Classes of Manufactured homes:

Mobile homes: Factory built in controlled environment. Built, to conform to CSA standards. Designed to be towed be truck. Leveled, blocked and skirted on a pad. Usually come in one or two completed sections referred to as single or double wide.

Modular homes: Factory built in a controlled environment. Built, to conform to final location building codes. Designed to be towed by truck and craned onto your foundation or basement. Usually come in one or more completed sections or modules. Modular homes are real homes. In essence, they are “stick-built” homes that are assembled in a factory as opposed to on your building site. But, should you buy one?

Pre-fabricated homes: Factory built in a controlled environment. Built to conform to final location building codes. Built in sections to be completed or assembled on site. Same construction as site built.

Advantages of manufactured homes: Built in a controlled, precise environment. On site assembly is faster than site building. Cost is usually lower than site built.

A few things to consider when choosing a home: Final cost, location, time frame.

A large variety of predesigned, sizes and floor plans are available. Custom floor plans are available. However additional engineering and manufacturing costs may apply. Most single or double wide mobile plans can be set up and ready to move into in less than two weeks from offer from a dealer to ship to site.  Manufacturing is usually 6 to 8 weeks depending on factory backlog.

Mobile homes are usually set up in a mobile home park. Very little maintenance required. Modular are usually set on your property. Mobile, modular or pre-fabricated home are ideal for country or rural living.

Construction is similar to site built homes. Modular details, 2” x 6” exterior walls, 2” x 4” interior walls 8 foot ceilings. Mobile frame is 2” x 6” exterior and 2” x 3” interior walls 7-1/2 foot ceilings. Come with ten year warranty, on structure.

Most appraisers, lenders and real estate agents understand manufactured homes are built to code as an “on site” home would be. Here are some facts that will help describe what a modular is.

·         They are built at a factory in modules (or sections)

·         They are constructed to conform with all universal and local building codes

·         The sections are delivered and connected on site

·         Local building inspectors verify all requirements for structure and finishing are met

·         They should have the same long term value and appreciation as any other site built or “stick-built” home in the area

What are the Main Advantages?

Manufactured homes can save you money over having a home built entirely on site by a contractor. They can also be built in much less time. Having the home built in the factory under controlled, precise environments and with crews always “on the job” can really speed things up.

Ideal for construction, in rural or country settings. Areas where security and time to complete are of major concern.  

Construction costs for a modular home are usually less per square foot than for a similar site-built home. And there are other cost-saving features:

Many modular homes are very energy efficient, which helps reduce your heating and cooling costs.

Your home will probably be ready to move into much sooner than if you wait for a builder to construct a house on-site. Modular homes are built in sections in a factory setting, indoors, where they are never subjected to adverse weather conditions. The sections move through the factory, with the company’s quality control department checking them after every step. Finished modules are covered for protection, then transported to your home site. They are placed on a pre-made foundation, joined, and completed by your local builder.

Are There Disadvantages to Building a Modular Home?

You may find that there are limitations depending on the neighborhood you’re in. Some local neighborhoods prohibit the use of modular homes. This is often due to a lack of understanding of what they are. But, to be safe, check your neighborhood’s governing board and building restrictions to be sure.

In rare instances there may not be room for the big trucks and cranes that are necessary to get your home to your site and assemble it. Always check with the manufacturer or their representative early in the discussion process.

Will You Get What You Want and Save?

Remember, besides the cost to purchase the home, you’ll still have many other costs that would be there no matter what you do. Things like permits and fees, land costs, land improvement costs, water and power needs, financing costs and insurance (among other items.)

While there will be a savings on normal labor for subcontractors, you will still have labor costs for local assembly and some finishing items. Do a thorough examination of these before proceeding.

You can often have the company build the home you want with your plans. Otherwise, many companies have a wide variety of plans that you may love. So, you can often get what you want. And, you may find that you save up to 15% or more over a locally built home with a General Contractor.

