I have not been at the keyboard for a bit because I have been at the wheel instead, delivering food to whomever required. It is a trip driving professionally again. I have got nothing to say about the food. I go to wherever I am required, so it is not centralized. Instead, I can be just about anywhere in town and get a delivery request, then fulfill it. From anywhere, to anywhere. I don’t get a chance to make any friends, and that comes with a certain feeling of loneliness. When throwing out tendrils, it is good to have trust, and there is no such opportunity for that working gig work like this. I mean like, literally not one. So it has come with adjustment.
Yesterday I got an alert for a grocery delivery. I went and picked it up, then went elsewhere to get a drinks order and then deliver it before I went to deliver the groceries. Oh, what a joy! I backed into the driveway wondering how for up I would have to take them. Then I performed every contact method in the app that I could, but the customer would not answer. I knocked and rang the bell as well. Nothing. I tried to contact the help in the app, but that was useless. There is no person to reach, and when there it, it becomes even more useless. There is no good way to resolve this, including taking the stuff back to the store, so I left it all on a side step and took a photo with the app for proof.
All the while I was doing this, I was overshadowed by a flag on a flagpole across the street which was unlike any I had ever seen before. It was s big black flag with lettering that read, “My Neighbor Is A Karen.” That had me nervous! Was I at the Karen’s house? Once I got the picture, I went away to finish the in-app completion of the delivery so I would not be there to get yelled at should I have been getting set-up for a complaint. I can assure you, at $7.50 for the delivery, I was not getting paid enough to deal with the hassles I was facing, much less a Karen, as our society defines it now.
On the other side of things, I am thinking on getting an electric chain sharpener for the chainsaw chains. I am piling up with them, and would save a load of money if I were using the ones I have got rather than buying new ones whenever they are dull. I have tried hand filing, but there comes a point when a person has to admit they are no good at a thing. I am not. I need the consistency of the machine and the speed. I have a 20 inch bar, so the chains are something like 44 inches each. It would be of great help! I also foresee diamond wheels on the tool in the future. Not straight away, because of the cost of the machine. But It will be of help because the profiles of stones change as they are worn, they can shatter. I’d rather not.
Every chain I have ever used over the last ten years is hung on a hook in the shop. I have them all. I have bought maybe two chains a year! I must have a load of them. Either way, there are enough to make it worth doing this. I have a lumber mill, and I go through the chains every summer while using it, and while getting firewood. I could not beat having a few fresh chains along with while doing that. It would be of great help to be able to just throw a new one on while working where I acquire the wood. I could do a lot more to prepare it properly for hauling. Also, I have a kid who is thinking on joining me there to get as much wood as we need to heat both of our houses. He is even considering getting a hauler of his own to bring down, so I can load and bring my tractor to get the wood loaded up in his hauler and make quick work of it. We could do two or three trips a day like that and then pile up enough for us to heat in a couple of days over a weekend. I could also mention that doing all the work manually in the heat is hellish. But doing it with a machine makes it a lot more tolerable. Then he could come by a couple of days in the summer, and we can cut and split logs here at the house. We’d be all set.
So, I am convinced of the need of the grinder to sharpen the chains. I would like to be burning through them. I know how to not dull them too quickly through poor use. But one cannot avoid dulling, and there are things in wood that can make it worse, such as nails and dirt in the crotches and the like. So, it cannot be avoided. It is a link in my work that hampers it when I have a dull chain and I end up having to drive to town and spend money to sort that out. It is enough to have to buy gas and oil! Luckily that actually works out fairly cheap, even with two kinds of oil required for the saw. I only get that every year or two. I imagine with a grinder for the chains, I will use the saw even more. Both saws, actually! Oh wit! All three! I have three! Two gas of different sizes, and a battery operated one. There are different jobs that require different saws. I have a small one for reaching high because it is lighter, and once a branch is in motion, it is better to be able to move your ass. There is the bigger one because getting through wider logs requires power. The electric one is for work that requires quick cuts, since it is much easier to set it down between cuts than a running gas machine. So that is good for parting up smaller branches.
So that’s where I am right now. I regret the price of the grinder. It will pay for itself quickly, especially with the number of chains I have got ready for it. But who need that kind of cost right now? Then again, I do. I need to be able to use those chains and thus use the log splitter and the sawmill. It’s no good fighting with dull chains in those processes. And I am working on the road to pay that cost. But honestly, I could sell a few cords of firewood and pay it back, too. So, there is that! Those would sure cut up a lot easier if there is sharp chains to do it with.
I have got a fresh chain on the saw right now. I have a bunch of damaged tips on the right side of the last chain, and it is cutting left bigtime. So I put a fresh one on and cut a couple of cuts with it. Oh wow! This is the best on I have had in ages. It plowed right through, and it cut straight as can be. The engine did not bog down much, either. It was pretty sweet! And that encouraged me to buy a chain sharpener, too. I actually enjoy cutting when the saw is sharp. It is easier, I can get more done, and I would like to free up that time and produce the wood to do more in the woodshop. I think it will help!