My question to you guys is are there any of you here that have done any free-hand milling, is it safe and do you have any pointers?
I did quite a bit of free hand milling and it eventually led to the CSM disease.
There was a guy who built a 2 story house out of free-hand milled lumber. He wrote it up in Mother Earth News and eventually published a book, though I can't remember the title. Something along the lines of "How to Build a House for $10,000." He even made his flooring and decking out of hand milled lumber and it looked pretty good. AND his leg was in a cast while he was milling the wood and erecting the house, including the roof. Tuff old dude.
Anyway, he inspired me to try free hand milling.
His technique was to prop the log off the ground, snap a chalkline, then mill away.
I found that the chalkline is quickly obliterated by sawdust, so I would start out by quickly following the chalkline with the nose of the bar, just cutting a groove 1/2" or so deep. The groove served as a marker for subsequent cuts.
Mr. Freehander would cut the board in one pass, similar to a mini-mill technique except all by hand.
I found that I got better results if I used multiple passes. 1st pass shallow groove, 2nd passes a few inches deep, 3rd pass a few inches deeper, and so on.
The freehand method worked OK for making rustic beams. For a more precise finish, I planed the slabs. I made the window frames in my house like that -- freehand mill 4" thick, then plane the exposed wide side, and then edge the exposed narrow side.
Of course, if I had to do it over again, I would use a chainsaw mill and skip the planing and edging.
