- [Seth] This is the flight deck, a jump off point for Berm
Peak's mountain bike trails. If memory serves me correct, it cost about $600 to build back in 2019. This same structure today
would breach the $2,000 mark and that doesn't bode well for Berm Peak. Wooden features are kind of what we do. Sure, we do have the Alaskan Mill for processing our own timber, but it's not like slicing bread. Using an Alaskan Mill to
plank hardwoods like oak consumes time, bar oil and chain wear. It's great if you need
a specific dimension or a few pieces. But that's not what we have our sights on. Berm Peak is home to many
standing dead hardwoods. Some are even naturally decay resistant, which means the whole tree is still filled with strong and usable wood. If we only had a way to get big chunks of this timber off the mountain, we could take it to the
sawmill down the road. So what I wanna do is make a rig that attaches to the
receiver of the Gator. It's gonna go up and then that's where
our wench is gonna be. It's gonna attach to the skidding tongs. We can lower it onto
a log, lift the log up and then we can use the
Gator to get it all the way from the woods to our trailer. - [Kevin] Where are we taking it? - We're gonna take it to the sawmill. I've been planning to build
this skidding rig for a while but never had the sense
of urgency until now. If we can bring this plant to fruition, any timber we have access to
could be processed in bulk. (energetic music) - [Kevin] I don't think any
welding took place here. - Ooh. - [Kevin] Oh man. - Learning is expensive. You either have to pay
somebody to teach you, like in school. You have to use your
time in an apprenticeship or you have to keep making
mistakes by yourself. If you're afraid to try,
you're never gonna learn. That looks like a little
bit almost like welding. - [Kevin] I think it's that jacket. - [Seth] Now it's tacked up. (energetic music) In addition to dead standing trees, we have quite a few just lying around. We can use the wench on the Gator to pull them out in the open, then see if our log
trailer actually works. Get the dolly underneath. Oh, look at that. - [Kevin] Yeah. (energetic music) - [Seth] With these logs on
wheels, we can tow them out, instead of skidding them
across the driveway. I don't wanna piss off my wife too badly. We're still renting the excavator and we can use that to load
the timber into the trailer. (energetic music) You may wonder why we
don't just use the machine to grab the timbers and
walk them out of the woods. The answer is that it
would be prohibitively slow and cumbersome, given the
distance we need to travel. Our contraption is making it real easy to get these to the trailer, but we still haven't truly
put it through its paces. - [Kevin] Dude. Crazy
is how long we put it. - I think we got to tow
it past this entrance. Just grab the old little Frenchy. - Get outta here, Frenchy boy. Oh, come here. - What is it doing to our thing? - [Kevin] It's really got it cocked, like- - Cause we don't wanna do this to it. Just, we should never be
towing it with this because, yo that bent the Gator. It bent the receiver on the Gator. - [Kevin] From here, you
can really see that, like- - You can totally see.
Oh God, I hate that. For some reason, it never occurred to me
that the Gator's receiver would be the weak point. I just assumed that pulling too hard would break the skidding rig or cause the Gator to pop a wheelie. Not so. The Gator's rated for 130
pounds of tongue weight, which I'm more than
happy to exceed by a bit. But what we created is
straight up foolish. When you pull straight out on this thing, it's like a purpose built leverage bar that puts insane stress on the receiver. That was dumb. But I think we can redeem
ourselves and bend it back. We bent the receiver
back with the excavator and used the ratchet
strap to transfer the load to the tie down points in the bed. We'll redesign this rig someday, but for now we're back in business. - [Kevin] Back up. - [Seth] Just missed
the whale tail I think. (energetic music) The timbers we cut from branches will serve us better as support posts. As for the straightest sections of trunk, the trailer is now packed with them. This load is a test to
see if loading timbers and taking them down the road is more efficient than using
the Alaskan Mill on site. And we're about to find out
if all this work was worth it. (energetic music) - Come back about right there. That's good right there. See that saw bit sets
against that shoulder? And that tool I showed you, if you stick it through
there and you pull it out. - [Seth] One of the
reasons I love bicycles is you can plainly see how they work. All the gears, cranks and cables
are right out in the open. The same is true for this mill. There are no microchips, LCD
screens or safety sensors. If something breaks, you don't need to wait for
someone from the manufacturer to come reprogram it. It's not the latest in sawmill
technology, but it's tough. And it's right down the
road from Berm Peak. - They're hammered to
run at a certain RPM. Other words, if you back out
there and sight that saw, it's not perfectly flat, it's in a dish. When it comes up to speed,
it stands up straight. It's got tension in it and that's when you can drive
it straight down the log. If it gets warm, it takes
the tension out of it a little more and it becomes wobbly. So it's important that the saw blade doesn't really hit the log,
it's sliding through the cut. - [Seth] Rollers, chains,
pulleys, gears and conveyor belts all work together to serve
the blade and it eats. Audi controls it all from
a little control booth. He examines each log,
rotates it into position and locks it down. With the pull of a lever, a plank is born. (energetic music) Through years of experience, Audi knows how to get the most
planks out of each timber. But waste wood gets used
for shims, mulch, firewood or sawdust mountain. (energetic music) - [Audi] The saw mill. I mean, it just looks like a
little old mountain saw mill, but it's afforded us a good living. And I put my daughter through college and we built houses and made a living and a gift to it all
is working for yourself and doing kind of what you
think you can do for yourself. And it's been, it's been
a gift and a blessing. I can't complain about it. - [Seth] With our freshly
minted planks loaded up, it's clear that this is the way to go. - It's about 500 and say
525 board feet of it. 210 bucks. - [Seth] If we're processing
more than one timber, it's absolutely worth
it for us to drag these to the trailer and head down the road. This will get us through
a good part of the summer. And the best part is we still have, again, as much standing white oak and some back there that
we haven't even touched. Although very imperfect, we did get to practice a new workflow, familiarize ourselves with some new tools and make a new business relationship. And with the lumber stock pile
looking healthier than ever, I'm seeing big wooden
features in our future. If you wanna see us build those features, make sure you subscribe to Berm Peak. Thanks for watching. Thanks for riding with me today. And I'll see you next time. Yeah, I still gotta return
this lattice to Lowe's. Gator for sale, lightly used
just around the property.
