milling thread

It can be hard all right to kind of divorce yourself from what is inside a tree when contemplating or advising whether to cut it or not. A bit like trying to look at all women as your sisters.
 
MB, there are other furniture makers here and there. My range of work is somewhat broader than most. The market is small when you get into time consuming stuff that needs to be duly compensated for in order to make a living, which is really all I do. A rich history of it, but people in general aren't very sophisticated about woodwork, so they don't much understand what goes into it. It's a big handicap when the sense isn't there to begin with.
 
I picked this little lot of 5/4 White Oak up from the mill today. I am going to be bringing him the more scarce logs in trades for milling. He's looking for Locust, Cherry, White Oaks, and things. I brought him some Locust, and he milled up this White Oak for me. Plan on building two gates for my back yard access to where my gear is stored.

I've also brought him nice Red Oak, which he doesn't need right now. He'll mill it into 4/4 so I can plane it down and do my interior trim with it. Also doing some Red Oak in 8/4 slabs for a table or whatever.
 

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Just thought I would bring this thread back up. Besides it is finally raining which we desperately need and I need a day to screw off a little from the wind storm that is still haunting us when it came through on August 4th.:lol::lol:

I know this doesn't have a whole lot to do with actual milling but it is related in a way. I put up up another roadside diplay like I did last year when we had our local festival a few weeks back. Instead of some of those big heavy benches I made before I went with smaller four legged benches I made with my Alakan mill and the tenon maker I bought from Bailey's so they would fit in peoples cars easier. I also carved up some mushrooms and morels that people seem to like in as many different shapes and types of wood as I had time for. I got a little more artistic with them compared to what I had last year. I also carved a whiskey jug which was a first for me. The planter bed bench was also a first.

Here are some pics. I only sold one bench, but they were a little on the pricey side for the kind of slae it was. Next year I am going to get involved in some local big craft sales along with taking credit cards to see if my benches will sell. I did mange to get rid of just about all the shrooms which I am glad of because I didn't want all those things around the house. The benches I can store away for a later date to sell. All in all I manged to get my sales goal to recoup money I had spent on getting more tools the tenon maker ,sanders and an electic die grinder to make the work go quicker and the pricey poly finish I put on the benches and shrooms
 

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Cheap and looks useful, but if you could incorporate a roller instead of just metal sliding against wood, probably better.
 
Well, Jay. The jig arrived today.
Just reading the manual and there are rollers on the bottom and instructions to build a wooden guide rail to roll it along.

So, it says to take the dogs off and mount this jig. The bar shouldn't reach past 4" from the jig itself. Limiting my width to about 24".
Is that for kick back you think? I know I'm gonna want to try a bigger bar at some point.
 
It's because you are pushing from one side.
On the larger two post chainsaw mills there is a push handle in the center to equalize the load and limit twisting.
 
Aye, Wally. Thank you. I just read the manual. It's easily upgradeable to the two sided one.
The kits build on one another. Looking forward to some fun or at least some planks.

At work we have the alaskan mill, more of a no brainer to me. If it fits inside just cut.

This one sided jig will be a little getting used to but looking forward to building up, (if need be)
 
If the rails on your bar are out of square, or the chain uneven, so that the cut wants to dive or raise up, it makes problems. Good to have everything running true. 24" is still pretty wide, hope it works well for you, Deva. A lightweight mill like that seems real productive. Larger mills are unwieldy things to handle yourself.
 
You have to be careful incorporating rollers into your chainsaw mill. Has been tried in the past with mixed results.
Bark and sawdust from the chain is thrown and lands everywhere, if a chunk of debris or a layer of sawdust is run over by a horizontal positioned roller, the saw cut will be thrown off resulting in uneven sized lumber.
 
Naw. My Sperber mill has multiple long rollers. Occasionally a piece of bark or something might get thrown up on top and could get run over by the rollers, but is easily removed before. You have to give some attention to how things are sitting flat on top anyway, be it rollers or a bar. The fine dust isn't a concern. After years of use i think I can authoritatively say that it isn't a problem with rollers, and wider mills built that way and especially when run alone, are easier to use. It would be a weird set up where enough dust gets thrown up on top to affect the lumber dimension.

I could see how it might be somewhat more critical with a band mill that takes a smaller kerf and maybe leaves a smoother face, but the surface from a chain generally isn't a thing of beauty anyway.
 
Naw. My Sperber mill has multiple long rollers. Occasionally a piece of bark or something might get thrown up on top and could get run over by the rollers, but is easily removed before. You have to give some attention to how things are sitting flat on top anyway, be it rollers or a bar. The fine dust isn't a concern. After years of use i think I can authoritatively say that it isn't a problem with rollers, and wider mills built that way and especially when run alone, are easier to use. It would be a weird set up where enough dust gets thrown up on top to affect the lumber dimension.

I could see how it might be somewhat more critical with a band mill that takes a smaller kerf and maybe leaves a smoother face, but the surface from a chain generally isn't a thing of beauty anyway.
Ha Ha ,and you thought rollers would make things easier when you have to take your hand off the mill or stop completely so you can clear debris out of the way.
Just run a square edge like on the Alaskan and push crap out of the way while staying in control . The sawchain can only cut so fast anyway.
I like precision, right down to 1/32"-1/16" straight edge tolerance with my rip cuts ;)
 
Laugh at experience, so screw you, Willard, being a dickhead to want to argue. I was giving Deva some shared knowledge, so you want to throw in your two cents and hassle about it?

You don't have to stop milling to lift the occasional piece of debris off of the top of the log. I usually mill with one hand on the handle throttle, and the other on a wooden handle attached above the rollers, which also can reach down if debris has shown up. How much milling have you done Willard, to be so irrefutable in telling people what they should know? You would probably be one of the few to be so adamant. There are variables depending on mill types and set ups, but I have used both types of mills extensively over many years, and my experience tells that with wider and heavier mills, the roller type is an easier operation for one person, is all I'm saying. As I said before, dust isn't a problem and minimally affects thickness, if at all, and I can guarantee that I have a hell of a lot of more experience with dimensioned lumber than you do, my friend, what satisfies the needs of the woodworker and what doesn't. 1/16" is a crude dimension, but I will grant that with wood that is probably going to warp a bit in the least, it may satisfy your requirements. Talk to me about wood tolerances, forty years in the game and with different scaled rulers from three different countries. :lol:
 
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