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guys with beards guys with beards getting equipment advice from other guys with beards on the internet. tools. machines. equipment. projects. questionable decisions.

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cutting back the sawmill area at star hill sawmill to make room to get organized for 2027. 26hp kubota and brush hog att...
10/21/2026

cutting back the sawmill area at star hill sawmill to make room to get organized for 2027. 26hp kubota and brush hog attachment makes quick work of this task.

moving big stuff the easy waymore cleanup around the star hill shop today, and the gtm gmv v1000 made short work of a jo...
10/19/2026

moving big stuff the easy way

more cleanup around the star hill shop today, and the gtm gmv v1000 made short work of a job i wasn't looking forward to.

i needed to move two massive shelving units, one inside the equipment shed and one outside. both were big enough that moving them by hand would have meant taking them apart, moving the pieces, and putting everything back together.

instead, i moved both of them by myself in about 10 to 15 minutes.

one thing i really appreciate about the v1000 is the stand-behind operation. when you're working alone, being able to hop on and off quickly makes a big difference.

i could maneuver right up to the shed, and the vertical lift let me pick up and position the shelves without having to wrestle anything around by hand.

the machine did the whole job.

what could easily have turned into an all-day project was finished in minutes. that's the kind of equipment that earns its keep around a shop.

if you're curious about the machine, it's the gtm gmv v1000 from gtmtoolsusa.com.

anybody else have one of those jobs where the right machine turned a whole day of work into a few minutes?

10/18/2026

a week ago, i couldn't even spell "quench." now we're out in the shop heating steel, swinging a hammer, and trying to turn old files into timber-framing chisels.

do we know what we're doing? we're learning.

we've made mistakes, corrected a few, and already figured out how to make the next chisels better.

this is a couple of minutes of what we've been up to at the star hill shop.

i've always figured that if you wait until you know exactly what you're doing before starting something new, you might never get started.

anybody else learn best by jumping in and figuring it out along the way?

guys with beards | forging chisels, learning as we gowe've been forging timber-framing chisels from old files here at th...
10/17/2026

guys with beards | forging chisels, learning as we go

we've been forging timber-framing chisels from old files here at the star hill shop.

do we know how to forge chisels?

not really. in fact, we started out knowing next to nothing about it.

but being clueless has never been much of an obstacle around here.

so we're annealing, heating, forging, drawing out tangs, annealing some more, quenching, tempering, and generally figuring things out as we go.

some things work. some things don't. and occasionally we discover that our original setup might need a little reconsideration.

case in point: the forge table.

turns out, putting a forge on a wooden table covered with light roll steel wasn't our finest engineering decision. when the table started smoldering, we decided it might be time to upgrade to a proper steel table.

lesson learned. fortunately, before things got too interesting.

there's something pretty satisfying about taking an old file that might otherwise be discarded and turning it into a useful woodworking tool.

we're certainly not blacksmiths, but we're having a good time learning.

anybody else have a habit of jumping into projects they know absolutely nothing about and figuring it out along the way?

Vroom!
10/16/2026

Vroom!

a little orange and a little blue around the star hill shop.our kubota tractor and gtm gmv v1000 compact track loader ma...
10/16/2026

a little orange and a little blue around the star hill shop.

our kubota tractor and gtm gmv v1000 compact track loader make a pretty useful combination.

we've been doing a ton of cleanup and organizing before winter arrives. moving lumber, shifting materials, and taking care of all those projects that seem to pile up during the busy season.

two very different machines, and both have earned their place around the shop.

anybody else running a compact track loader alongside a traditional tractor?

a little fire and steel in the shop today.we're forging chisels from old files, giving good tool steel a second life as ...
10/15/2026

a little fire and steel in the shop today.

we're forging chisels from old files, giving good tool steel a second life as woodworking tools.

there's something satisfying about making the tools you use. heat the steel, shape it, refine it, and eventually put it to work.

not every day at star hill is about cutting timber. sometimes it's about making the tools that cut the timber.

guys with beards. fire, steel, and a little shop time.

fall cleanup at star hill timberworks.the v100 is loaded up with timbers, and we're getting the yard cleaned up before w...
10/13/2026

fall cleanup at star hill timberworks.

the v100 is loaded up with timbers, and we're getting the yard cleaned up before winter.

never a shortage of things to move around here.

10/13/2026

some tools just earn their keep.

the makita 7104l chain mortiser is one of the workhorses around star hill. once the layout is complete, it makes quick work of removing material for our mortises.

there's still cleanup and fitting to do, but this machine handles a whole lot of the heavy lifting.

a good tool that's earned its place in the shop.

some tools earn their place in the shop by showing up and doing the work.the makita 7104l chain mortiser is one of those...
10/13/2026

some tools earn their place in the shop by showing up and doing the work.

the makita 7104l chain mortiser is one of those tools.

it's one of the workhorses around star hill, making quick work of cutting mortises in our timbers. once the layout is complete, this machine takes care of removing a whole lot of wood in a hurry.

there's still some cleanup and fitting to do, but that's part of timber framing. the machine does the heavy lifting, and we take care of the details.

it's a tool that's earned its place in our shop, and one we wouldn't want to be without.

build remember repeat.

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Ellsworth, WI
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