your doing and teaching.
Thank You!
Great video on kiln drying lumber. Very efficient setup you have there. I look forward to my next visit to get some rainbow poplar.
Please keep up the great work Iam fixing my kiln just like yours do you have any photos of how you did your Racks that you roll in your kiln curious how you did the wheels and framing
I weld up the kiln carts myself, and used heavy duty V groove wheels. The cops of the tracks are steel channel with 2" angle iron inverted so the angle fits into the V groove wheels. Much like a train track. Thanks for watching!
Questions about the sterilization you mentioned.... does the kiln itself not heat the wood up thus sterilizing it while also dropping the MC?
No, depending on the kiln cycle being used, drying the wood will only make the bugs thirsty. We probably get a call a week from customers who have bought kiln dried wood from non professional operators that has powder post beetles coming out of it, sometimes years later. Very common, and very expensive problem to fix if the bugs get a foothold in a house.
Yes sir. I assume most kilns meet the required temp and time needed to exterminate. Guess it’s all how you go about what you have at your disposal. My solar kiln here in Texas gets so hot you could ruin the wood if you don’t watch out , ha. You sure have a great set up and a nice life.. thanks for sharing friend.
So glad I found your video, was very helpful finding another person from Alabama that does this... what type of kiln wood you recommend for starting out!?!
The best and easiest to begin is a Solar kiln, it's the Easy Bake Oven of the kiln world, and the one that we started with. It will teach you the fundamentals and will generally not destroy any lumber. Thanks for watching!
We have a Nyle L200M with the moisture probes as well. Materials on kiln drying wood recommends taking samples that are checked every day (although the publications are geared towards conventional steam kilns rather than modern DH kilns). Do you take samples as well or do you use solely the probes? Do the probe holes make that wood unusable? Thank you!
I used to do daily samples, using the oven dry method. Now, I know the offset between the true moisture values and the Nyle Pin values, but in reality, they all start to read the same as the moisture goes down and the internal resistance of the wood goes up. I pit my pins into the sides of the boards, not the faces or the ends, and the holes get edged off later.
@@HobbyHardwoodAlabama Great advice, thank you!
You mention around the 1:00 minute mark that the cell walls collapse and water cannot be absorbed back into the wood. Does this mean that kiln dried wood no longer has the ability to absorb moisture and it will stay at 6-8% moisture content?
Yes, to a point. The spaces within the cells walls can never rehydrate and bound water can not be reintroduced, however, unbound water can be reabsorbed so the wood can come up slightly. Any moisture that gets back into the wood as unbound water will come out as readily. For example, if a board was put in a pond, it would certainly go up in moisture content, but when removed it would dry out as quickly and return to its equilibrium moisture content in a meter of days instead of months. This sounds like a good topic for a video.
@@HobbyHardwoodAlabama Yes, I think it would be a good topic for a video. Maybe take a kiln dried board and an air dried board that were both stored inside and completely dry. Then set them outside under cover and see if they both reached the same moisture content and if one did so faster than the other. Then you could also bring them back inside and see how they dried back out comparatively.
very nice setup. however; I am slightly confused as you speak to how slowly you apply and remove heat from your wood in your kiln and then when removing your weight plates you talk about those being heat sinks allowing you to speed heat your kiln up quick. seems like that would be the complete opposite of taking your time to get the wood acclimated to the temperature change. I run solar kilns and have found that my heat and cool down cycles each day really allow my lumber to dry and relax with minimal splitting. It has definitely been a lot of fun drying beautiful wood.
DH kilns run at constant temperature, based on a kiln schedule, from 100 to 120 F, so the computer won’t start the drying cycle until it has reached a threshold temperature, which is augmented by 4KW heat strips in the kiln. Using a thermal mass as a heat sink accelerates the initial warm up cycle and can save many hours of time to get to the point where the computer can start controlling the wet bulb and dry build so the faster the heat up, the faster the controller can control the air conditions to prevent splitting and over drying. Unlike a solar kiln, where heat is applied very rapidly, too rapidly, and so the kiln is designed to not operate at night, which basically provides a 50% duty cycle and at night and the wood is equalized at night to account for any drying stress incurred during the day. In a DH kiln, drying stress are controlled, so it’s important to get the controller to a minimum warm up temperature as soon as possible so it can go closed loop.
