chainsaw mill

so this page is going to be about my adventures with milling wood.  it's a pretty cool thing to whip up some sweet boards, or at least i think it is.  here is it...

I have a limited budget, otherwise i'd have the pimpest band saw mill or something.  so that's why i ended up with a bean machine.  it was about $50 and the most basic of basic.

It's gone and going through some versions to help make it better.

The basic concept is a piece of channel steel that slides over a 2x4.  it clamps to the bar and the saw pivots a bit and runs vertically.  most mills position the saw horizontally.

most simple: screw the board to the log.

Genesis 1:1  In the beginning we just screwed a 2x4 onto the log we wanted to make some boards out of.  it was pretty steady and as straight as the board was. 

It worked pretty well.  for multiple boards from 1 log we would make the long cuts, keeping the boards together at the ends.  the last step was to separate the boards by cutting the ends of the logs off.

Kris making multiple boards.

The finished product wasn't too bad.  the problems were that it was difficult to get a uniform thickness of board and that it was hard to mount the flat 2x4 flush on a round log and still keep the cuts parallel.

taa-daa

we also started squaring the boards on all sides.  the setup is cut one side flat, then rotate the log and mount the 2x4 onto the newly created flat side.  do this 4 times and you have a beam that should be square.  it's not bad.

cutting the 2nd flat side.

One problem that kept coming up was supporting the log off the ground so the chain wasn't cutting into the dirt.  we tried a bunch of things, usually giving the 2x4 some overhang and hanging it off a cross tree, like in the picture of patrick below.

and the last squaring.  finished with a 10 foot 6x6 cedar post.

Once we kinda got the hang of how the thing works, it was time to start a bit of mill modification.  The biggest problem was the moving of the 2x4 after every cut.  It really limited the accuracy of the cut and the number of boards we could get.

here are some of the boards.  some are squared off and planed on a 6" jointer.  the cedar warps and cracks a bit so i have to avoid thinner cuts of those.  I was limited to the size of wood by the fact that my jointer is only 6 inches.  so some of the wider pieces are live edge and still rough cut.

Version 2.  This was a very short loved version.  i think i used it once.  But the concept proved itself well.  I never took any pictures using it because i was so anxious to make some improvements.  I did however, find it in my backyard covered in snow, i mocked it up with a random log.  the real one would be way longer, but you get the idea.  these were screwed into the ends of each log.

 The idea is that with one of these on each end, and a long 2x4 with some bolts through it could be positioned in 1` inch increments.

the beam machine still runs on a 2x4, but now it is above the log and adjustable.  the rail is about 8 feet long, so way longer than most of the boards i was cutting.  it was also covered in snow, but you can see the 2 bolts that you drop through the holes.

now i could easily move it side to side, but i still had to drill new holes for every log length.

4 of the holes for log lengths.

I pretty much just cut the logs random lengths, so i usually had to re-drill a new hole for every log.  also, and this was the next big problem to conquor, was how to stabilize the whole thing.

Version 3 was in the works the next day.

This is when things got different.  see...

the t-end things from version 2 2x10 cradles with a notch out of them to hold the log steady, and the idea of the holes in the top plate to make the beam side to side adjustable is redone.  instead of having the holes 1 inch apart, i put them 1/4 of an inch apart in a staggered pattern.

I knew i'd have to add about 1/4 for each for blade thickness, but with 1/4 adjustments, give and take a bit for air speed and wobble, i could get pretty close.

It gave me way more adjustablity and allowed me to move the beam across in 1/4 increments.  turns out, thats way more than i needed.  next time, 1/2".

with one of these on each side and the 2x4 from version 2 across it in the same way, it was pretty awesome.

One problem i now had was that the beam was way too high off the log.  in the picture it's extra bad because i removed some lift block i have to use for smaller logs before i took the picture.

The whole thing is way more steady.  i use ratchet straps around the whole thing to keep the logs in place.  make sure straps are in control when sawing around them obviously.

here is some wood made from that machine.

some end cut on one or both edges.

Those 3 are squared off on one side or both for a project i'm working on.  they've all gone through my recently acquired delta 13" planer.

The thicker ones of those are still rough cut off the chainsaw, some of the thinner (2" or less" have had a few passes through the planer.

between 3.5 and 5 feet tall

At first i was just making random with boards.  i realized that i'm more likely to use thinner boards first, so mostly i'll make 2" or so.  rough cut that planes down to about 1"1/2ish.

The whole thing with the 2 ends and the beam gets a bit awkward, so i do lots of cutting at home.  it's not bad to put in the back of the truck and do it in the bush though.

in the next issue...

can ryan defeat the problem of limited height adjustment?  will so many adjustment holes be necessary on the top?  is there some way to not have to drill a new hole for every log? just some ideas to mess with.