Boatsinc2000

Dave - Thank you for your input. As a milled wood supplier it is your prerogative as to how you utilize this information in your business. I believe that we lose sight of the fact that there are other suppliers, both current and future, who may have a different perspective on this subject, especially since this topic is a regularly posted here on MSW. It is those future ones who I really want to foster. Heck, we both have admitted that our schedules are full. I do not control who chooses to participate and I am only affording the opportunity for our members to provide input. The poll has only been in existence less than 24 hours over a holiday weekend, so let's give it a chance. The benefit of this medium is that unlike a paper survey that can reach only a select few, this topic will be out there much longer and its validity will increase with more participation. That is why I had asked that perhaps the poll threads be pinned to the top of the Wood Discussion area by one of the Moderators. I will say that I am disappointed that any supplier would go out of their way to discourage input by their customer base by being critical of a survey. I also believe that your efforts are contrary to the basic principles by which this forum was founded. Bottom line is that I WANT customer input and I value it. Also, on a personal note, I'm sorry for your cynical approach to the thread. I do agree with one of your implied points in that both of us will be retiring from this business/hobby at some point in time. I would like to help other suppliers and/or customers to take over and provide the continued availability of our products in future years. I've said this before that I am always willing to assist anyone to learn how to mill wood or to provide the products that we offer in any way that I can. When I get some time, I plan to post tips on the operation of my machines and methods just as I did on the Byrnes saw. That is only one small legacy that I can provide. On the other hand, with your experience and new video capabilities perhaps after the Caustic project is complete you might consider posting a series of videos on wood milling. Wouldn't that be a better legacy in contrast to the two of us arguing about who knows more about our mutual customer's needs? Jeff Hayes HobbyMill

Hi Walter, Thanks for participating. Yes I meant each different size is separately packaged and labeled. There are some pictures here on MSW where customers have shown pictures of their orders when it arrives from me. Jeff

Jay - Great question, but in this instance I am really trying to solicit input rather than tell you what I can or cannot do. My thinking is that suppliers would look over the results and tailor their offerings to best meet your needs and their capabilities. I did provide a comment or 2 just because at first I was having trouble understanding how these polls worked and then also to just give some users a reference point in case they did not know the specs on my product. For this survey what I do is just secondary and I don't want to sway or place a damper on any input. Thomas - I just sell sheets and stripwood because I find it more and more difficult to find top quality bulk wood myself. Try looking for exotic lumber places who cater to the musical instrument manufacturers. Also Swiss pear is used in some architectural work. There is a good supplier of exotic wood in So Cal, but I can't think of their name at the moment. If I recall they tend to be a little pricey. Madrone is another wood that is cheaper and it is a west coast wood that is a good alternative to Swiss pear. Gilmer Wood up in Portland, OR handles Swiss pear and they have a website. They have a minimum, plus shipping. The Lumberyard, here in Ohio is in my business, but he sells bulk wood too. There are also a number of places here in the east like Hearne Hardwoods that carry Swiss pear. Perhaps if you search and find Hearne or Gilmer, a closer supplier may come up as well. Swiss pear is typically sold as "flitch" cut wood rather than boards. I'll let you research flitch cut. Good luck! Jeff

Thanks for completing any or all of the survey. There are a lot of subjective aspects to milled wood and some species specific attributes, but hopefully I covered enough to get you started. If there is something that I missed specifically referring to Quality of Milled Wood, then please let me know. Jeff Hayes HobbyMill

All of my orders are individually packaged...is this a help? Each item on an order is in an individual plastic sleeve including a label that has the wood species, size, and quantity. There are pictures of my wood shipments / packaging on a number of the build logs on MSW or on my website. I've always done this and wanted to get some feedback on the effort. Thanks!

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I just supply up to 3" wide material and 24" long. Most of the exotics it is more expensive to find longer or wider stock. Some woods are prone to lots of defects and this makes them harder to supply in longer and wider widths and still be defect free.

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I spend a lot of time insuring that, if possible, your complete order is milled from the same larger piece of wood. Sometimes I have started an order over just because I misjudged the quantity desired. Also I end up with a lot of smaller pieces of wood left over from larger orders. Am I wasting my time with this? It is becoming harder and harder to find wood that has the least amount of figure and I have re-milled orders because I felt that there was too much figure or that the color wasn't right. This is a pretty subjective question and I believe that I know the answer, but just wanted to confirm with everyone.