Don’t all manufactured homes look alike?

No, and unless you were there to see the house delivered and assembled, you might not guess it’s a modular home. Modular home manufacturers use computer aided design programs to draw plans to your specifications, or to modify one of their standard plans to suit your needs, so nearly any home plan can be turned into a modular home.

The days when mobile homes were 8’ &10’ wide and looked like a trailer are gone. New 16’ wide singles are spacious and can be elegant. Double wide look like and resemble any style ranch home. Modulars come in a large variety of floor plans. Including Cape Cod. 

Pre-fabricated homes come in any size, design, style and floor plan you desire.

Each manufacturer is different, so be sure to ask questions about flexibility if you would like to design your own home.

Over this time I’ve watched the changes. Changes in raw materials available, management styles, work ethic of today’s workforce. Changes in markets and products. Alternatives to wood products for building materials. Such as aluminum studs, vinyl siding, a number of different roofing products and metal frame windows to mention some of the changes. A new threat today is dealing with the Northern Mountain Pine and Western Pine Beatles.

With prices for dimension lumber at the lowest I’ve seen. Sawmills that are still operating in this down turn appear to be financially sound, have a solid customer base including some sales to Japan or markets other than the US. Some are doing their best to keep their employees, by operating at a loss and building huge inventories. Anticipating an end to current conditions. These are the same mills that are taking advantage of slow difficult time to modernize. Being prepared for good times to come.

Modernization to sawmill and planer mills. Optimized canter, sweep saw gang lines running at speeds of 600-700 fpm. Edgers at speeds of 1200 fpm. Sawmill trimmer, sorter lines running at speeds of 180 pieces per minute. Lumber stackers automatically stacking and stripping at 21 tiers per minute. Planers running at speeds of up to 3,000 fpm. Planer trimmer, sorter lines running at speeds of 220 pieces per minute on 2×4 up to 20 feet in length. Automatic optimizers for sawmill and planer mill grading. Machine that make all the decisions in regard to trimming for value, highest possible grade, final grade stamping and sorting. Accuracy of 98+%  at speeds, previously mentioned. Sawmills and planer mills with production of 1,000,000+ fbm. per 8 hour shift.   The missing component in today’s high speed high tech. mills is people.

I’ve watched a management style transition, from tyrants that everyone feared. Supervisors and superintendents, that knew every aspect of saw-milling. Just like breathing. To become the new breed. A group of paper pushers that barely understand people, or what it really takes to run a sawmill. Not all, but a large group that manage by being absentfrom the operating floor. Sitting in meetings, or in front of their computer just hoping things some how look after themselves. Meetings may be necessary for communication and planning. However, meetings must be well organized, with time restrictions applied. Time must be used effectively by all. A new management style of positive reinforcement. Even when performance is below what should be expected. A work force which has been educated and raised with very few expectations in regards to performance. Rewarded for poor performance. No true responsibility for performance.

The days of large virgin growth timber are gone. Today trees are second growth small and knotty. Very few opportunities for grade sawing. Equipment used to breakdown logs and create lumber in the past are not suitable to survive today. Small log machines today are available in a number of designs. Single pass, sweep saw canter gang combinations.  Fully optimized, canter, gang lines. Followed by optimized edgers, trim saws, lumber sorters and stackers, which virtually run by themselves.

Today an economy that is called a recession with everyone afraid to even think the term depression. In BC where sawmills once flourished, entire towns are in jeopardy of all but disappearing. Thousands of people  laid off with permanent mill closures. Is the end of the battle in sight? There are small signs of improvement.In an environment where financing may be difficult or impossible. I believe to survive you must get creative. Take advantage of  the fact equipment manufacturers are also suffering. Negotiate best price for major equipment upgrades, then inquire about lease to purchase. With the number of newer sawmills shutting down. There should be lots of good slightly used equipment on the market. Consider small improvements or retrofits which will provide large impacts on quality and volume. 

