Lake Shore Live Steamers.com

Located at

Penitentiary Glen
8668 Kirtland-Chardon Rd
Kirtland, Ohio 44094

Since it was raining, the guys erected the canopy at the doorway so Jonathan Shaffer and John Blotnick would keep resonably dry stacking the cut ties on a pallet. Karl Losely manned the saw as Lew Fowler and Robbi Haines stacked the wood from the chop saw.

The assembly line production was Roger feeding the chop saw, Jim Harnish on the saw, then Robbi, Lew and Karl. Jim was cutting the ties to 16" and we had a stop clamped to the bench so we just advanced the 2x6 to the stop each time.

Robbi stacks wood as Lew scrapes out the sawdust from under the saw as Roberta, standing next to Jonathan, checks out our progress. Lew shovels the sawdust as Robbi holds open a 50 gal. trash bag for him.

While they were emptying the saw, Karl was emptying the dust collector bag. We were using a 12"-14" Delta Rockwell table saw with 5 h.p. motor and a spacer made up to hold the blades in alignment so that when a piece of 2x6 was pushed thru the blades we had three ties.

We took a break and inside Rick Nagy was machining #7 frogs on the CNC machines out of a bar of aluminum. The flash stopped the action in this photo.

Roger using the fork lift to get another bunk of 2x6's as Jim watches. Roger making sure the load clears the door and the rain continues it's onslaught.

Back at the saw Karl is feeding the lengths of 2x6's through the blades again as Lew hands him the stock as he needs it. Jonathan, John and Ken Brooks receive the ties from the table saw and stack them on the pallet.

For his effort Karl was plastered with sawdust from the waist up. In this view you can see how the equipment is located, from the chop saw to stacking on a table where it is then handed to the saw operator and finally stacked on the pallets outside the doorway.

The radial saw was not used for cutting, just stacking the wood. We took another break and celebrated Marcel's birthday with a cake and Bridget and Marcle posed for the photographer.

Marcel doing the honors of blowing out all the candles. Rex and Kitty Shriver at back with Robbi, Roger and Jim after enjoying supper.

Some of the others in attendance for the tie cutting party and enjoying the fine cooking of Mike Uhrich. After supper Wally Pausch with Marcel, Karl and John cut the remaining 2x6"s full length which will be cut to different lengths for the switches.

Wally kept pressure from the side as we ripped the wood lengthwise as they weren't all straight. Robbi holding the next piece for Karl that was on the fork lift in the lower left corner of the photo.

Ken tying up the last bag of sawdust, we had ten total and that's alot of sawdust, as Karl and Roger sort out the tie down straps to secure the wood to the pallet and it continues to rain.

Inside the other building Marcel was welding up our new switch stands. Ron Trenhaile was clamping the two thin plates to the top and bottom of the channel we are using for the switch stands.

Ken smoothed up the welds and any sharp edges on the welded assembly. All in all we cut three bunks of wood and worked on fourteen switch stands, a good days work. At seven p.m. we held our club meeting which ended the evening.