Practice BSM milling

[BobL]

Finally managed to suss out the new blades and can sort of finally cut straight with them.

I used this Jarrah to fine tune all the angles on the mill.
I chose this log because even though it looks nice enough in this shot it is not really worth milling.


The wood itself is patchy with a fair bit of pukey areas and there are some big cracks running through it.




I bought our Border Collie pups with me and in this shot you can see one waiting for me to kick the football so she can chase it. The ball is partially flat so she can grab it with her mouth. Sometimes eh dumps balls right under my feet as I'm pushing the mill along.
This shot also shows the colour of the sawdust - pity about the pukey bits.
Most of it will probably end up going through the chipper


The log is also riddled with longhorn beetle larvae - indigenous Aussies eat these roasted over coats, they ares supposed to taste like peanut butter.

 

[CR888]

That rugby ball the dogs chewing on is a Gilbert!! Wood looks nice Bob, that jarrah really has some colour. l never thought it would happen but it has. Bob has jumped the fence and now uses a BSM. I think the BIL mill and other csm's of Bob's will not see the use they once did. Darn band mill, its fast, less noise, easier on the body, efficient, no bar oil, less sharpening, less chips in your eyes. Although not all wood is easy to get to band mill so hold on to the csm's! I'm happy for you Bob it looks like a lot of fun and you ave tidied up the band mill well and made the most of it.

 

[BobL]

That rugby ball the dogs chewing on is a Gilbert!!

One of the younger tree looping blokes won it in a competition and has been thrown and kicked around the yard for a good while.

Wood looks nice Bob, that jarrah really has some colour.

Yeah - even when it's pukey it still has some colour

l never thought it would happen but it has. Bob has jumped the fence and now uses a BSM. I think the BIL mill and other csm's of Bob's will not see the use they once did. Darn band mill, its fast, less noise, easier on the body, efficient, no bar oil, less sharpening, less chips in your eyes. Although not all wood is easy to get to band mill so hold on to the csm's! I'm happy for you Bob it looks like a lot of fun and you ave tidied up the band mill well and made the most of it.

Not quite - unlike most others who once they make the jump never look back I'm still very interested in CSM'ing and will still have to use the CSM from time to time. This BS has a max cut of 35" and some of the logs in the yard are up to 50" wide. So I will be slabbing some of these and breaking up others with the CSM so I can get them onto the BSM. A few logs are also too long for the BSM (max length cut is about 14') so I may CSM those instead. It depends what the cutting lists say.

BTW I am still an absolute novice with the BSM. I cannot always get it as straight or as good a finish with the BSM as I can with the CSM.

 

[BobL]

One of the blokes from the Community Mens Shed I am involved with wanted some "rustic" lumber to make some planter boxes.
This guy is 85 years old and as sharp as they come.
I said I would have a look amongst my offcuts but most of the offcuts are of variable thickness so I milled up a 4ft long Spotted gum specific to his needs.
The boards are just over 3/4" (20mm thick) and one is 1.5" thick so he can cut some framing material out of it.

The milling took me about 40 minutes, but setting up the mill, the log, and the afterwards, washing it down and putting it to bed , etc etc took about an hour and a half so just over two hours for this job.
I won't get the full rate for this job but I was doing it more to help him out.


Finish is improving as I get a bit smoother with the mill.