Take on performance management strategies with supervisors and employees. Everyone wants to do a good job and feel secure, in their future. Communicate. Make people responsible for small manageable, key activities in all areas. Including maintenance. Make people truly aware of what expected performance is. What is acceptable and what is not. Record and discuss successes and failures openly. One Minute Manager by Ken Blanchard would be Excellent reading for all supervisors. Record the smallest interruptions in production and pay attention to employees input for improvement. Do your absolute best to implement these ideas. The normal approach has been attack the large items first.

Work closely with all suppliers. Suppliers are in the same boat. They all need sales. Be tough negotiators. Better prices are available. Investigate new suppliers or alternative brands. Reduce inventories on items which are readily available. Work closely with loggers or your log suppliers. Correct log lengths and clean ends will result in fewer saw cuts and increased volume through log bucking stations. Limit and track sweep closely.

To survive in today’ economic environment, if you have not put in the time and effort to develop extremely loyal customers. If you do not have a special product or niche. If you are not a high volume low cost producer. If your not in a strong financial position. If you do not take control of all aspects of your business. If the economic valley continues and you don’t take all the steps necessary to operate as efficiently and effectively as possible. You may end up joining that group of many. Which now must be thinking if only I had, when things were good.

In the late 1970s or early 1980s there was a company from Portland Oregon selling laser alignment systems to sawmills. Almost every sawmill that was trying to improve quality bought a system. There was some problems with this system. Which I believe really hurt the concept badly. The laser light source was crude with a projected dot which was very fuzzy. A light detection device which was not very accurate. Four cells in a holder which were suppose to detect the light with accuracy of .001″.  A comparison of how the light was detected by these four cells, was transferred to a hand held display which displayed a bar graph of lights right left, up/down.left from the center of the four cells. The idea being if the light was centered equally between all four cells the display would be display zero.  As the light hit more of a particular cell it would light up more bars on the display. If  the light hit more than two cells at the same time, the display would show that. in essence, high and right as an example.

 However if face of this holder was dot perfectly plumb or square, the light hitting the face would elongate. Making measurements very inaccurate and unrepeatable from one set of measurements to the next. As part of this system, was a prism which was to be used to establish square. The prisms were crude and very inaccurate.

In the late 1980s, some major improvement were made. A set of lenses were add to the front of the laser. Which made the dot projected adjustable and very clean over long distances. The four cell light sensor was change to be a photo cell with thousands of lines of resolution. A filter which allowed only the hot center of the laser dot to be detected. Eliminating the elongation of the light, if the detector was not plumb or square to the light. A processor which received the information from the detector. The ability to make any position of the detector zero. A comparison to that zero, right/left and up/down. A pentaprism mounted on an adjustable plate, allowing accurate measurements for square and 360 degree capability.

Over time a number of jigs, holders and attachments were designed to make the use of this laser alignment system quick, accurate and easy to use for aligning any and all sawmill machinery. An accurate level was added to the top of the laser tube. Which allowed the light to be set level. Initially, the light was set in line with two references on a whatever plane the machine happened to be on. With the addition of things like a tripod stand to support the laser, uses for alignment became endless.

Some cautions and thing to be aware of when using lasers for alignment purposes. Heat or temperature changes of the laser itself. The canister housing the laser tube and power supply changes as it warms up. Allow the laser to get up to temperature before initial set-up. If the laser is mounted outside in the elements of winter for example. These temperature changes can effect the light. Continually check the light has not changed. This is simple to do. When final set up is complete. Place some sort of target or mark where the laser dot is. Such as drawing a circle around the laser dot, where it hits a wall, or another machine beyond the machine to be aligned. 

Another thing which will effect a laser’s accuracy is heat waves or cold breezes. The light emitted from the laser travels through the air so if the air move so does the light. Simply close any doors or holes which may create cold drafts, or  waves of heat. Direct sunlight or fluorescents will affect the light sensor’s ability to detect the laser. Pick-ups or light sensors will come with a shield to hold out unwanted light sources.  If readings are not steady. One of these items will be the reason. With these things in mind a laser  is an easy to use, extremely accurate tool  for aligning sawmill, or similar machines.