Currently, I use 120x which is well worn most of the time so it is more like 150x. For really thin material under 1/64" I will use 220x. For metric guys: 1/64" = approx. .015" and 1mm = .039", so stuff under .4mm

.005" = .127mm .010" = .254mm .020" = .508mm .030" = .762mm also equal to 1/32" Thanks Pat! Software won't allow me to post this up in the poll itself.

When I started HobbyMill it's purpose was to improve the quality of milled wood to the ship modeling community. Shame on me, but I never really asked any of you for your input as to your needs...I just tried my best to supply you what I thought was the best quality that I could produce. In some areas I could be falling way short or in others while exceeding your requirements. Because the topic of "Wood Quality" comes up regularly, it is my hope to try to quantify your requirements so that myself and other wood suppliers would have a better idea of your requirements. You do not need to be one of my customers to answer this survey and I hope that both kit and scratch builders will respond. The scratch guys could view this as "what they would prefer" if they purchased wood. Perhaps this could also assist kit manufacturers to better understand your requirements for their products as well. I purposely posted this under Wood Discussion rather than under Dealers with the idea that it could be pinned here for everyone to view and use as a reference. I also thought that a series of poll questions would provide the best structure (If I can figure out the poll function) Thanks for your input! Jeff Hayes HobbyMill

Thank you to everyone who has supported and recommended my products. As with most things there are two sides to each discussion and our past experiences guide our decisions going forward. My experience with PayPal has not been positive and I've always felt that their security had serious deficiencies. In the past this was underscored by the fact that within minutes of receiving any correspondence from them, I would receive spam from all over the world. Yes, I've been a long time member and my information was hacked in one of their documented attacks a number of years ago. About two years ago I experienced an identity theft issue that was traced directly back to their security. As a future preventative measure I discussed this with a couple of my banks and they explained that a high percentage of their identity theft issues were related to PayPal transactions. So as a business and personal decision I do not plan to offer their services. My perspective is that it would seem illogical for me to reward a business who harmed me and from a personal basis why would I ever want to jeopardize my financial status over a hobby. I realize that some customers may find this difficult to understand, but I look at HobbyMill as a service to this hobby in much of the same way that the moderators offer their service to this website. It is a break even business where I perform all of the tasks with the single objective of improving the quality of wood products offered to this hobby. In other words, if I were to shut it down today, it would not have any financial impact on me and I would have a lot of time to spend on my own modeling. I may have my own illusions about this, but I believe that through MSW and my efforts some of the builders in this community have begun to raise their expectations on the quality of milled wood products and services. My business has grown a lot over the years and I would welcome other suppliers to the community who are willing to provide similar or better quality products, because that would support the objective with which HobbyMill was founded. Over the years I have advised a number of customers on how to mill their own wood. I have also added the section on my website covering operation of the Byrnes saw with the intention of assisting customers to improve their own milling quality. So again, if there are other parties interested in offering top quality wood, I would be happy to assist them because I feel that it is a win for everyone. This thread has been centered on some of my policies and some customers who would prefer me to change those policies. I realize that some customers may not agree with them, but hopefully this response will provide some insight into my thinking and at least serve to rationalize that they are not arbitrary. If it were focused on the quality of my product, then I assure you that I would take a different approach. As a home based business my wife is very tolerant of the dust and noise created from milling wood, not to mention the 2 hours each day working on e-mails. One other policy that has not been brought up is that you will not find my telephone number listed anywhere. After giving my number out to a few customers, my wife started to become my secretary because I am always in the shop. My wife didn't appreciate being my secretary and then the calls started to come in at all hours of the night. So keeping peace at home and getting sleep is the rationale behind e-mail only communications. Another policy is that I do not sell within the state of Ohio to avoid dealing with collecting and filing state income tax. I do all of the tax filings for the business so I try to minimize this because most of the time the filings would just be zeros. At one time I would just give the wood to Ohio customers and request that they make a charitable donation to their favorite charity. That was pretty goofy and it only lasted a few years. My payment policy has always been that I request payment in advance for first time US customers and thereafter I include an invoice. International customers I always request payment in advance and this is as much as insuring that I'm getting paid in US dollars as it is a credit issue. All of this has always been on my website. I realize that my lead times have started to stretch way out, but I try my best to advise my customers of anticipated delivery. I've only missed one delivery and I sent, unsolicited, a full refund to that customer. The customer felt that was "over the top" and declined the refund. So here comes Keith. He asked some good questions on one of Chuck's designed kits, so I contacted Chuck because he designed the Pinnace supplemental wood package that I offer. Chuck did a good job, as always, explaining some of the issues and we both advised Keith that it would be impractical to implement the modifications that Keith was thinking about and also that the prototype was built using Chuck's original design method. In the interim and at that time I was trying to plan a new batch of Pinnace packages. Also I had announced both on my website and to Keith what the anticipated lead time would be on the new batch of packages. I had an announced shutdown coming up and I have other customers who have paid and I've promised them delivery on their orders as well as other repeat customers. Keith still hasn't placed an order after more than 2 months of communication for a standard package and he is asking about the lead time for a custom package or a standard one with supplemental wood, but he never gives me the details. I did advise Keith that his lead time is dependent upon when I receive an order, what the details of the order would be, and I pointed out the pending shutdown and that his order was rapidly approaching the bubble as to if it would be milled before or after the shutdown. I also reminded him about the payment policy for new customers. Keith's response is a rather long rant indicating that my payment in advance policy with an extended lead time was unreasonable. From my perspective, I had asked an received advanced payment from other first time customers, so waiving this for Keith did not seem fair to my other customers. Also this is the only time that I've ever received such a response from a customer. My conclusion was that I didn't feel that it was fair to other customers to create an exception and even though I had invested a fair amount of time to assist Keith, he was never going to be satisfied with my service. I guess that I could have deliberately lied about his lead time, but that is just not me and also he never provided final details on the order. As an aside, outside of the policies listed above I have only declined orders from one other person. In the end, it appears that Keith found a source that he is happy with, so all is well in the end as that was my objective from the start. Life is too short and this customer/supplier relationship was just not meant to be. I wish Keith continued success and enjoyment with this hobby. I rarely post on such matters because they do not add value, but perhaps some readers will have acquired some insight into HobbyMill, it's policies, and my thoughts. Hopefully they seem logical and reasonable to most readers. Sorry for being way too winded and thanks again for the support! Jeff Hayes HobbyMill