@Hobby Hardwood Alabama thanks for the information. So it's not about cranking the heat in your Kiln either. That's more clear to me now. And I have to say static weight over strapping any day of the year is better. I envy your loading skid with that sweet set of train tracks.
Love the care you take with your wood. The local lumber yard that offered high grade products and varieties closed years ago (San Jose CA). Is there a story behind your kiln-train? Impressive. Custom built? Thanks for the video!
Yes, custom built. I was quite an undertaking.
I don't know everything about other wood processers and how They go about drying wood and coming out with a high quality product but I have come up with A process that's great for drying wood completely straight and true flat as a pancake lumber, even on scraps that are normally thrown away or sent to the chipper, if it will at least make a 1x2. It's revolutionary. And it's inexpensive.
OK, what is it?
Thank you for the tour and explanation of process. Your sterilization process, do you do this when the wood first goes in as part of the overall drying or was this a separate step in manufacturing? Also, how long is your process from log to market? I can tell there is a lot of experience under your belt, could you recommend a reference for air drying and kiln times? Thanks!
Bringing wood up to sterilization temperatures must be done at the end of the drying cycle, because if does at the beginning it will cause the wood too get off drying schedule and crack or otherwise defect. The actual temperature requires for sterilization are published in various FDA regulations, and although all commercial mills do it, very few small operators do it, because it takes time and electric, so costs money. One of our customers is a professional big remediation expert and he gets tens of thousands of dollars of contracts every year from people who tried to save a few bucks buying wood from kilns who didn't sterilize their wood. Very bad. The actual time a load of wood stays in a kiln is dictated by a "Kiln Schedule" which lists the time, wet bulb, dry bulb temperature steps and ranges that a load must undergo to not dry too fast or too slow. There is an optimum drying rate for every single species of wood, some of which we develop here at Hobby Hardwood, and if the rate is exceed, or not met, the wood is ruined. This is the difference between drying very high quality wood, and garbage. These kiln schedules are published in many documents, and there are classes taught on it. If you buy wood from other kiln operators, ask the question - "Has this wood been sterilized, and at what temperature?" If they don't know, or say "Well, its kiln dried so its sterilized" - Wrong answer.
Yes, we have a fair amount of experience, and do what it takes to produce some of the finest quality lumber on the country. Just this year, we were ranked the number 1 quality lumber producer in the entire state. Thanks for watching!
@@HobbyHardwoodAlabama Thank you for the thorough reply, this helps! Keep up the quality work!
Great video nice rail system, any info on where to purchase wheels and bearings? thanks
Yes, Nyle is the best source for those parts.
I’m looking to redo the siding on my barn. Is kiln dried poplar a good choice?
Yes, very good. That's what we have on ours.
Hi Robert, How much weight do you figure your stone pallets are that you put on the stacks? I'm assuming you have those on when air drying too? I was thinking instead of dumping turtles on the ground when building at our place, I could make pallets and forms with wire mesh and have them dump the excess concrete to make weight blocks on the pallet. I calculate about 6.5" thk 8'x46" would come out to 2500 lb. Never mind. I just re-watched it and heard you say 3000 LB.
The stonecutter I get my waste from estimated they weigh about 3,000 lbs, but not more than 3,500 lbs, and that’s what they feel like when lifted by the forklift. I’ve got an earlier version made out of concrete pieces and it is two 3.5” thick pieces of slab stacked on each other, so 7” thick, and it’s not as heavy as the stone ones. However, it is heavy enough and I have a video coming out this week that shows me taking it off a pallet of live edge walnuts slabs, and they are dead flat.
I don’t air dry with these, although it would be a good idea. I use other packs of wood as weight and alternate which is on top about twice a an air drying cycle, or as I have to move them for the next kiln load. Most times, as long as the wood is not too air dried, if there is bow and cup, the weights during the kiln drying and sterilization cycle will take it out. If the wood gets “too dry” air drying, down in the 15% range, they will not have enough time or moisture left to make them flat. So it’s possible to “too air dry” wood, I prefer to put it in the kiln about 20%, which is perfect to finish in the kiln but also allows enough moisture to be removed to let the wood flatten as it finishes drying. Kind of like a Pringle’s potato chip, once the wood is too dry, it can’t change shape whether it has weights on it or not.
