Voice from the Woods: Time finally caught up with sawmill machinery

Of course, a stalled electric motor will begin to heat up quite quickly and in this instance the motor has lasted remarkably well considering it does a job for which it wasn’t designed for over 20 years ago. However, father time has finally caught up with it and it was time for the motor to head off for an overhaul. Replacing it with a new motor just wasn’t an option as new motors are of very poor quality and I don’t want to introduce new components into a machine which is very reliable but very old. Normally, it only takes a few days to have the motor repaired and so I thought I’d use the time constructively to install a new dust-extraction fan and associated pipework.

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To this end most people use ducting, but I hate the stuff due to the difficulty of working with it and its flimsy nature. Instead I opted for some 250 mm diameter piping with five mm walls. Although big and heavy, the advantage is I can weld it, which makes the installation of junctions, off cuts, inspection flaps, etc so much more possible. The end result has made the cost and effort of the job much more worthwhile, but the process of fitting the system turned into a trial of dogged determination.

After the breakdown of the saw I developed a series of colds, the third of which turned out to be the knockout punch as I lost my voice, went deaf and developed a swollen throat, which is still sore nearly six weeks later. In addition, my left lung almost seemed to collapse when I tried to breathe and made noises the likes of which I’ve never heard.

My general level of health deteriorated to the point where all of my joints ached and I became so weak I could only work at a very slow pace. Any heavy excursion was completely out of the question as I seemed to run out of energy in a few minutes. 

Fitting the dust-extraction system during this period ended up being very slow, hard work, but at least I could take my time as the company tasked with the repair of the motor kept putting back the timeline for its completion; what was initially intended to be three days eventually became two weeks. Fortunately, the workforce was kept occupied on the resaw and we gave the yard a good old spring clean. However, as everyone in the industry knows, the moment there’s a hint of spring and that big old yellow ball appears in the sky, all hell breaks loose. Although this year it’s been slightly different as the post-COVID clamour for sleepers has subsided, to be replaced with a demand for boards and rails, which are flying off the shelf. It’s difficult to predict just what demand will be; if only I had a crystal ball! Thankfully, we can flit between different sizes quite easily and that is a huge advantage in uncertain times.

Bizarrely, despite the considerable fall in the price of diesel, the government is trying to push us towards the use of bio diesel, which, because of the levy, is now nearly twice as expensive. As a bit of an eco warrior as a young man I’ve watched government after government miss the opportunity to move towards a greener economy simply because they’d lose tax revenues. Despite the fall in the price of regular diesel I’m still of the view it’s still overpriced, with the pump price in this area in the mid £1.60s when it should be £1.40ish. Someone’s doing well!

Eventually the electric motor returned and fitting it should have been easy, except the star was now delta and vice versa with delta now star! This wasn’t an issue but the brake wires had all been moved and, as I didn’t have a wiring diagram, I was straight on the phone to the repairers. They informed me that the motor was wired up exactly as they’d received it, which was incorrect. As a precaution I’d photographed the wiring system before it departed to make sure it was the same when it returned and now the wires were all in different locations. After several heated discussions with various technicians at the company they insisted there was no problem as they’d bench tested it before authorising its return, although I pointed out that this wasn’t a problem.

I’d worked out myself that star and delta had been swapped around, but the brake had been wired up for automatic, while I needed to use it as ‘remote’. The engineer on the phone argued that it couldn’t be wired up remotely, until I pointed out that it was in fact he himself who, two years ago, had shown me how to do it after a suppressor had blown.

After a brief pause and a reference to his work diary he admitted his error and then proceeded to instruct me over the phone how to wire it for my desired application.

With the saw back up and running it’s now up to me to get myself back to full strength.

Many years ago I had a similar experience when I was working on the chainsaw full time.

I was younger and big and tough (or so I thought) and despite feeling dreadful I decided to keep flogging away, and in doing so I managed to develop pleurisy, which took several months to clear up. This time – and as best as I can – I’ve tried to plod along at a gentler pace in order to let my body recover, but it’s hard to take it easier if it’s not in your nature.

I’m hoping moving into a new home (following extensive renovation) will help with my recuperation. The house has a substantial garden which needs a lot of work, but I’m determined to develop a productive vegetable area. There’s nothing like growing your own produce and it’s a long time since I unearthed new potatoes which you can rub the skin off with your fingers, or savoured the flavour of a crispy green cabbage. However, before I reach this stage the garden has been neglected for years and large parts were covered in boring grey paving slabs. I decided to hasten the landscaping reclamation process by calling in a friend with a digger. In one corner of the garden was a large mound of soil which had accumulated over many, many years.  After removing the paving slabs, I then built a couple of raised beds and a retaining wall from 12” x 3” oak boards, much to the horror of a dog-walking joiner! I like things to last. The digger then began to fill in the raised beds from the heap of soil. 

I’ve always been fascinated with social history – how people lived in the past and how they fed themselves and what kind of ailments they endured. I often find the emphasis in school history lessons and in TV documentaries very sketchy and skewed in that before the creation of the NHS if you weren’t rich and had servants then your life was a continual living hell of struggle and exploitation until you died. As the digger began to remove the soil from the heap, the social history of the garden began to be revealed. The first thing to be revealed was an old glass battery probably dating from the late 1800s, to be followed by a multitude of glass bottles. The interesting thing about the bottles was they all had a common theme ... medicine! ‘Licoricine for coughs,’ one declared. Another read: ‘Sam Owbride’s Lung Tonic’, as well as ‘Sam’s California Fig Syrup Company’. 

Who would ever have thought I’d get such a window into the lives of people long ago from a dump in my own garden?