Royal Shipyard is not in business. He purchased a couple batches of wood from me when he first started the company and then vanished. My guess is that he was just trying to recover his investment when he purchased the kit producing portion of Bob Hunt's business. Not sure why he leaves his website up as I periodically receive similar e-mails asking his status. Jeff Hayes HobbyMill

Dan - Each frame in that kit was constructed of individual parts or futtocks. The thickness of each futtock decreases as you go from the lower ones or floors up to the top timbers. So that means that there were separate sheets of differing thicknesses for each of the futtocks and in Hunt's Kingfisher they were all CNC cut from boxwood sheets. Also some of the futtocks were offset or were cast forward or aft to go around gun ports. All of the POF Swan builds on MSW along with Allan's Euryalus and Ed's Niad use this method of construction. This style is the same as detailed in David Antscherl's Swan series books and it is historically correct. In contrast, the Hahn plans used a stylized method of construction. The frames are all the same thickness from the keel to the top and it does not use individual futtocks. While the Hahn style is easier to construct, if you use the traditional "U" shaped construction to create the frame blanks then your wood requirements will be about 2-3 times more than using individual futtocks. If you review some of the Echo cross section builds here on MSW they are a great learning tool for true frame construction. The cross section was designed by David Antscherl and Greg Herbert, so it uses that method. I always suggest that first time POF builders following this construction method start with this cross section because it is so educational. It is really fun to see builders explore and discover the aspects of creating historically correct frames. Check out Jim L's or some of the other logs under the that section. As a point of clarification, I do supply the wood for those cross sections to Admiralty Models. Hope that helps! Jeff Hayes HobbyMill

My experience with beech is that it is best used as planking. The grain structure is such that two surfaces have small dots that simulate oak...red oak if it is steamed European beech and white oak if it is not steamed. The other 2 surfaces that are perpendicular shows the ray structure and most times there are large brown blobs that are unacceptable to me. So stay away from timbers or places where those other surfaces are exposed. European beech is fairly hard. I can get a good surface on it, but then I am probably using a finer grade of sandpaper. It probably takes 2x's as many passes as other woods to get it dimensioned. If you have not done a lot of planking and you are planking areas that curve such as the hull, then I would agree with Pat and his suggestion of basswood. Just a thought. Jeff Hayes

