milling thread

[Nutball]

No, I think it was mostly regular chipper chain, but the guy isn't all that good at hand filing so he told me, and as I could see. I definitely would have filed it differently, lower depth gauges, but considering the rpm and hard wood, it cut at a decent rate. I can't remember the chain pitch. It might have been 1/2".

 

[Dave Shepard]

I just scored these three sycamore logs. Now I just have to get them home. And figure out how to quarter them. The one on top is the size of my Golf, and three tines as heavy.

 

[lxskllr]

What's sycamore good for?

 

[Dave Shepard]

 

[lxskllr]

I like the look of that cedar log. You should see if they'll throw that in as a bonus ;^)

 

[stig]

Quartersawn, it is known as lacewood.
The picture tells you why.
Excellent for turning big platters where you get the figuring in the bottom.

 

[Dave Shepard]

Sawing some stuff for a new home build. An arborist who wants to feature a variety of locally salvaged materials. A nice but short butt log that made some nice boards for paneling or flooring. Some bookmatched brace stock from a log I had in the firewood pile.

 

[SeanKroll]

Cool! Happy you're getting some milling in!

 

[Dave Shepard]

A little bit. Waiting on the ash guy. Usually very responsive, but no return call from yesterday.

 

[Dave Shepard]

This may not look like a giant chainsaw slabbing mill, but it's in there.

 

[friedrich]

i‘m following along!

 

[Dave Shepard]

I wasn't sure if this should go in milling or timber framing, so I'll put the timbers here, and the finished project in timber framing. I've got to make a timber framed, hand hewn, entryway into a vendor booth for the forest products expo in Vermont for next week. First TF in a long time.

 

[SeanKroll]

Sounds like a good project!

 

[stikine]

Wonderful looking timbers.

 

[friedrich]

are you hewing the milled surface off?

 

[Dave Shepard]

Yes.

 

[SeanKroll]

Thought I would bring this thread back into the limelight.

Nailing boards or setting up slabbing rails to the top of logs to get that first cut with the Alaskan mill just really isn't for me. It can get to be a little on the frustrating side unless you have alot of time on your hands. I made this set-up a while back that for me works out a little easier especially for the smaller stuff.

I don't exactly what to call this other than some kind of adjustable saw guide. Kind of reminds me of those stocks they used back in colonial times to shame people who had committed petty crimes

Anyway, this is adjustable by adding or subtracting 2x4's or 2x6's. I also made it to mill small logs because I also got the mini Alakan mill works great for that attachment and possibly do some eging with the Beam machine attachment I've had for a long time.

It works out good for what I have been using for but like all things it has it's pro's and con's. It was also easy for me to make and not all that expensive. I can do longer logs if need be by pushing one of those stands back on the 4x4's that are under it.

Here are some pic's showing different ways I have been using it to mill large pieces ,slabs, and a few pieces I wanted to fix that didn't come out good when I tried to freehand them with just a saw.

I've been tumbling this idea around in my head. Wondering if there is a simpler and/ or more portable set up that comes to anyone's mind that works similarly.

 

[Tree09]

I would build it with.... pipe (i know that's surprising lol). There's a few different sizes that fit inside one another pretty good (depending on how stout you need it), and you can have short sleeves that the other pipe fits into lining it up. You drill, torch, etc a hole in the sleeve and weld a nut over the hole, and a bolt tightens against the inner pipe which locks it in place. So you could assemble the end pieces, and then have the lengthwise pieces do the same, and could be adjusted up and down on the uprights to whatever you wanted. If you really wanted to be fancy you could put an extra sleeve under the ones that go lengthwise, so you could set them all at a certain length so it would speed up adjustments, basically using it as a stop. If you want i could even draw you up something if you wanted lol, but here's a crappy picture i attempted to edit showing how you can adjust them. These pipes obviously don't fit together well, this was a cobble it together in 2 min or less kinda thing, you would want 2 pipe sizes that fit better but for what i needed it worked great (I've since made a better one). The top right was supposed to say bolt with pipe handle, so that way i didn't need a wrench to adjust. Although simple, these work pretty well, and the pipe will be straight and can be replaced if they get bent. If you need the wood lengthwise pieces for some reason you could use joist hangers and still use the pipe frame. You could also build it so you sink it in the ground to stabilize it if that would be preferred, or have flanges on it to screw to a skid or something (a cookie cut on the fly even to act as a base).

 

[Tree09]

Since it's square you might want some cross braces, either rope, chain or wire with a turnbuckle for tightening and adjustment, or maybe even just a bolt together rigid one, i don't know how critical all that is for being perfectly square. With a turnbuckle you could make it dead on, but you might not even need to, dunno until you build it.

 

[Dave Shepard]

Milling. I don't get going as early as I'd like, but I go until dark once I do get it together. I'm really happy to be back at my mill.

 

[SeanKroll]

It's more about the hours put in, that the time started, for sure.

 

[Dave Shepard]

First load headed to the timber frame shop.

 

[Burnham]

Looks fine. Got mud?

 

[Dave Shepard]

Got a good rain this afternoon, just long enough to go somewhere and grab lunch. It's all gravel, just a lot of fines that make it muddy for a few minutes.

 

[Nutball]

Eventually gravel gets either broken down into muddy fines, or it sinks below the mud, and you get stuck. I had the chip trucks dump on some land I knew had a gravel path, but they got stuck because the gravel had sunk 2-3" below the surface.