Lo power milling

[Blanc]

I know not the best title to avoid making enemies around.

But seeing that another one bursted his expensive neat and clean new high power saw makes me wonder.

Why do people around here (and on most places around) advise people to buy expensive high power saws, while I (and probably some others that are milling for a while) started on small to really small ones.
I know that times changed and that now plenty of companies are making milling jigs, ripping chains... And it's great.
But who here can say they had not learnt a great share of what they now know on smaller saws.

I mean, I started milling a bit more than 11 years ago, because of an american friend whose uncle was milling trees innsomebdark corner of ohionand two felled trees I needed to got rid of. Back then we made a wooden fixed height rig and started milling with a rancher 50.

Damn it was slow, dusty dangerous and we burnt the saw in less than 10 days. Well I needed this saw so I rebuilt it, asking how I can avoid burning it again, it was better but yet I burned it a second time, tweaked it a bit more and so on. This saw felled an epicea last week.

Then I made a metal rig and bough a slightly bigger saw, paid some rents during my college years with milling money, bough bigger saws till I found my actual echo 8000. But it was a process, I learnt most of it from my mistakes, and no way I go back to smaller than 60cc's. And bigger than 80 is really not affordable in France...
I imported a granberg Alaskan, it was worth a month pay, one pole was missing and no way back then to have the missing one without paying extra shipping, so I'm still on my homemade things...

But well I learnt on small saws before going to bigger ones, learnt how to tune, fix and work with them.

Back then, no internet, no way to even hear of will maalof's book, no way to know if someone else was doing the same thing around and share advice.

Those are my considerations about how things changed, and how we probably send newbies to burn their money in big expensive saws and rigs instead of helping them learning how to do things.

Tonight I'm just feeling responsible for another saw death maybe...
But I guess we should put some diaclamers on our threads...

 

[Venomvpr900]

High power big saws do not have to be expensive. I got into CAD not that long ago and I have made it a good hobby! I was on the look out for a saw for milling and got a call one day about a 075 that was rough but cheap, I grabbed it up quick. It was really rough, I did a complete rebuild on it and with a little help from this site I have a saw that runs great and I just installed an Alaskan on it to see what happens. I have very little invested compared to the output this thing has. Can't wait to put this in the big red oak I have picked out!
From this


To this

 

[BobL]

You'll get no argument from me about the merits of small saws and like Vernon says big saws do not need to be expensive.

I started on a well used 1972 Mac 10 with a 16" bar on a home made mill - well all my mills are home made.


That saw dropped its little end on about the third small log I cut up.

Then I used an all plastic Homelite for a while (here it is on a super hard piece of desert gum) hence all the fine dust

before coming across a well priced 15 year old 760 in the newspaper.

I still use a 441 with a 25" bar in the first mill I made and have since modified as much as I do my bigger saws. I would not recommend purchasing a new saw for milling anyway and to folks that ask me I recommend starting with a used saw. I was very fortunate to find my 6 month old never used 880 and lightly use 441 at half their RRP otherwise I would have been looking around for used saws.


I think the issue is more of some newbies expecting to be able to mill big logs by putting longer bars on small saws. With some effort even this is possible but the risk of saw damage rises considerably.

 

[betterbuilt]

I totally agree and disagree. Milling with a used saw can be beneficial. I started with a 066 then moved up to the 076 super. They both milled 100's of logs. The breakdowns were pretty frequent. It always seemed like I was waiting for a $10 part to be delivered. I learned how to tear a saw apart and put it back together. That is invaluable.

I will say I've had less break downs with my new 880. Some of that is because I've learned what to listen for when running a saw. You can tell when a saw is running lean, but it takes a while to learn what that sounds like. I had a hard time trying to figure out what that sounded like because i'm kinda hard of hearing. That being said if I had to do it all over again I wouldn't change a thing. Some of the best lessons learned, are learning them the hard way.

Cheers

 

[Jim Timber]

Newer saws are more fuel efficient, lighter weight, turn faster, and more powerful. Sadly, they're also choked up out of the box, tuned too lean, and need some help from the end user to ensure a long life.

I certainly appreciate the opinion that you shouldn't go out and drop $2K on a new 3120 and slap it on the biggest log you can find, I even whole heartedly agree with that being a horrible idea. However, having a newer power head that's big enough for milling the desired species and sizes of wood is a better investment in your time than burning up older saws and waiting on repair parts. I'm 3 days from repair parts when I'm up in the woods. Not that it's a long trek into town, but that it takes time to get things there even if they're locally stocked in the warehouses (which are 100 miles away from my "local" dealers). If you're keeping a 30 year old saw alive, it might take you 3 days to find the parts available to buy - and that's days you're dead in the water. We have 4 months of good weather and 3 of those are bug infested hell on earth, I don't want to spend half a week waiting for parts, because that means I'm out a week's milling time, or possibly a month if I can't coordinate the time to get up there.

So if you value your time, there's something to be said for investing in more capable gear. Being a total saw noob and setting out to mill giant slabs is a recipe for disaster too. I see milling as a step beyond being able to tune a saw in the cut (I always run mine a bit fat, just because it's easier on them), and knowing how to sharpen chains, and being able to feel when the saw is struggling under load. Jumping in head first without knowing how to really run a saw is going to be expensive regardless of how much you paid for the PH.

For me, a larger saw was an obvious choice since it carries over into being better able to cut my larger trees. I was also concerned about putting the heavy load of milling on a saw that wasn't ideally suited for it. I'm far more comfortable moving forward with the larger cubes.

 

[rarefish383]

I've posted this story before, but here it is again. Our Boy Scouts have a 99 year lease on a 40 acre wood lot. The owners, who had the timber rights, logged it. We were cleaning up tops and making camp sights for each "Patrol". The boys were rolling logs around camp fires to sit on. I had my little Echo 305 with 14 inch bar. I had recently put a crate of junk on my truck, from my Dad's barn. In the crate was an old bolt to the bar swivel type "mini mill". One of the boys found a 2X4 and we were in business. I milled a Black Locust log in half and made a real bench. The boys thought that was the slickest thing they ever saw. That was about 15 years ago and the Troop still has the bench. They moved it from up in the woods down to the cabin. So, yes I have milled stuff with a little saw. I have also free handed benches out of pine logs with my 290 Farm Boss just so I wouldn't have to haul the logs away. The customers were tickled, and I was happy. These are kind one off, novelty projects, just for laughs. I wouldn't say I "set out" to mill with little saws, but I have done it, Joe.

 

[ZachAK]

This is a good thread, and brings up a good philosophy about anything mechanical or building: start simple.

I started my construction business 12 years ago with a business license and a small amount of power and hand tools I already owned. I kept taking on bigger jobs and buying more tools, then insurance and bonding, a general contractor license, more tools, a bigger truck, and some decent size jobs.

On the milling front, for years I free hand milled one and two sides of many trees worth of logs for trailwork on my 360 and 361. Then recently I got a pain-in-the-arse big-bore ported 660. The 660 took a heck of long time to so much as start, then tune. But as Betterbuilt said, it taught me a lot.

Last week I was milling on the beach with the sun setting and an incoming tide. The pull broke on my 660, so I unbolted it and swapped out to a 360 powerhead on the same 28" bar. It was slower, but surprisingly fast. I milled the last 15 feet, and called it a night after lugging slabs up the beach.

I doubt my 360 would like a 36" bar, which brings up a good point about small saws: Use the smallest possible bar for your the log.