Lessons from the lumberyard

I have learned a lot of patience in my working years, none more than when I worked at a lumberyard in Phoenix. Not only was there plenty of heat, dust, sawdust, noise, but ornery people, most of all my boss, Wes. Looking back not only was stubborn, loud, unpredictable, but he was abusive. Somehow I made it through 5 plus years there and in the process learned good word-working skills but also some general practical lessons. I'd like to share three with you.

The first one I learned the various machine saws that were used to trim the rough wood done to the size, smoothness and shape to be sold. When feeding boards into the machines you had to walk a fine line and had to not be afraid of the machine. If you held the board too lightly it would skew and get mangled. If you held it too tight would jam the machine. You had to guide it in and let the machine take it the rest of the way. 

The second lesson was on the molding machine. We made all sorts of wood molds, from chair and bar rails, to door jams, to floor and ceiling molding. Look around when you are in a restaurant or bar and you will see examples of what we made in the edges of walls and doors. I did a lot of work at the 'business end' of the machine - where the finished product came out. I was armed with a Skill Saw and my job was to trim any bad ends and then bundled the molding for storage and sale. I had a table underneath where the molding exited the machine and I learned, especially with reminders from my partner, Ernie, that if I hesitated to trim first the pile of molding would build up quickly requiring a time out to clear it. His constant mantra was 'when it's in your hand trim it, don't put it down until you have fixed it".  Deal with it right away and you won't have to deal with it again - keeps me going today.

And the third lesson was from observing a young coworker temp we had working for us for a short time. When feeding the  molding machine it is best to keep a constant flow of lumber pieces going in. If the piece in the machine did not have another piece being pulled in after it it would stall and the board would burn from the rollers trying to pull it along. On the other hand you wanted to trim off any rough ends before putting a piece in the machine. So there was a trim saw on a tripod behind the machine so you could trim any bad ends. Of course over time a pile of cut ends would build up behind the saw and you had to keep that down so the saw could do it's work. To make a long story short one day this kid saw the pile behind the saw building up, quickly tried to clear it, saw the last piece feeding into the machine and in a hurry put his hand down on the tripod to get back to the machine and his hand went into the blade. He pulled it back out quickly so he didn't get seriously hurt, but he did have a cut and required bandaging. He never got that hurried again  and we put a saw guide over most of the blade.

So, guide things along - don't try to force it. Deal with problems right away before they build up. And be mindful of your surroundings and don't rush. Lessons from the lumberyard.