dejure

I appreciate the story, because I have a Craftsman 5oz hammer I feel the same way about. I picked it up about thirty years ago and have never found another hammer I like as much, when doing fine work, such as around glass or detail cabinetry. I've been looking for another in all the years since I acquired the one I have, but haven't had any luck. So it remains hidden from shop visitors who might mistake it for "just a hammer."

Kelly, of Washington

The shingle/shake mill shown in the video was pretty fancy, compared to the majority of mills. Most look like long abandoned commercial enterprises. Rusted correlated metal walls and roofs are the norm. Wiring (single and three phase) is hobbled together. Heavy equipment, often from at or near the turn of the century, is patched and kept running on little more than ingenuity and drive.

Just while I lived there, one mill owner suffered three fires at three different mills. The loss of raw wood from one mill alone was in the tens of thousands of dollars. This is a common concern among mill owners.

I'm from Pacific Beach, Washington and worked around several shingle mills. Many of the old timers had missing fingers and otherwise experienced injuries from equipment.

Many of the dangers were not evident from this video. Mills also have flat saws that are like the saw shown, but with the blade situated horizontally, huge band saws, open conveyors, hydraulic splitters, and so forth, any of which are capable of carnage.

To say this industry is regulated is a vast understatement. Bureaucratic regulations apply from the tree to the shingle/shake broker and retail outlet. Many are valid, but as many are well removed from reality.

Mills, in addition to payroll, must maintain the mill and equipment. They must search out and buy cedar claims (these are much like gold claims) to log or even mine logs that have been buried for decades. They must maintain or hire trucks and helicopters to get the blocks of cedar from the forest to the mill. They have to transport their product to market. Finally, they have to deal with the regulations noted above and a constantly changing market.

In the end, profit margins are small and the mills survive only by putting out large quantities of product. The overhead leaves little for safety or other improvements, including heat, protection from the rain and so forth.

Add to the chaos, alcohol and drugs are a way of life for many of the workers. They put in hard hours in an outdoor environment, which requires they work in freezing rain, snow and so forth.

Regarding comments about OSHA, many of these mills are not merely under its radar, they are not subject to its [federal] jurisdiction. Some have even had to run overzealous public servants off their mill sites. On that I do not fault them, some things are better taken care of at home (ours is not one of a central government, each state is and should remain sovereign (remember, it was Bill Clinton who wanted to fire all the cattle guards out west)).