New Board Members!

"works of art" aka "boards"

Tried out the new "Lumber Maker" today that I bought online - trying to make some boards out of trees.  Why?  If you know, let me know.  I guess it was just to see if I could.

I read in Jack London's novels about the Klondike Gold Rush guys that, after they hauled all their stuff up the Chilcoot Pass and down the other side to the lake, made boards out of trees and then made boats to travel down the Yukon in.  Jack was a socialist, by the way, but I didn't find out about that until after I had read his stories.  Honest.  Who wood?



Anyway, I had to show Leta my first screwy looking board (the one on the left in the picture), and she thought it was an absolute work of art!  "We should finish it and make a baby cradle out of it!"  (She has baby on her mind a lot since she'll be a grandma next spring.)  "But I think we need more than one board to make a cradle" I said.







Boat building at Bennett Lake during Klondike Gold Rush (1897-98)



I found out that making boards is pretty tricky, even with a chainsaw, and even with a "Lumber Maker".  You screw down a 2X4 on the log and clamp the tool onto the bar of the chainsaw, and then you slide along the 2X4 to cut the board.

I'm thinking maybe the best thing now is to detach the 2X4 and use that.  I could have done that in the first place with a whole lot less effort, but it wouldn't have been as much fun.

But at least I wasn't board.

And now you know what I saw.

Wood.