Where did you get your moisture probes?
The best moisture meter is a Delmhorst. The J2000 is the gold standard.
Do you air dry the lumber before kiln drying?
Yes, always for at least 6 weeks, depending on species and thickness. It helps lock in the color, and "wilts" the wood to get rid of internal stresss.
you need to add a link to your website in the descriptions...
Yes, you are correct. I have done it. Thanks.
Robert
Hey Robert, got a quick question for you. Just bought a container and doing a set up like yours what size of pallets do you use? If you don’t mind give me those dimensions I found a local pallet company that will make them for me. Thanks Robert
They are 96” x 42” with 1.5” wide skids every 16 inches. Thanks for watching!
Are the containers the insulated types? Thanks!
Yes
Is that a vacuum kiln?
No, although vacuum kilns have some good points, they have just as many negatives. Every piece of equipment has tradeoffs, and kilns are no different. I have looked at vacuum kilns for years, know people who own them and use them, but for our purposes, a conventional kiln is still the most productive and useful cycle.
@@HobbyHardwoodAlabama Thankyou for the advice. Do you have a recommendation for a 40' kiln?
I purchased some wood at auction that was sold as kiln dried. Is there any way to confirm that? I'm more concerned with bugs than moisture content. Thank you.
Yes, if the wood was recently kiln dried, the wood should have a relatively low moisture content, under 9%. It's virtually impossible to get it that low when air drying. Also, kiln dried wood will shrink the cell walls of the wood and will raise the grain slightly. It's a very distinctive look on rough sawn wood. Unfortunately, however, there is no way to tell if the kiln operator performed the separate sterilization cycle. Just because the wood is kiln dried, doesn't mean it has also been sterilized, some species of insects simply go dormant in kiln dried wood. They just get thirsty. It takes heat to kill them, we go to 150F and many kiln operators don't do that. If the wood was professionally kiln dried, then it would be. If it was "non professionally" kiln dried, it's a flip of the coin.
@@HobbyHardwoodAlabama Thank you. The wood showed signs of infestation (holes), but it's hard to tell if that was prior to the kiln drying. And it has already been surfaced by the previous, deceased, owner. I guess to be safe I will treat it before I use it. I appreciate the response.
If you dig through the wood, search the galleries, if the wood was infested and sterilized, you will see dead bugs looking like little burnt hot dogs, just a lot smaller.
Is that a 20 foot refrigerated shipping container, or did you insulated it yourself. I am looking in to building one in south Texas.
Donald Starnes , I’ve been a truck driver for 25 years that was a 40 foot refrigerated container. Modified with heaters and fans
It’s a 40 foot high cube reefer.
Where do you get your stickers from? Notice a difference with those profiles vs solid? I saw mainly oak and tired of cutting oak stickers and looking for an affordable supplier. Thank you. Looking forward to more videos especially on the kiln operation.
We make our own
Cut your own
thank you for sharing...
please don't used "VR" mode... I'm headache :D
You said a little over a week in the kiln. I was under the impression that it required 4-6 weeks?? Perhaps that's for "wet" wood, fresh cut. Clarify?
"hobby hardwood" except we have 300-400k of specialized equipment just to dry and move our lumber.
Yep, it's a lot more $$ than that! We used to be a true production sawmill but I was doing "Zombie" sawing, the same stuff day after day. So after a B-Train pulled in 2 semi loads of crappy little oak sticks to saw up for pallet wood, I called the pallet shop to say the logs were terrible, and he said "Don't worry, I'm not looking for quality, I'm just looking for wood, they are pallets, and nobody cares. Hurry up." Well, that was it, and by the end of the month we had fulfilled all our contract obligations and said were weren't doing that low grade lumber production anymore. I'm not going to be anybody's "boy." However, I kept getting calls from them and other companies. So I finally renamed our company to Hobby Hardwood so they would know we we're serious and would go away. For the most part it works, but we still get big calls. For example, Woodcraft called me last year to be their lumber supplier, and sure enough I just said "No." So that's one reason we showcase production sawing techniques sometimes, because that's what we used to do. Very good questions and maybe a topic for a video. Thanks of for watching....