Milling lumber woodshop style

[Tree Machine]

I'm sure I do. Attach slabs of what to what?

And yea, T.A., are you talking a big, ol upright bandsaw? This can be done successfully, seen it done in a commercial shop, quite successfully, I might add. Share with us.

 

[woodshop]

I'm sure I do. Attach slabs of what to what?

...interesting quick and dirty bench 101... now I gotta try that next time I'm in the woods. Simple.

Bench I was referring to was this one... how do you attach the back to the sides in this one... don't see any tenon in the side pieces, or am I just not seeing it.

 

[Tree Machine]

You would have to ask me about this one. This is the only picture of a bench that I did not personally make. Elizabeth and I were heading down to a caving trip, and I saw this beauty along the way in someone's front yard.

I am guessing it is blind tenon joinery, going only partially through the vertical plank, possibly secured from the backside by skinny lags or stainless screws. Just a guess. Great question, though.

 

[tawilson]

By manual bandsaw I meant one that has no hydraulics. A friend made it a few years ago and sold his woodlot before he finished it. I got him to bring it down to my property and hope to put it to use. I sawed up a few logs last year but didn't have time to get into it like I wanted to. He did a good job and I just had to put some finishing touches on it, like log clamps and dogs and a lube system. It is 24" between the guides(I can gain another 4" with a little cutting and welding) and the bed is 20' long. I should have it ready to go this weekend. I've got a pile of hemlock logs and a cherry and maple log sitting next to it ready to saw.

 

[woodshop]

By manual bandsaw I meant one that has no hydraulics. A friend made it a few years ago and sold his woodlot before he finished it. I got him to bring it down to my property and hope to put it to use. I sawed up a few logs last year but didn't have time to get into it like I wanted to. He did a good job and I just had to put some finishing touches on it, like log clamps and dogs and a lube system. It is 24" between the guides(I can gain another 4" with a little cutting and welding) and the bed is 20' long. I should have it ready to go this weekend. I've got a pile of hemlock logs and a cherry and maple log sitting next to it ready to saw.

got any pics Tom?... now I'm curious what it looks like. What powers it?

 

[Tree Machine]

You go, Man ! We'd love to see you get that thing a chuggin. Do take pics.

 

[tawilson]

I've got some pics kicking around somewhere. Can't seem to find them right now. I'm going to work on it this weekend so I'll take some new ones. It has a gas 13hp Honda turning a centrifigul clutch which runs a belt to one of the bandwheels. I think he copied a Norwood mill a friend of his had. He did a good job and even improved some things from the Norwood. It's got some serious steel framing under it. I just clamped some hemlock,pine and soft maple logs on it with c-clamps and wedges to saw them up last year to see how it worked. Plus I needed some sides for my dump trailer. Once you experienced fellas see it I'm sure you'll have some ideas for improving it some more. One thing I started batting around in my head this week is trying to use the carriage and rail to surface slabs. Maybe mount a 3" surface planer on a rail you can slide across the carriage. Course I better saw a few logs into slabs before I worry about smoothing them out!

 

[woodshop]

tawilson, I have surfaced some rather large pieces using a 3hp router sitting on a movable fence that rides down rails or "box" you construct around the object. Kindof hard to explain, but works well, just slow. You move the router back and forth across the piece as you slide the fence down half inch at a time. This gets you a fairly flat surface, but nothing close to planer, so some sanding is still necessary.

 

[tawilson]

Woodshop,
I've heard of doing it that way. That's actually what got me thinking about using the sawmill. I've already got the rails and carriage. I was just thinking a 3" planer would cover more territory per pass. I tried using a molding head cutter with a flat bit on a radial arm saw. It worked pretty good considering the rinky dink way I had it set up. It was just an experiment.

 

[trimmmed]

A 3" power planer will work very well. Same principle as the router but much faster

 

[Newfie]

For $300 a 12" portable planer will work even better and save 18 million years of time. TIME IS MONEY.

 

[woodshop]

Only catch there might be with the power planer, is depth. When I flattened a cross section of tree using this meathod with the router and 3/4" strait bit, the surface was pretty rough, as it was cut with chainsaw flat as I could, but still was as much as 1/2 inch difference from place to place on surface of wood. Depending on how deep a cut you can set that power planer, and obviously how true the surface is to begin with, you might have to do several passes. One more thing... most power planers use standard tool steel blades, like jointer or bench planer. Carbide router bits, although you can't get them as sharp as steel planer blade, wear much better. I like your concept though twilson... send us some pics when and if you get that set up, I would be interested in seeing it work.

