The J Team

10/06/2024

Air dried pine is prone to blue staining in the warmer months, but it sure makes for a unique look on this shed. In this case we ran the shiplap with the outside face left rough; we can just as easily plane both faces.

We're sawing a lot of pine now since blue staining doesn't occur in the cooler months, so we'll have plenty of bright white pine ready for next spring.

09/27/2024

Sorting through some 13" wide pine shiplap, just about the widest our 4-sided planer can produce. We milled it 1-1/8"x14.5" to finish out at 15/16" thick for a barn floor.

We still have some of the narrower boards (10 and 12", 16' long) from this load, we sent 5300 bdft to Hardwick Kiln and they do a great job.

02/02/2024

Still getting it together, but we now have a 25" Woodmaster helical head planer to better address our customers' needs.

And it also converts into a 6 blade gang rip saw so we can more efficiently produce farm stakes. Let us know what you need and we'll have them ready for spring.

12/02/2023

As if it isn't exciting enough to have a new mill, we also have a new operator for it!

Say hello to Willow as Jay says goodbye to a good night's sleep.

She's not quite ready to get to work yet, so Jay will make sure to keep the mill running good for her in the mean time.

11/20/2023

James is heading back with our new mill, picked it up in Hannibal, NY this morning.

It's a LT40 Super with the wide head, so it saws 34" wide. At least until the warranty is up, then it will get the same treatment as mine. It's stock 28" but extends to up to 62" cut width.

10/14/2023

Come check out everything they have going on at Barnfest in Shelburne tomorrow. They're at the end of Bassett Rd and we'll be down in the field by all the lumber we milled earlier in the year for their next barn project.

And feel free to bring along a firewood length log and we can mill it into rounds or boards.

Come to Barnfest and watch Jay Clark of The J Team saw logs from the property for a new building. Barnfest starts at 1pm on October 14th.
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Barnfest is part of an ongoing series of events that ensure a strong future for Fabric of Life as we educate the young, and the young at heart, in traditional crafts, music, dance, agriculture and forestry.
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Admission to Barnfest is FREE and donations are greatly appreciated. Please leave pets at home for everyone's comfort.
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For more details, visit our website
https://www.fabric-of-life.org/barnfest-2023/
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Photo courtesy of The J Team.
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03/08/2023

If anyone has a bunch of bulk grain bags kicking around, we're happy to come grab them. We fill them with sawdust and people take them for horses, chickens, etc, but lately not enough empties have been coming back...

Duffle or spout top and size don't matter, we'll make them work. Saves us a few bucks and gets a few more uses out of them before the landfill.

02/09/2023

Just want to let anyone else with a sawmill know that we offer bandsaw blade sharpening. 3/4" 10 degree, most 7/8" profiles, and 1-1/8" 7 and 10 degree. Most lengths are $8/blade, sharpened and set.

And if you hit metal, it's a couple bucks extra but I'll send it around enough times to clean it up. At least good enough for chasing metal out of a log you'd hate to junk.

07/04/2022

This is how my brother spends the holidays, quartsawing up some maple in the yard. It's for sale, although he will use some for tables and cutting boards, as well as turn the scraps into spatulas.

As for me, my job got postponed, so I got started on a project at home. I've had a pile of maple flooring acclimating since winter, about time I get to installing. The carpet and baseboard are gone, just need to patch some holes from an old natural gas hot water heater and level the subfloor.

06/14/2022

We have a chainsaw mill for a reason, but it sure is satisfying making these huge logs fit on our widened bandmill. Not every customer has equipment on site, but when they do it sure is appreciated. This log was 56" in diameter and 9' long, and weighed about 7000 lbs, well past what the mill is rated for.

The footage is courtesy of our new skydio drone. I'm still figuring it out and just revamped my pc to make video editing a little easier. I'm hoping to get more cool shots going forward. The drone has tracking and obstacle avoidance capabilities so it takes the leg work out of filming.

09/21/2021

I regularly tell customers that the job site doesn't have to be too level, I can work with it.

Well, I didn't expect this...and it sure made sawing a 24' long hemlock log a bit more interesting. I had to hop on the tailgate of my truck just so I could read the blade height scale.

If there's one thing you can say about a Wood-Mizer, it's that it gets the job done. Sure other companies make good stationary mills, but WM is the only way to go for a portable mill.

(not shown, but definitely earned its keep)

08/20/2021

We're excited to announce Jay is getting married this weekend, August 21st.

So please direct all inquiries to his brother James at 413-522-2579.

For portable milling, Jay will get back to you at the beginning of September. And please note he is booked until late October.

08/05/2021

Resawing some 3/4"x5.5" ipe today on our Wood-Mizer RS2 resaw attachment.

Ipe is hard, especially after it's dried. I had to use a bimetal blade running 4000-5000 psi blade tension (stock is 2500 psi). And to keep the boards running smoothly, I added about 70 lbs in weights between the two hold-down rollers. The outfeed roller is obviously not OEM and makes a big difference in keeping the boards feeding properly.

Even with everything set up perfect, I couldn't run much better than 9 fpm. But it got the job done and done right. With the boards coming out at about 5/16" thick, there wasn't much room for error.

07/29/2021

Wood-Mizer sure builds their mills right! Not that they would have ever expected the abuse I'm dishing out.

The hardest part milling these huge logs is flipping them once you get half way. This logs is nearly 56" wide and yielded over 900 bdft! My hydraulic turner was just a toy to this thing; good thing I brought four hi-lift jacks along just to be safe.

07/16/2021

How I start my mornings.

07/02/2021

Well at least the farmers are happy, it sure was a wet one today.

And I may come home looking like breaded chicken with all the sawdust on me, but the mill gets run rain or shine.

Today on the menu was pine, and some big ones. The largest was slabbed live edge, with some pieces almost 40" wide. At 3" thick, I was grateful the customer has a tractor.

That one log yielded 750 bdft, and even the smallest on the mill today was over 400 bdft. All told I milled 4 logs today, but I'll be back at it Monday milling the rest.

Jamie and I are both so busy that a rainy day just means wear your muck boots. Still it's better to be overworked than under.