First time milling

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Woodslasher

Make McCulloch Great Again!
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(I wrote this Thursday but never posted it.) I was recently shoved into the world of cs milling, going from having most of the material floating around to churning out beams in 4 days but only 8-10 hours of prep time. It started mid Tuesday afternoon when I was told, "Hey, so-and-so might want you to mill out a few beams for him soon." "Ok." Two minutes later I get a call, "Hey, so-and-so would like you to mill a few beams for him in the next day or two." So, after going into town for a few hours, I get back, drag out my mill, get a well-used bar I don't mind drilling up, grabbed 5 rocked chains, and took them all down to the shop before I went out and bought a chain grinder off of a buddy. I built a base for the grinder and trashed a handful of bits trying to drill holes in the bar before calling it a night at 12:20 a.m. Then, I get a text saying I'm going to work tomorrow (I don't work full-time yet). So, off to work I go! While my day went quite poorly someone else picked up a grinding wheel and a carbide bit for me. Once I got back I ground the chains to a milling profile (thanks for the tips thread @BobL ! It saved my bacon!) and drilled out the bar to fit on the mill, finishing at 11:30 p.m. Today, I got to the job, mounted the 395 on the mill, and proceeded to "fake it till you make it". I watched/helped a friend mill once before so I wasn't clueless, but there is still a learning curve. Anyways, it went pretty well till I lost the guy on the helper handle and had to mill the last two cuts solo. All in all, it went pretty well, I found my lost scrench, and nobody got hurt so I'll count it as a success.
Day 2 (Friday): The guy I'm doing the milling for/with made a rail system for the mill last night, so things went way faster today. Plus, he took the pictures today so they'll actually look good! The rails enabled us to get as much done in 2.5 hours as we accomplished in all of yesterday. We finished up the beams and even had time to mill him up a bathroom countertop. I'll try to post up the vids he sent me tomorrow, but I'll be running around like a chicken with my head cut off for the next few days.
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I'd say you've done pretty well for your first time. :rock:

Couple of tips.
- See if you can get those logs up on a slope - even a slight slope means much less pushing required.
- Use "log rails" at least 18" longer than the logs - that way way you can perch the mill on the rails to start the saw and enter the cut dead straight. AT the end of the cut you can leave the saw on the rails to cool off before stopping.
- Cutting beams means having the power head much closer to the ground than usual, so more bending over, and on mills will little or no structure above the mill there's little to nothing to hang onto to much with To reduce bending over, a remote throttle really helps. Better still a lockable remote throttle. More handles higher up on the mill also really helps
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I'd say you've done pretty well for your first time. :rock:

Couple of tips.
- See if you can get those logs up on a slope - even a slight slope means much less pushing required.
- Use "log rails" at least 18" longer than the logs - that way way you can perch the mill on the rails to start the saw and enter the cut dead straight. AT the end of the cut you can leave the saw on the rails to cool off before stopping.
- Cutting beams means having the power head much closer to the ground than usual, so more bending over, and on mills will little or no structure above the mill there's little to nothing to hang onto to much with To reduce bending over, a remote throttle really helps. Better still a lockable remote throttle. More handles higher up on the mill also really helps
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I appreciate the tips, the slope idea was something I hadn't even considered. The rails were about a foot oversized, but having them even longer would have been nice. On the "close to the ground" bit, I wished I had a half-wrap a few times but kneeling to run the throttle didn't catch up with me till this morning. The mill had a handle on the powerhead side, but the beams needed to be 14+ inches square so I had to max out my mill to make it work, which meant the cap/handle had to go. On that note, do they make a spacer to make up for the helper handle? The one side was 11/16 of an inch off because of the space the helper handle took up on the other side and it would have been nice to have a shim to even them out.
 
I just got a call from the owner of the neighboring parcel, Thursday I'll be heading back out there to mill out a 12 foot long, 4.5 x max log width board for them to make a ranch signboard out of. My 2100 will be on the mill this time, provided it hasn't come up with a fresh problem since the last time I ran it. If it has, I know of a backup saw or five....
 
Well, today sucked. My 2100 whupped the 395 with torque by a long shot and the 2100 exhaust is configured better, but the extra torque blew up my bar tip! 1 foot into the last cut and there was a metallic "pling clunk", the saw stopped, my heart skipped a few beats, and the customer jumped back about two feet. After making sure the chain was still a loop and not embedded in the customer's hand I killed the saw and asked the customer, "Any idea what just happened?". He points to the bar and says, "Looks like your chain's jammed." About the same time I saw 1/3 of my nose sprocket sticking out of my bar rails my stomach sunk. One new bar, a neighbor's mill that clamps to the bar, and 2 40-minute car trips later I was back in business. I was just going to drill mounting holes in another bar I had but the new-style Oregon tip rivet was smack in the middle of where one of my holes needed to be. Also, I didn't have the mill body with me for a reference so I chose the easy way out. A buddy is checking to see if he has a new old-style Oregon tip, if not I'll @Philbert a new sprocket assy into my old tip. But, I'm done and the customer is happy so that's all that matters.
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