Trip Report -- Lake Chelan and Milling

[emcvay]

After a mad rush to remove the darn spare on the back of the truck (stupid locks!) and buying three, count them, THREE broken bolt removal kits before I got the right one and removed the lock, I did finally get it removed and moved to the front of the truck. I'm not sure about the carrier as it's very close to the grill and that big monster tire must block a lot of air flow through the rad and tranny cooler.







I'll have to get a pic later to post but am thinking a short extension might be worth it to ensure more airflow however in 85 degree weather hauling the camper and pulling the mill didn't cause temps to rise past normal despite some long uphill climbs.


Hoping this image isn't too big (and works) and I can fix when I get back home (am at work now -- shhhh)....

Once I got on the road with full water tank but less tools and equipment as well as fuel etc for the mill (to lighten the load a bit) I drove the two hours to the job site in Lake Chelan without issue and settled in for the night around 10:30pm.


The next morning I was treated with an awesome view and great work site. I milled all day despite a short T-Storm in the afternoon and must admit that I LOVE the camper 🙂 It makes the perfect mill site office and home away from home! The shower is big enough to get the sawdust off at the end of the day, the genny runs the air compressor all day (when needed) and the AC in the camper takes the edge off when it gets warm and the camper has sat in the sun all day....oh and the MW makes it easy to fix a quick dinner after filling a glass with ice from the freezer and cold booze from he fridge 😄 Ahhh this is the life!

Can't complain about the evening after a long day.


Day two started off right with big logs and sunny sky's 🙂 I was happy since my arthritis wasn't slowing me down too 😉

All in all a great weekend of milling and camping 🙂 Next trip will be higher in the mountains with no great views but the drive will be steep and up a long way so we will see how the truck performs 😉



For now (and until I edit a little later as I suspect I will have to).

[dakonthemountai]

I really enjoyed watching the milling!! Wish you were closer when I had to take out 6 10-18" cedars and 2 16" pines here in California! I had some bark beetle pine trees milled to 1" and built my workshop with them..


Thanks for sharing your work with us, and I love that you got to use your camper as a "hotel room" camper while working in such a beautiful place!

Cheers!
Dak

[emcvay]

Milling Pine
Here's a vid I did when I first bought this mill (my old one was all manual) and it shows how the low is loaded onto the mill with the hydraulic forks.

[dpgerson]

emcvay wrote:
The mill is hydraulic 🙂 It loads the loads itself.

Nice. But can you help me understand how you get the logs off the ground and into position. I don't quite see it from the pic. Do you have some sort of crane with hooks?

[emcvay]

The mill is hydraulic 🙂 It loads the loads itself.

[dpgerson]

Beautiful! I was there about 10 years ago. How did you get those big logs on the mill?

[Tizi]

Love Chelan! Great pics

[emcvay]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wSuUw2K_mE&t=36s
Here's a vid of milling -- there are more on the YouTube page 🙂

[emcvay]

Thanks -- it's one of those things that just sorta came out of necessity 😉 I was driving too much daily to mill sites and hate hotels and always wanted a truck camper so...... 😉

On the spare I am planning on trying to find a stock aluminum rim from a junk yard and having it moved over to that. Should save a few pounds as that steel spare is HEAVY! I think it could weight 100lbs with the tire on. Probably not but it darn sure felt that heavy when lifting it to mount on the holder.

[Grit_dog]

Great scenery, awesome camper and setup and a great way to be outside doing something awesome!
Btw, I don't think you'll have to worry about the tire and cooling system. You're not working the truck too hard. Cooling systems on diesels are very robust. Quite a few years ago, when the kids were little, they smashed in almost all the radiator fins on the 07 Dodge! They were little and didn't know they were doing something wrong, it was fun.....anyway, it blocks a lot of arid low I'm sure and it doesn't overheat nowhere.

[emcvay]

Yup 🙂 Was amazing!

[GoinThisAway]

You lucked up with that jobsite. What a fantastic view!

[Bigfeets]

Thank you for sharing those amazing pictures and details! Sounds like a great gig you have going there. Feel free to share your YouTube page.

[emcvay]

Thanks all -- just updated and added a couple pics of the front tire setup.

The mill business is a side thing I've been doing off and on for about 7 years. Started slow but have milled over 100,000 board feet of lumber since the new mill arrived in March of 16. My plan was to have it as a retirement gig 🙂 Take the truck and camper and mill to remote places and mill up lumber for land owners wanting to build with their own trees. I have a youtube page where I post vids (happy to share here) of milling and a website for the biz

Basically, it's a tough gig 😉 I get to take the camper to places to 'camp out' and get paid to make lumber during the day.

In the morning I got to sit and drink coffee looking out over the lake 🙂


and in the evening I sat and watched the sky turn into a painting 😉


Funny thing, my customer came by and asked how I was doing that evening as I was sitting there enjoying some Evan Williams and looking out across the lake 😉 I assured him all was well 😄

[Bigfeets]

Cool setup!! Is this a job that you preformed for a customer? I could see a nice small business traveling along to various jobs with the camper and mill. You could probably see the whole country and mill along as you travel.