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gr8scott72

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Well, I did it. Today I put in an order with Bailey's for a Chainsaw Mill. Got the 30" Alaskan. Also ordered a 60" bar for my 394xp for a project I have coming up.

It's actually a pretty cool story.

This guy gets ahold of me because someone told him I have a big chainsaw. (394) This guy wants to make tables out of an old red oak that fell in the Greenwood cemetary in downtown Jackson MS. It's probably about 200 years old, the tree that is, and the cemetary is about the same. He is opening a restaurant also in downtown Jackson MS and is all about the history of Jackson.

Anyways, he had already contacted the city cemetary manager and told him that we would get rid of the wood for him.

Oh, this is a 5' diameter red oak that had 1 piece that was still over 12' long. It blew over in a large storm a while back. Even made the news.

So, the manager is glad that someone actually wants it and said it was ours.

The restaurant owner got me the money to order the chainsaw mill and other equipment that I didn't have. (Gave me a check for $1,000 and I get to keep the equipment when done but have to slab up the wood for him. Someone else will actually be making the tables from the slabs.) I ordered some stuff that next night from Bailey's.

He calls me that next morning and asked, frantically, if I had already ordered anything. I said that I had and asked why he was asking.

He said that the city had hauled off the log.

Apparently, one of the local news stations ran a story about how run down the cemetary had gotten and that it even had dead trees just laying there. Guess that was too much pressure for the cemetary manager and he went ahead and got rid of it. Maybe a call from the mayor?

I called and canceled the order and the restaurant guy said he was going to go look in the dump that next afternoon. He called me back and said that he thought that he had found them. I went and looked at them the next morning and told him that it was indeed the log although now it was only 6' long.

I took 3 of the 5 pieces home that day with a little help from this:

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I went back the next day and picked up the other 2 pieces in my dump trailer.

Now today, I reordered the stuff from Bailey's as I'm very sure nobody is going to be moving those logs out of my front yard.

The guy is going to try to get the news crew to come film me milling some of it so they can do a follow up story about how the big historic tree was saved from the city dump.

More to come as I get busy.
 
I went and looked at them the next morning and told him that it was indeed the log although now it was only 6' long.

Dang! Dontcha just hate it when the do that.

Last year a fella rings me up, "I have a 48" log here you can have", "Great" I reply " . . but I better come have a look at it first". Turns out it was only 4' long!!!!
 
Nice score, Scott. I'm way jealous.

Your restaurant buddy does understand that the milled boards will have to dry before they can be made into tables ? Meanwhile, slap some sealer on those log ends.

Welcome to the elite milling club.:clap:

I'm looking forward to receiving my widescreen monitor so I can read these posts with imbedded 1024 pixel images without scrolling each and every line of text. :deadhorse:
 
Nice score, Scott. I'm way jealous.

Your restaurant buddy does understand that the milled boards will have to dry before they can be made into tables ? Meanwhile, slap some sealer on those log ends.

The inverstor that he has, has a friend with a kiln to help speed things up.

Welcome to the elite milling club.:clap:

Thanks, very excited. I already have some other very sweet looking red oak logs ready to be milled. I was able to get one log that was 8.5'. The rest had to be chunked down pretty small as there wasn't much room between the shed, fence, and the other shed on that job. They are still between 3' and 4'.

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I'm looking forward to receiving my widescreen monitor so I can read these posts with imbedded 1024 pixel images without scrolling each and every line of text. :deadhorse:

lol

24" widescreen here.

Do you have a mouse scroll wheel? If so, you can hold Ctrl and roll the wheel down and it resizes the whole IE screen smaller. Shows the percentage in the lower right corner.

Edit: I guess you can just click the pull down menu if you don't have a scroll wheel.
 
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The 30" MKIII will allow you to cut up to 29" wide at the max. Rails are available seperately, so you can get the longer ones when you discover that the 30" wasn't quite enough for the bigger logs. You'll need a bar 4"-6"longer than the nominal mill width.

I've cut some white oak and red elm up to 30" wide, and was limited by the 36" bar I have for my 36" MKIII. Truthfully, the 36" MKIII is about as large as I would want to use by myself.

A Granberg Mini Mill will make your task easier. Make a top cut with the Alaskan, then square the sides with the Mini Mill down to a manageable width without having to roll the log. This also eliminates bark, knots, and other obstacles.

I have some walnut to do here in the near future, and the butt log was 32"x42" across the stump when I cut it down. It'll take some judicious cuts with the Alaskan and Mini Mill prior to putting the pieces on the bandmill.

