Milling Best Practices

[cmontana]

I own a Granberg Small Log Mill and have milled a few small cherries (approx 12" diameter). I recently purchased a Stihl 066 Magnum / full-sized Alaskan mill and have access to larger logs(20" to 36" diameter) and was wondering if anyone could explain the 'best' procedure to mill logs like 'big end first', rotating 90 or 180, milling for grade, etc. Most of the lumber I mill will be used for personal woodworking projects, a treehouse, and some lawn furniture.

 

[Crofter]

There is a book kicking around , I believe it may be Chainsaw lumbermaking. I think it is out of print but I have seen it in different librarys and probably available used through Amazon. com. A lot of usefull info and suggestions. Hope you have bought the auxilliary oiler, It will sure save your bars and chains. You might want to consider vegatable oil to save staining your boards, and it is nice to be able to get a bit more on than what a lot of 066's seem to want to produce. On the bigger logs dedicated ripping chain may be an asset. Filter clogging is a real issue and I know my son has done some experimenting with an add on much larger air cleaner. There are some users here on As that do quite a bit of milling.

 

[woodshop]

http://www.arboristsite.com/showthread.php?t=19607#post248043

Montana if you search the site you will find several of us posting about milling lumber, pros and cons. If I did it right, the above link will take you to a recent post on the chainsaw forum that a few of us have put our 2 cents in as per milling lumber. Its not for everybody, but for some of us, its just pure fun, with the added bonus of rough lumber to boot. I mill several thousand bd ft a year with an 36" Granberg with a 36" bar and rip chain to get the logs to 14" wide cants, then do most of the actual milling with a Ripsaw handheld bandmill.

As for your questions, depends on the end result you want. If you want quartersawn stuff, you will (assuming its at least 15"dia) indeed be quartering that log first, then slice off a board, rotate 90 and slice from other face, rotate again, slice, etc etc. There are other ways to do it so you get more lumber, but that method gets you the truest quartersawn stuff.

As for big end first... up to you. If there is a lot of butt taper like in some red oaks, you will waste a bunch of wood just squaring up the cants, especially if you want long boards. Nature of the beast.

ask away

Dave

 

[Tree Machine]

Read Woodshop's post again. He knows what he's sayin.

Here's a strategy. Use the Mini mill to take off the 4 sides to create a <i>cant</i>. Stow these, seal the ends, sticker, stack and put them under cover so they can air awhile, and accumulate in number.

The strategy is this: have a milling day at your convenience, rather than having a 'small' milling day wherever a log happens to be at the moment.

Whacking off 4 sides takes some skill, but minimal setup, and can be done on the jobsite wiithout really bumping your day much. The making of the planks is where the big work is at, as well as the big mess. Save that for a rainy day.

 

[Tree Machine]

Here's a few more shot of cants in bulk.

 

[techdave]

Hi CR, if you can mill, quarter, or cant the log while it is on a slight decline. It is much easier. Pay special attention to the sound and smell of your engine so It doesnt lug down and overheat. Most conifers can be debarked by hand, pretty easily. I dont know about hardwoods except Q kellogii and Q. chrysolepsis. They debark pretty good too. If you want dimensional framing lumber cant top and one side of log, then take 4, 6, or 8 inch slabs off the log. They can be sliced into different widths as needed once dry. My biggest experience showed me that canting both sides of the log really helped ease the load on the saw, but remember I am running homemade 21 inch mill on 32 inch bar on my 372xp. This saw is marginal for big logs but works great with 24 inch bar doing 18 inch conifers!!!!!!!!! HTH Dave.

 

[Tree Machine]

if you can mill, quarter, or cant the log while it is on a slight decline

That's something I always assumed should be done level. Huh. That makes sense, though.

I am running homemade 21 inch mill on 32 inch bar on my 372xp. This saw is marginal for big logs but works great with 24 inch bar doing 18 inch conifers!!!!!!!!! HTH Dave.

You are bad to the bone.

Woodshop says this

get the logs to 14" wide cants, then do most of the actual milling with a Ripsaw handheld bandmill.

Funny you should mention.