I believe there is still a lack of faith or belief in lasers for alignment in the forest products industry today. Even sawmill equipment manufacturers. OEMs which provide very accurate machining and fabrication specifications. Still use a wire, tape measure or scale rule and a hand held level or sometimes a transit to install and align machinery to cut quality products. Another advantage of using a laser is you can walk or drag tools, such as air hoses or welding cables through the beam without effecting the position of the light.

If you decide to go bigger bore, have your machining done by a shop that is familiar with Harleys. If you just hone the cylinders yourself, be sure to allow about .0005″ more clearance in the rear cylinder.  The rear cylinder gets hotter than the front because it is hidden by and gets heat from the front cylinder. Make sure ring gap is adequate. With Keith Black pistons and rings if the top rings get too tight when hot, they will take the top of the piston off. Not good. 

When replacing the crankshaft pin. I recommend you have a shop familiar with harleys do the assembly to be sure the parts are lined up perfectly. Have the crankshaft, pitons and rings balanced.

 When choosing a cam,choose a mid range cam that perform well through the rpm ranges. When adjusting push rods do not set them to tight. Re-adjust after the engine has run for a few minutes and is warm. I also added a Dyna electronic ignition. So simple. You remove the crankshaft inspection plug. Set the piston timing marks to top dead center. Replace the plug. Remove the points and plate. Install the new ignition. Turn the plate until the small light on the plate comes on. Select how you want the ignition to respond using the instructions and toggle switches provided on the plate. Done. Play with the toggle switches to find the setting best suited to your engine.

When assembling the engine take your time, be super clean and super careful. Again take your time this should be a labor of love. Choose premium oil for your engine. I only use synthetic oils 5/50. When your finished and fire up the engine you should be satisfied and proud.

A laser alignment system usually consists of: A laser light source mounted on an adjustable, magnetic base, a light sensor, a processor, an accurate penta-prism and a number of jigs for individual applications. To use a wire as most sawmills do today. You will require, a wire, two adjustable brackets to hold the wire, a tape measure and an accurate measuring tool such as a Starrett scale. 

The differences between using a laser and a wire.  A laser alignment system requires a larger number of special jigs for different machines and applications. Jigs required to hold the light sensor or pick-up. Laser systems can be quite  expensive. A laser allows for consistent repeatable accuracy of measurements to +/- .001″. A laser can be used accurately for checking level over long distances.  A penta-prism allows quick accurate checks for square. A wire is inexpensive. Accuracy is maybe +/- .005″. A wire is useless for level, slow and difficult to establish square. Measurements using a wire may vary slightly when repeated, even with the same person taking the measurements.

Proper alignment procedures for using a laser are exactly the same as for a wire. Two reference points must be established. Some examples for references. One at the beginning of the in-feed, one at the far end of the out-feed for a canter. Square to a feed roll on a horizontal gang saw or edger. Center-line of a vertical arbor gang saw. Depending on the machine. the methods of establishing these references varies. A laser unlike a wire can be set level as well. Allowing you to check the machine, the in-feed and out-feed for level and elevation quickly and accurately with great ease. 

A laser will take more time for the initial set-up. However when permanent references have been established and a replaceable support for the light source installed. Set-up is very quick. Another advantage with a  laser is the ease, speed and accuracy of checking components for square  and 360 degrees to the light. Such as band-mill wheels square to the flow.

Equipment manufacturers give alignment specs today that are very tight. Why would you not use a laser for your alignment requirements? An option to buying a laser alignment system is to find a good service provider. I have checked the Internet and had no success in finding laser alignment systems or service providers. However I know a system and service provider in BC. I would gladly pass on any interest to this person and his company. It’s not me or my company and there is no benefit to me to pass on any interest on your behalf. I would do so only because I believe strongly a laser is the most accurate way to do alignment. Also, a  lot easier to use than transits or theodolites.