Mark - That is a tough one and I don't have a definitive answer. Some of the signs of a dulling blade are 1) Burning, as you had mentioned. 2) Excessive chipout 3) Blade deflecting and wandering is usually an easy one to tell. 4) Additional pressure required on thicker cuts. Of course milling different pieces of stock can have any one of these problems, but then other pieces with the same blade do not show any of these symptoms. Sometimes when I suspect that a blade is dulling I will switch out to a new blade, but hold on to the old one in case the problem exists with the new blade. With burning, species that have a higher sugar content such as pear and cherry are more susceptable to burning and this can just be the wood or saw setup. If your blade tends to accumulate tar in the same areas each time, then I consider that a sign that the blade is ready to be replaced. Some woods are more susceptable to chipout than others. Box will have some hard spots where most strips are fine and then a couple with chipout followed by good strips again so this is a less effective gage of dullness. I normally just use blades that are around .030 kerf or thicker. Blades around .020 or thinner have always deflected on me with a Byrnes saw, so I avoid them. If you have a blade that is .030 or thicker and it starts to wander, then it is probably dull, just like a bandsaw blade will start to wander as it becomes dull. If you need more feed pressure that it also a sign, but most of the time we are milling thin stock and it is difficult tell with thinner pieces. Anytime you are milling really hard wood these HSS blades will dull quickly. I was milling some bloodwood a couple days ago and the blade went into the trash after use. The blade had been used before. I do the same with bandsaw blades. Bottom line, if you think a blade is dulling then switch out to a new one and see if that helps resolve the issue. Jeff

Hi Pat - It is a cost consideration and I guess that I never really thought about resharpening them. I was talking to Lloyd Warner a couple years ago, who used to be in my business but continues to sell his great blocks, and he resharpens all of his blades himself. For a couple years his blade resharpening presentation was included in the annual NRG traveling workshops. Don't believe that they ever came to Australia though! Sometimes after a blade dulls I put it in with my "Ebony Only" pile. Duller blades that run hotter actually do a little better job moving the oils around in ebony and the strips end up a very even color. In my previous life I worked for an industrial tool distributor and that is how items like those blades were sold to industrial customers who used them in manufacturing. Many of my customers would have their tools resharpened, but it would be in large quantities and more carbide than high speed steel. So I guess with my relative low use on these blades I just never considered that, although I do get my tablesaw blade resharpened. Looking at Thurston's website they mention on finer pitched blades, which would apply to at least the two finer pitched ones that I use, they remove the teeth and then mill new ones as their resharpening process. Also I pick up my blades wholesale, so they are pretty reasonable. Tried doing some searches in Australia for this type of blade and I couldn't really find where they are sold in your country on a wholesale basis. Must be a different marketing channel. If you can find something similar, even with a different arbor hole size, they might be worth a try. If you find ones with a different arbor hole, you should be able to also pick up an adapter and I believe Jim would sell you one but the postage just for a couple "washers" would be a little high. Of course if you add them to an order for another Byrnes Machine...ropewalk or sander then that might be cost effective. Met both Jim and his wife Donna over the years at some of the conferences and they are great people. I guess I feel a little reluctant to suggest other sources for blades because I consider them as friends. Danny, Frank, Geoff thanks for the comments and pinning the post. Jeff

Hi Danny & Anyone Else with an interest I've update my website with some information and pictures. Here is the direct link: http://www.hobbymillusa.com/byrnes-saw-operation.php You can also access it by going directly to my website from the sponsors link and then pull up the Byrnes Saw Operation page. Cheers, Jeff Hayes www.hobbymillusa.com

Hi Mark - I took some pictures today and rather than posting them here I sent you an e-mail. I am in the process of doing some changes to my website and it came to me today that I should have a separate page on my website with this information rather than hijacking this post. I'll make a subsequent post here once those changes are on the website. I had your e-mail address from a few years ago, so if you do not receive the e-mail, just drop me a note. Jeff

Jim - I agree that you will not be happy with balsa. You probably already know this, but limewood is the european version of basswood. I only sell balsa for filler blocks and even then many builders prefer basswood over balsa for that. Jeff Hayes