 

[woodshop]

...well as for "Read Woodshop's post again. He knows what he's sayin."... that may be stretching the truth a bit. I do mill a lot of wood, much as I can to feed my "wood bank" for my woodshop, but I turn a lot away because no time. Only so many weekends, and I do have a life other than my mills (unfortunately ). I also cheat by using a rather expensive MS361 powered Ripsaw, a handheld bandmill that because its a thin band, needs only a 60cc saw to rip. When I rip logs into 14" wide cants with my Granberg, I need that raw power of the 395xp. Yup I learned in short order that milling slightly downhill if I have a choice, REALLY helps as the weight of the mill/saw and leaning my body into the mill allows it to run down the log without much pushing. Its amazing how milling uphill even with just a slight incline increases the energy needed, almost seems unproportionally more, but I'm not a physics major so can't explain that. Maybe spacemule or glens could. Tree Machine I like your strategy, and thats a nice cache of cants you got there. Hard part for me would be moving those cants around. Example, when they are 14x14x96" as they are when quartering a 30" oak, they are REAL heavy. Wet red oak is about 50lbs a cubic foot, so we are talking about a 500 lb cant. Kinda tough to haul around alone. I generally do all my milling solo, or with my Dad, who is 77 and probably should not be moving heavy cants. My wife follows me into the woods sometimes, but she is all of 100lbs herself. Also... don't know about you Tree or techdave, but I found that logs that have sat a while are harder to cut. Both my Ripsaw and Granberg go through wet logs easier than even partially seasoned ones. Depending on species, I often turn down "free" logs if I know they have been sitting for a while because of that. But hey, everybody has their own way to doing this, and thats the way it should be. I'm continually learning and trying to improve my "system". I wrote a small article on exactly how I mill at this point in my learning curve. I should post it, would be huge post though.

 

[woodshop]

Here's a few more shot of cants in bulk.

tree... curous what kind of wood you have there... different species? no problem cutting it when its dry? You got a huge stash there... nice.

 

[Tree Machine]

wow

...I wrote a small article on exactly how I mill at this point in my learning curve. I should post it, would be huge post though.

How bout you let US determine that.

I'm not meaning to put you on the spot. You've accumulated a wealth of information over the course of (I'm sure ) hundreds of hours, if not thousands of hours. Wisdom of years of experience, and expense and you've compiled all that you know of the subject, and package it for others to read and see.

I want you to know, I don't take that offering lightly. That's a gift of large proportion. You're a one-man milling machine, willing to serve it up to us on a silver platter. I think that's beyond big of you.

 

[doggonetrees]

I would also like to read Woodshops post, as this is an excellant way to learn from someone who has been doing milling for quite awhile and has all kinds of tricks of the trade. I had to learn the hard way about the " slightly downhill" cutting, but it only took one cut for me to see the physics were better if I changed directions.

 

[Gologit]

Chainsaw Lumbermaking by Will Malloff. Published in 1982. Most certainly out of print but not impossible to find. Published by The Taunton Press Inc. 52 Church Hill Rd. Box 355 Newtown, Connecticut.
ISBN 0-918804-12-4 Library of Congress Catolog Card Number 82-80556. I found mine at a used book store in Yuba City...cost a whole dollar. Theres an absolute wealth of information on just about every aspect of chainsaw milling...lots of pictures...lots of explanations. I"ve looked high and low for another copy 'cause mine is pretty thrashed. I don't advocate theft but if I found one in the public library it would be real easy to "lose" it and have to pay some kind of reasonable price for it. Hope this helps. Bob

 

[coveredinsap]

You don't advocate theft but then advocate theft? Brilliant. I think that anyone who can afford to spend their money on only 'pro' chainsaws can also afford to cough up the bucks ($55 on Amazon.com) to buy the book legally rather than stealing it from a library.

By the way, the dude has a website.
http://www.willmalloff.com/

 

[Gologit]

You don't advocate theft but then advocate theft? Brilliant. I think that anyone who can afford to spend their money on only 'pro' chainsaws can also afford to cough up the bucks ($55 on Amazon.com) to buy the book legally rather than stealing it from a library.

By the way, the dude has a website.
http://www.willmalloff.com/

Hey Sap...Thanks for the link. See, every once in awhile you do something decent and reasonably human. Maybe theres hope for you yet. The crack about swiping the library book was facetious...sorry you took it so seriously. Maybe you should quit taking yourself so seriously...nobody else does.