 

[woodshop]

For $300 a 12" portable planer will work even better and save 18 million years of time. TIME IS MONEY.[/QUOTE
yes if it's small enough to run through a planer... go for it, except for snipe problems, quick and dirty. I was assuming this piece was too large to fit in a planer. The slab of tree I did was over 2 ft across... I only have a 15" planer, thus the router method.

 

[trimmmed]

For $300 a 12" portable planer will work even better and save 18 million years of time. TIME IS MONEY.

Newfie, I think we were talking about bigger wood. Even if the wood would fit thru a 12" planer either one side has to be flat (joined) or you have to make a sled/jig that will support the uneveness of thebottom of the board. If the piece is longer than 3-4' that jig starts getting too big. So the powerplaner and the router methods, and I've done both, have a place. Not that fast granted, but doable.

 

[tawilson]

Here's the pic of the sawmill. I cropped and resized it so I hope it shows up ok.
Yeah, I was talking about smoothing out slabs like for a coffee table or such. That's down the road a bit. First I gots to get some sawing under my belt. That cherry I just stuck on there to see how the clamps and squaring things worked. I'm not ready to saw it yet. Plus I want to practice on the pile of hemlocks that are behind me as I took the pic before I start whacking on the valuable stuff.
Woodshop,
thanks for letting me clutter up your most excellent thread with my rookie don't know what I'm doing yet stuff.

 

[woodshop]

Sharp looking mill Tom... and my mouth is watering looking at that cherry log you have sitting there. Here in PA the retailers are getting $5-7 bucks a foot for s2s cherry depending on grade. More than that for wide stuff. From a distance at least, that looks like a darn good cherry log. You're looking at couple thousand bucks worth of cherry in that log once you mill it, dry it and run it through a planer. When you get it fully operational, take some more pics and post them here. I'd be interested in some shots of the engine/drive train.

btw, another way I've seen to "plane" rough slabs we were talking about above, is a router on the end of a swing arm that you would swing back and forth over your slab. Saw a retired logger out in Oregon do it this way for large slices of redwood and cedar he would then make into tables. He made a box frame out of 2x4's that he would screw to the bottom of the slab, and that box would slide on another 2x4 box frame bolted to the floor under the swing arm. So he could plane a section of the slab, slide it over and plane another section etc etc.

keep us posted Tom

 

[tawilson]

Thanks woodshop,
My friend did a heck of a job on it. I took a few pics today. Here's a couple of the drive train. I'm trying to Macgiver up a lube system on it. I want to put some lube on both sides of the blade. We'll see how it works when it warms up a little. I need to take advantage of the snow and frozen ground to drag some logs out for a while.
That cherry is over 16' and 14" diameter at the smallest point. There's a spilt at the end towards the saw so I'll probably lose a couple of feet there. Any thoughts on how to cut it up? I don't think I need 14' boards. Would you leave them that long? And probably just square it up and flatsaw? I'll just find a spot to air dry the boards till I find a use for them. If I get the time I would like to get a solar kiln put together before summer.

 

[woodshop]

Thanks woodshop,
That cherry is over 16' and 14" diameter at the smallest point. Any thoughts on how to cut it up? I don't think I need 14' boards.

Interesting Tom... thanks for the pics... as for how to slice that cherry log, depends on what you want to do with the wood. There is an article in the Jan/Feb Sawmill & Woodlot mag (www.sawmillmag.com) that talks specifically about sawing cherry, although its mostly about the different yields you get from the different scales. Quartersawn cherry has some beautiful ray fleck but you often end up wasting some of the log to get it. To be honest, I'm not the guy to ask. I'm sure there are REAL sawyers in the forum that can tell you the best way to slice that log. No, I wouldn't keep it 14 ft, but for grade, I think you want to keep at least one log 8 ft.

 

[Tree Machine]

Love Cherry!

Thanks for the magazine link, Wilson.

Very cool, Tom. I think you'll have a lot of fun with that mill once you're dialled in and up and running.

As far as lubricating that blade, I never knew this until I had a Woodmizer bandmill onsite; the lubricant is water. I hope I'm not illuminating something really obvious, but I'm very much a newbie in this arena and it came as a surprise to me that they didn't lube with an oil.

My sawguy said to me, Metal on wood, water. Metal on metal, oil.

Well, OK then. Fair enough.

 

[tawilson]

It was woodshop that put the link up there. As far as the lubricant, there's differing opinions on that. I have found that at least one mill manufacturer recommends a bar/diesel oil mix. There was recently a thread on the forestry forum on this and after reading everyone's opinion the oil mix is what I'm going with for now. I used water on my test run's last year with no problem but I like the idea of a layer of oil on my blade when I'm done sawing for rust prevention. I haven't tried it yet so my opinion may change. Nice log you got behind you there. What size and how did you saw it?