Hard lessons learned by a newb chainsaw miller...

[JohnWayne]

Well, I'm a complete noob when it comes to milling and the associated equipment. But, I have learned fast! The milling 101 sticky was a great help to start. I originally started by riving some walnut logs by hand that I bought. It follows suit with my tendency to perform all of my woodworking by hand. Then I got several logs offered to me for free, sooo... I needed a slightly more efficient way to break down the logs. Chainsaw it was, and it's been a learning experience ever since.

1) You never have enough wedges.... I made over 30 and have lost/broken about half of them in the saw dust.
2) DO NOT over tighten your u-bolts, cast metal will brittle fracture fairly easily...
3) DO NOT see-saw your way out of the end of the cut... it gets ugly.
4) all in in all, it's hard work, but it can be very rewarding.

 

[IanB22]

It's a great thing to make your own slabs. Where is the riven walnut! Would love to see how that stuff came out?

 

[BobL]

3) DO NOT see-saw your way out of the end of the cut... it gets ugly.

I wouldn't recommend see-sawing at any stage of a CSM cut. The mill/bar/chain only need to have a small amount of play and see-sawing will generate a series of diagonal ridges all the way down the log.
The best finish is obtained by not changing the angle of the bar to the centre line of the log all the way down the log. I know see-sawing appears faster but the few times I time this and compared it to straight cutting made no difference.

BTW if well space log rails and enough wedges are used then the sort of thing you observed with a seesaw exit will be nowhere near as bad.
I do sometimes exit a log at a a slight angle so I can see the B&C clearly coming out of the cut.

 

[JohnWayne]

BobL I read a lot of your info in the milling 101 sticky, you really helped me get started a lot better than I would've without it. I manage to hold a fairly consistent angle on the bar through the cut, it was always just the exiting that I had trouble with. I wanted to maximize the surface area of contact (mill to log) to keep the cut consistent, but that obviously had the opposite effect. I now resist the urge to see-saw out of the cut. I now just bear down more on the back rail of the granberg after the front rail clears. When the B&C clear the cut I just lift it right out of the end of the log. Seems to work a lot better than what I was doing before.
I'll get a few pictures of the walnut up in the next few days.
Thanks for the friendly words guys!

 

[Dave Boyt]

You for got lesson #5-- A chain saw mill leads to more chain saws, longer bars, and more stacks of lumber. You won't stay a newb for long!

 

[mad murdock]

good job JW!!. If your free log supply continues to grow, you will soon be looking to upgrade the CSM, the addiction continues

 

[JohnWayne]

Here's some pictures of the walnut I split out by hand. The small pieces were split out with a fro and wedge, then cleaned up a little with a drawknife. Those will be used sometime late next year for leg parts for a coffee table. The large chunks are the quartered pieces of the logs I have yet to break down and there is also a picture of one piece of log I haven't started on yet. The Crotch pieces I've started planing down some to flatten them out. There was a bit of twist to the grain and of course it very interlocked around the crotch section so I've got some work to do to clean it up.