Well I'm here in Big Sur milling my redwood. Today is 1/6. Tree is about 46-50" in diameter. Hard to tell from pictures, but the lower section is completely burned out. The good section will yield two 9' sections. The 10' wide "road" is a pretty steep grade requiring backing up in 4 low which was entertaining. Then backing up next to the tree I had a couple inches to spare. I cut the good section free, pulled it into alignment with the trailer then used a POS harbor freight boat winch to pull the slabs in (the gears dont mesh when under a full tension
). Took me about 6 hours to get the section free, debark the top half and then some, and get the rails aligned. This is the first time I have used progressive raker depth, and dont tell BobL, but it appears he may have been right. This is redwood which is very soft, but my setup is a dual 066 setup, and I am making full 9' cuts in under six minutes running at about 80% throttle. It was just a freak'in snow blower
! Today I got five slabs landed into trailer, expect to do quite a bit more tomorrow now that I got all the tree and site prep complete. A few notes about setup etc:
-The dual power head kicks a**.
-Every mill, of any meaning full size, out to have a winch.
-I really liked my method of making a gang plan from log to trailer with winch to pull in. I will also throw 1" PVC tubes underneath (the Egyptians were on to something as it turns out).
-As perhaps expected, debarking is saving the chain. I glanced at it, and after five cuts still looks and cuts great. Will touch up tomorrow.
-Being by myself, carefully thought out plans has paid off. Feel like I got a ton done and feel'n good. All my methods of cutting the main section loose to pulling into trailer (first time doing this) have all worked really well.
-I made some custom brackets to be used with 12' 4" x 2" steel tubes works very well. The tubes are heavy but very stiff/rigid and dont require support in the mid section. I screw in one end fully, screw the other end with a center screw in the middle, then run string in an X pattern. This has proven to be very accurate and I like the fact I don't need to be level, just flat.
-Tomorrow, maybe following day I will take the "caps" and cut vertical with a homemade vertical mill attachment. More on that later.