1975  Harley. 1991 custom Dyna frame. 98ci. 1996 evolution. 105+ hp. Custom paint and leather. Tons of chrome. New charging system, electronic ignition, exhaust. $15,000.00 phone 250 554-5499 email harrysm@shaw.ca  Pictures to follow.

Just send required info: Detailed description, price, email address, phone number, contact name and picture preferable. Send info to email: harleysforsale@shaw.ca

If you have the picture of the people you can fill in the real dialogue for this little story.

If you have the picture, this is the story. One morning Joe comes to work about one hour late. By the way, I was living  with Joe and his wife at the time and we left the house at the same time. Joe comes into the shop, walks up to me and asks, can we talk?  Sure let’s talk. We go outside away from everyone else and it begins. Joe asks me. What do you think of me? I’m confused. My response is What? Joe asks again what do you think of me? Still confused. My response is the same. What? Joe asks. What do think of me as a man. I looked at him puzzled and said I’m guessing must be your time of the month and what the hell do you mean? What do I think of you as a man? I’m quietly thinking a lot less than I did ten minutes ago.

Then the wining starts. Joe says I don’t think it’s fair. I’m thinking my god, what is going on? I bite. What’s not fair? Joe says I’ve been doing the same job for three days, while Bill has had the easier job. This is two guys working together one assembling, while the other welds. I looked Joe straight in the eyes and asked him. Are you for real? What would you do if it was you and me working together? Joe’s reply. Ask you to trade. Then ask Bill.

Joe tells me he can’t. He’s intimidated by Bill. He and Bill have been friends since they were little and Bill always got his way. So now you want me to be your mother? Joe says Ya could you ask him to trade with me? Shaking my head in disbelief. Let’s go. We walk in the shop together. Go to the area where Bill is working. I asked Bill trade with Joe. No problem was the reply but with a weird expression. Oh and switch jobs with  each other every four hours. OK? They both agreed and went to work. However, I don’t think they spoke to each other the rest of that day.

Until that day I thought bikers were rough, tough, true men without a lot of boyish feelings. Goes to show men are just little boys caught in big boy bodies with really expensive toys.

One beautiful Sunday in April a couple years back.  I decided it was a great day to get the bike out of moth balls and go for my first ride of the season. The girl friend and I get ready, dressed fairly warm. Off we go. As we leave Kamloops the weather starts to change. Clouds rolling in and getting dark and cold. One half hour out of Kamloops it starts to rain. Now I’m thinking. Do we turn back or keep going? I’m not sure if I have enough gas to make it back to Kamloops. Decision made. On to Falkland. By the time we get to Falkland it’s starting to snow.

Now freezing. We get gas and head for the Falkland Pub. We walk through the doors. The waitress is already putting coffee on the table. Guess she heard us pull up in front. My bike is also really loud. There’s a few people in the pub. All looking at us like we were out of our minds. Everyone in the place and I mean everyone. Said hello and the conversations started. Where you from? Typical conversations about the weather. Spent about two hours trying to warm up.

While we were there people offered us some where to stay, use if a truck and trailer to get back to Kamloops and tons of free coffee. When we decided the weather had cleared enough to make the trip back home. People offered me a heavy sweat shirt and my girl friend a snow suit. We declined all the offers, bundled up and started towards home.

The trip home was wild. The road between Kamloops and Falkland twists around  between the mountains. Almost around every bend the weather changed. We hit rain, hail, snow and once out of the mountains sun again. I have never been shown hospitality like that day. In a tiny town biker pub called the Falkland Pub. Great food. Great People. Bikers just never seem to stop amazing me.

So if your every riding or driving by be sure to stop. You might be as impressed as we were. Do have a bar in your area that is a must stop?