Hey CO - Just wondered how the new job was going? You keeping those young guys in line?

Long story I will post something tonight when I get home.
Gota go to work now

So ------ last week (Wednesday I think) I was still laying in bed, after all it was only 11am, and someone smashing on my door (I built this house with no door bell to keep the Jehovah's away). My normal routine is to play around in my shop until 2 or 3 am and get outa bed at noon. Anyways it was a friend of mine that I have not seen in a long time. We went to high school together in the late 1970's and worked in a sawmill together for ten years in the millwright shop as helpers and later as welders. After about 10yrs of that foolishness (around 1988) he quit and started his own business here in town. He made parts for sawmills and is very successful. I don't know how he found out but some homo told him I was unemployed. He came over to offer me a job. He said his shipping/receiving/quoting/work order guy quit on him with no notice and he needed a guy right away. He knows I am not an office boy but that was the job. So basically I am learning a new trade sort of. It's been two days now and I have a bit of a different look about office people. The good thing is I can still get out into the shop and do some re-tipping, which is what I did today. The owner (my friend) is only in the office on Mondays and he is on the road the rest of the week. His wife and another secretary hold the fort while he is away. We do the rest. Only four of us in the shop. A CNC machinist, two welders and me. Very low key environment. Nobody gets excited.

I like your style CO!

Sooo, is the up late-sleep late thing, the Canadian in you, or the German? I knew some Germans that basically lived their whole life that way.

Good luck on the new trip, doesn't sound too bad.

It might be a square head thing. My old man is the same way. We both worked night shift most of our lives.

Alright. For those of us who don't know, what is re-tipping? Something you forgot at the restaurant last night?

A sawmill has machines called debarkers. They do what the name says -- debark the logs as they come into the mill. There is six arms on each ring and at the end of each arm is a replaceable tip that has carbide ends silver soldered on. These wear out. Outfits send them to us and we re-tip them and ship them back.
We also build those debarker arms from scratch and cnc those tips. Also build hourglass rolls for those machines as well. Many different configurations of the above.

The logs must be debarked because that bark will contaminate the chips as the log is being processed. If there is too much bark in the chips the pulp mills will not except them because they can't make good quality paper unless the wood chips are clean (bark free).

Now for some lumber politics.
The American lumber producers claim that the Canadian lumber is subsidized. This is why the USA often imposes duties on our lumber. It is an historic long time continuous battle.
In the USA all wood is privately owned because Americans own every inch of soil down there. Therefore all wood is for sale as an open bid.
In Canada most of the wood is owned by the crown (Government). Most of this wood is NOT up for bids. The government allocates it to which ever mill is near by or to a company in general. These companies must pay something called "stumpage". This stumpage rate is what the government charges the company to be able to cut down that wood. The government decides how much they will charge.
The political squabble is all about the Americans not being able to "bid" on the wood so they try to force our government here to change how we will run our system. When our government refuse to change to the American bidding system they scream foul and apply duties. It has gone to the world trade organization many times and Canada has won every time, but that doesn't stop them from constantly applying duties and then ANOTHER COURT CASE. This has been going on for years.

The real issue here is that Americans are losing jobs in their forest industries. But the real reason they are losing jobs is because of the DOLLAR. The Canadian dollar is 0.77 cents USA right now. I don't care how hard an American works, there is no way in hell they can beat a Canadian company when the Canadian company has made 30 cents on the dollar before they have even started one fn machine up for that day. Lumber is paid in USA dollars.
Lumber used to for 30yrs hover around $300us for a thousand board feet. Today it is $550 a thousand board feet. The forest companies are making a fortune right now and the consumer building a house is getting royally screwed.