Ian: I've had the pleasure of operating a Peterson in the past. In fact, this was the mill that was at the top of my list for a good long while. But, alas, the realities of transporting the finished product set in rather quickly at some point. In other words, beams are beams -- they have to be moved somehow. Once you factor in the cost of moving this type of product around (safely), there goes most of the mill budget. By the way, transportation takes precedence because maintaining the farm requires a tractor anyway. Nevertheless, thanks for another fine post, mate!
Woodshop: Your thoughts on the actual speed of the milling process are well taken. It has certainly occurred to us (many times
) that there's no easy way to employ our chainsaws to mill our saw logs. We would love to have a hydraulic bandmill of some sort, but we simply won't have enough money left over to buy one. Even the lower end, manual bandmills require a fairly hefty investment: additional blades, sharpening and setting in addition to the mill itself. I have more than one friend who owns a WM, so I've got some pretty good sources for bandmill experience. They all think I'm mental for considering anything other than a hydraulic bandmill, and that's one of the main reasons I'm reading your posts so intently. I simply believe that a patient, well-informed decision usually works out best. By the way,
time is on our side here. We would like to complete all of our structures
within the next 5 years. I've got a friend down in Virginia who built a 5,000 sq ft frame in 3.5 years, solo, so I think our goal is fairly realistic.
Cant Cutter: I timber frame with a fellow who’s a full time WM sawyer, and here’s how he does things. He has an automatic band sharpener in the shop, which he uses to sharpen his bands until they require setting. Once he has accumulated about 20 of these blades, he sends them all back to the factory (WM in this case) for sharpening and setting. He also has a pretty nifty system of using lined tags to keep track of all his blades. He simply makes an entry every time he performs maintenance, or notices anything unusual about performance, so that he has an accurate history of all his bands. This system seems to work out well for him – and he has
lots of bandmilling experience.
By the way, thanks for your thoughts on the MDS. I know a guy back in my home state who owns one, but I’ve never actually had the opportunity to see one in action. As with any type of mill, I’d love to experience the MDS as well.
Rodney: If your Raphael is the same one I’m thinking about, I have corresponded with him once or twice in the past. The guy I’m thinking about built a timber frame in Connecticut, but I don’t recall which milling method he used. I’ll go over to the Logosol site and see what I can find out. Thanks again for posting to the thread.
MJR: It’s a very long story, but this is a project we hope to start this winter. Although I was raised on a farm in the deep south, and have consequently done my share of logging, this is the first parcel of land I’ve worked in the northeast (we were blown up here by Katrina). Although a tractor of some sort is definitely in our future – the parcel in question is a fairly large piece of managed forestland – we do not own one at this time. Regardless, we know that the heavy equipment must come first, which is why I’m trying to learn all I can about the alternatives to expensive mills. As I wrote to Woodshop previously, the photos I saw of him using his chainsaw powered mills are the reason I found this forum. I’ve used another forum for several years, but I really like the folks I’m learning from here. In short, you guys seem a bit less brand-oriented, which makes for more open and honest correspondence.
By the way, I was taught to timber frame using green timber so that’s about all I know. On the other hand, this will be a very slow project, so it will be interesting to see how this affects things in the end. Your thoughts on hemlock are well taken, but a lot of the
large saw logs we'll have access to here will be taken from this species. I’ve got a real problem with taking trees just to get one boxed-heart timber, so I’ll use as many large logs as possible for our frame (because they should render more than one frame member per saw log). We’ve also got a pretty good selection of hardwood on the property, so splined joinery is the order of the day. Thanks for the great post!
And many thanks to all who've posted here. Please keep the great experience coming. I look forward to learning from you.