Don't forget to retune that 394 (richer and more oil) so as to not sieze when milling.
 
You needed to order the 36" mill with a 42" bar. Other than that, have at it. One the pieces are dry, they can put two together to make tabletops if they want wider.

Aggiewoodbutcher has a great post on how to do butterflies should they be interested.

A lot of CSM info on this site and plenty of guys to help

Mark
 
You needed to order the 36" mill with a 42" bar. Other than that, have at it. One the pieces are dry, they can put two together to make tabletops if they want wider.

Aggiewoodbutcher has a great post on how to do butterflies should they be interested.

A lot of CSM info on this site and plenty of guys to help

Mark

I ordered the 30" because I have a 32" bar for my 394 already. I plan on getting longer rails to be able to use the 60" bar I ordered.
 
The 30" MKIII will allow you to cut up to 29" wide at the max. Rails are available seperately, so you can get the longer ones when you discover that the 30" wasn't quite enough for the bigger logs. You'll need a bar 4"-6"longer than the nominal mill width.

I've cut some white oak and red elm up to 30" wide, and was limited by the 36" bar I have for my 36" MKIII. Truthfully, the 36" MKIII is about as large as I would want to use by myself.

A Granberg Mini Mill will make your task easier. Make a top cut with the Alaskan, then square the sides with the Mini Mill down to a manageable width without having to roll the log. This also eliminates bark, knots, and other obstacles.

I have some walnut to do here in the near future, and the butt log was 32"x42" across the stump when I cut it down. It'll take some judicious cuts with the Alaskan and Mini Mill prior to putting the pieces on the bandmill.

Don't forget to retune that 394 (richer and more oil) so as to not sieze when milling.

I ordered the mini mill at the same time.

Order was $844.94!!!
 
Well, I got my stuff in Friday. Got to play around with it for awhile on Saturday before the rain got here. I then set up under the carport which was a good thing as it's been raining here alot recently. (Raining while I type.) Another good thing about the carport is being able to run a fan and keep those fumes off of me. I might have to change mix. That Stihl Ultra is good stuff but it will flat out choke you.

I ran about 1 gallon of mix thru the 394 on Saturday.

I didn't take any pictures as all I've done so far is slab a couple of the smaller red oak pieces that I had. I also don't have the long rails for the mill yet. I looked all over town and nobody had it, could order it, or knew where to get it. I finally just called Bailey's up and asked if they sold the rain seperatly. They do. Didn't like the price but oh well. $80 later, 56" rails are on the way.

I also just reordered some 105 drive link ripping chain. I ordered some the first time but mistakenly ordered for my 20" bar (72 drive links) instead of my 32" bar.

(Anybody need a couple of 72 drive link loops of ripping chain?)

All the stuff I did today and on Saturday was with some Stihl RSC full comp chain on the 32" bar as both pieces were too big for the 20" bar without taking the dawgs off my saw which I don't really want to do right now.

I used almost another gallon of mix today.

Oh, I got my 5 gallons of end sealer yesterday from Bailey's and plan on coating all the pieces I have in the morning. (Weather permitting.)

Gonna keep practicing with the small pieces untill the longer rails get here which will probably be Monday.

Can't wait to mount up that pretty new Woodsman Pro 60" bar and start slabbing up these huge pieces.

I'll try to get some pictures tomorrow as it is always more fun to read about if there's pretty pictures to go along with it.
 
That Stihl Ultra is good stuff but it will flat out choke you.

Not like I want to get into a one-upping thing or whatever - but I promise it's a lot less nasty than castor fumes. A lot of time I'll wear a respirator to keep from having to breathe that crap.

Glad to see another guy just going for it. :clap:
 
Any chainsaw mill that has a forward/RHS pointing exhaust is not very user friendly.

In this picture you can see the standard forward facing exhaust (black) causes bounce back of the exhaust from the top of the log towards the operator or the operators legs. Because I lean on the wrap handle with my legs I find using a forward exhausted saw makes my chaps go all greasy and I also get a headache

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Exhausts that face away from the log and operator (eg the grey exhaust) are far friendlier to use especially if the operator can get the wind behind them. This is one of the benefits of the older style saws like the 076. Newer saws like the 660/880 really benefit from a good muffler mod that do this as well.
 
Several of the things in my life that are very hard work are very fun to me.

I'm tired.

I took a week of vacation last week. I spent the whole week with a chainsaw in my hand running ahead of an 850G dozer while we were building roads thru our timberland. That was my week of vacation. It was FUN! (Everyone here is kinda crazy you know. Everyone.:hmm3grin2orange:)

Scott
 
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