First time I milled anything

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BigRed96

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Well, it took a while but my knee has finally healed enough that I could try milling. First thing I did was purchase a 24" Stihl Full Chisel chain. I filed the cutters to 10 degrees and used my Stihl gauge to lower the rakers down after the refile. I used my MS660 and it ran great and pulled the 24" chain with no problems. I was very happy with the cutting speed as well. Because of a issue with my homemade beam machine I used the Alaskan Small Chainsaw mill to do all the cuts. Anyway I ended up choosing Cherry as I thought it would be the easiest to start with since it was the smallest log. I learned a lot and had my Father and Brother helping me and we all three had a blast. We ended up running the finest product through a planer and it turned out awesome. It is just shy of being a 6"x6". I rough cut it to around 6 feet and will finish cut the ends with my mitre saw. Anyway I post a couple of picks. Please tell me what you think. BTW...I am the one wearing the brown hooded sweatshirt in case you where wondering.



 
Looks great what are you building? Glad you guys are having a good time learning and milling!!!

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You might want to see how that piece of wood survives the drying process before making anything out of it.
 
Like TPA said let that dry and see what it looks like and go from there

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Looks nice, and in pic 3, its looking pretty smooth! (I guess that's after the planer)

I also have a Alaskan Small mill and after a few cuts I realized that the single clamp point on the bar made it feel unstable, and in a widths more than 10" I was getting some variance in thickness from one edge to the other. Also, I heard that the single clamp puts enough strain on the mill that the welds can crack. So I got a length of angle iron , some nuts, and a u-clamp and fashioned it into a double-end supported mill (like any of the bigger Alaskans). I took off the clear plastic guard, and with the angle iron, I made one cross-member and one vertical support connected by adjustable U-clamp. It was pretty easy to do, and on my 20" bar it fit perfectly. (I also got a piece of round pipe that would fit in to make the additional horizontal cross-member on the mill). And instead of making it clamp on the bar, I welded an extra-long threaded nut to the bottom of the vertical piece and then drilled a hole through the bar (actually, right through the tip sprocket) and then just bolted them directly together. It makes the mill way way more stable and it cuts evenly (though it does limit width of log to about 16", but it can be removed if I do ever want to go wider). I'll try to post a pic when I get a chance so you can see what I mean. All together it cost less than $10.

And particularly if you have a knee problem, you should get the log higher off the ground! That log could have easily been picked up by the three of you, and judging from the assortment of stuff in the background, there must be something you could put it on so as to cut at waist level. Better for the knees and the back!
 
I plan on making a mantle out of it. Now the problem I have is I want to mill some more but do t really have anything to build.
I mill with general ideas for a piece or two out of 12 bits that are 1 5/16" thick .A breakfast table or two maybe. I have a year for air dry to be close to done. In that time more ideas or people wanting to buy a piece. I sold one green just cut within previous hour to a youing guy who had his own idea!
 
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