David - I hear that a lot about staying away from slitting blades on hardwoods. Almost everything that I mill is a hardwood such as box or pear. The other reason that I use the slitting blades is selfish in that with the smaller kerf there is less waste. The extra .010" or .020" over time adds up. I only use my carbide blade a couple times a year for specialty cutting where my full size shop tools are too large. Usually it is for slitting larger sheets into 1" or 2" widths. Greg - I preset my calipers to +.005, plus kerf of my blade, plus desired width of plank. Lay the calipers on the table with the end against the blade and the measuring end that protrudes from the calipers going beyond the blade. Move the fence over to just touching the calipers. Lock both front and back of fence. Then unlock both my calipers and the lock on the front of the fence and move the fence towards the left towards the blade the extra .005 that you initially added in. I watch my calipers to do this. In my case I do not have Jim's mic head on the front of my saw. Woods with more sugar in them will burn more. Pear is the worst, followed by cherry, and holly. Boxwood hardly ever burns. If you start to have burning, it doesn't take much before your saw blade is gummed up. A blade with tar or gum on it will always leave marks. Use Awesome Cleaner with a toothbrush and it does a great job of cleaning blades. It is water based and comes in spray bottles from the Dollar Store...$1 bottle lasts me over a year. Your wife may already use it as a pretreatment when doing laundry. I've told several people about the back taper and they have had positive results. If I am cutting wider planks, I will increase it to .010. If a sheet is warped or if there are a lot of hidden stresses where the wood moves as you are cutting, then there isn't much that you can do. Jim once told me that starting with good sheet stock is essential for success of his saw and I agree. I've had sheets where I cut the first 10 planks perfectly, the next 5 bend at right angles as I'm milling the planks, and then the remainder of the sheet resumes producing good planks. Its just internal stress that you are releasing in the milling process and there isn't anything that you can do about it. Also just remembered that you need to watch the grain in the sheet. Most times it is not perfectly straight. If you cut a plank that is right on dimension when you start the cut but it tapers or widens at the other end of the plank (assuming the sheet stays against the fence), then the blade is tending to follow the grain. Most times you can just flip the sheet end over end and you will start to produce perfect planks. Hope the ideas help a little! Cheers, Jeff Hayes HobbyMill

A Jim Byrnes drawplate works better than other drawplates because it is designed to cut wood. Jeweler's drawplates on the other hand are designed to compress metal as it is pulled through them. Just some trivia that some may find useful. Before I knew any better I had purchased a jeweler's drawplate and thought that they were all the same. Got one of Jim's now. Jeff Hayes

David – Great job of milling your wood and thank you for a very informative post. You mentioned a couple of subtle points that from my experience that I would like to emphasize. Your first step of squaring the wood prior to going to the bandsaw really makes that task easier and it significantly improves the quality of your sheets. The other comment about the orientation of your stock prior to bandsawing is another important point. When creating sheet stock that will be used for planking, such as in your example, you will want your cuts oriented just as you showed to minimize figure in your final planks. If the sheet will be used to cut pieces from a scroll saw then sometimes rotating the wood 90 degrees prior to running through the bandsaw will produce a better looking sheet. I have a very similar setup and use Jim’s table saw to produce my stripwood. I started out using a very similar setup on my Byrnes saw, but over time I’ve made a couple changes that may be of interest. I’ve found that using the slitting blades that Jim sells on his website, .030” and .040” kerf, produce planks, at least for me, that have a more consistent size. Mostly I use those two blades, but for cutting thin stock I will stay with a 3” blade about .030” kerf and go to finer pitches. This will avoid chipout and the blade is always in contact with the wood, which avoids interrupted cuts and hence chatter as well. When I first started milling I used my extended fence, but later found that if I remove it, I can see better if the sheet stock is wandering away from the fence. I was surprised but I can cut stock up to 3/8” thick into planks just using the standard fence. I added a splitter, just as you have done, and also made some custom finger boards. Over time I started using a block of wood that fits into the palm of my hand to add light side pressure to the sheet. This holds it into the fence and also helps a lot to hold the sheet down on the table. A block about 2” thick x 4” wide x 6” long works well for me. I just rounded the edges against the palm. Of course I keep it ahead of the blade on the table to avoid pushing the sheet sideways into the blade. Using the block I eliminated the splitter and finger boards. To avoid burning or binding, which is more common with the slitting blades because they do not have any back taper, I will add some back taper to the fence. Jim’s fence has .008” back taper built into it, but sometimes that just isn’t enough. When I set the fence, I will set it at .005” oversize and lock in both front and back. Then I come back and loosen the front and move it back in .005”, which is back to your original desired dimension. This normally eliminates any binding or burning. A final issue that I found, and then I’ll shut-up, is that as I was feeding sheets to be cut they would start out wide enough to extend beyond the groove for the miter in the table top. As you cut more and more planks the left edge would eventually be over that miter groove and with thin stock my handheld block would drop down into the groove. Just adding a piece of scrap wood that press fits into the groove eliminated that frustration. Jim’s tools are certainly a work of art and very durable. I’ve used my saw to cut all of my stipwood and that is over 500,000 pieces using the same saw. Didn’t mean to hijack your thread, but this is one of the few areas where I can make a contribution on this board. I’m in this business to promote and help shipbuilders rather than make money, so if anyone has a question on milling I am very willing to lend my thoughts, even if you aren’t buying anything from me. Again, great job on your milling and your post. Jeff Hayes HobbyMill