Milling lumber woodshop style

[woodshop]

Dave , do you use the clorox bleach full strengh ?

yup, pour it right from the bottle into a paint roller tray (small 4 inch one), and roll it on each board before stickering. Dries quickly leaving a trace of clorox on the board for the critters to taste. I've been told by an "expert" (Gene Wengart) that this probably doesn't work, although he didn't really tell me why not. All I know is that I used to get borers occasionally in my stickered piles, and ever since I started doing this (about 10 years now), I have not had any. Coindedence? Could be. It works for me... its cheap... it doesn't take long to apply after I trim the bark and rot off a board before stickereing, so I do it, and I don't get insects in my wood.

Dave

 

[Al Smith]

Bugs,ugh

Well I pulled a dumb one.I have a couple of thousand bd ft in one stack,inside a building,on a concrete floor.Somehow the birds found a way to get inside the building .I had this brain storm of covering the stack with plastic,how dumb.When I restacked it,the top that was covered with plastic had a certain amount of mildew and some borrers because I had shut off the air flow with the plastic,duh.Live and learn!The part below the plastic,was nice and dry,no mildew,no insects.I had heard of the bleach ,but never did it.Real good idea,will do on the next go around.

 

[woodshop]

yes, gotta keep that air flow so the moisture gets taken away, especially the first month or so when the wood is really wet right off the saw. I have stickered and dried a pile or two inside my garage when space got tight, but it never worked well, and took a long time to dry, as the air exchange in the building wasn't enough to do the job. If I had space, I would build a solar kiln, or maybe even step up to building something even more serious. But no room, so thats that. Air drying is my only option for now.

 

[gumneck]

I'll post some better pics when I move some of the lumber to a better shelter, but these are the pics I have right now.

 

[gumneck]

Another...

 

[gumneck]

Another...yeah, I know, Your admirin that dump truck. Sorry I can't sell it!

I'm using the bark slabs temporarily as a shelter. Hope to get under barn after removing the sides. These pieces were flitch cut for 2X frame construction.

 

[max2cam]

Great thread. I hobby mill with a 90cc Solo & 24" bar with a simple "lumber maker" attachment and a straight 2x6" guideboard. It's slow but good for stockpiling lumber for future projects. I have lots of big straight red pine and some spruce. Makes decent boards, planks, and posts. Total investment under $1,000. I use a tripod to get the logs up on sleepers. Works well.

I heard there is a photo on this thread showing a milling fixture that the log sits in as it was described to me. But I can't seem to find it. Can anyone point me in the right direction? I'd sure like to see it.

 

[scottr]

Picture

Max , go back to post#10 of this thread and click on 'ripsaw14.jpg' .

 

[Tree Machine]

That would be this:

.....a contraption I designed and built to allow the Ripsaw to mill small logs and chunks down to firewood size if you wanted to. The fence the mill rides on moves up and down in 1/4 inch increments to lower or raise the mill in the log, held captive with sliding dogs made from the hard Black Locust.

To which Newfie said,

Cool pics. You are a clever b@stard. Ingenious jigs and what-not.

To which I say

Indeed you ARE a clever b@stard

 

[Tree Machine]

Woodshop, how do you get the 1/4" adjustments? What's the mechanism you devised?

If I'm to guess, it will blow us away, the beauty of the simplicity.

 

[woodshop]

Woodshop, how do you get the 1/4" adjustments? What's the mechanism you devised?

If I'm to guess, it will blow us away, the beauty of the simplicity.

Well... not sure I would use the words "beauty" and "simplicity" to describe it, but its basically a set of spring loaded pins with small wooden handles. They are contained in the fence itself on each end, held there with cotter pin and washer. You squeeze the handles pulling the pins to the center of the fence, thus out of the indexed holes, then lower or raise the fence to the desired height and unsqueeze, the springs pop the pins back into the holes at that height and you're good to go for another slice. The catch is to remember to do this when the RipSaw is at the opposite end of the fence, as moving the fence up and down with a 50lb mill at that end can be done, but not easily. Also, for those wondering how I get the ripsaw on and off the fence, one of the ends folds down away from the base, which lets you do that when setting up.

I am actually in the process of take #2 with that thing... this next version will improve upon the this one is several ways. It will be more precise, allowing 1/8" indexing instead of only 1/4, because I want it to double as a kindof resaw bandsaw. I have lots of rough lumber that I cut 6/4 and 8/4 years ago, and would like to be able to resaw those in half to make 1/2 and 3/4 lumber. So I'm going to make another one of these, but longer to accommodate an 8ft board, and redesign the sliding dogs lower so I can resaw a board leaving as little as 1/2 inch under the Ripsaw blade. Got too much on my plate at the moment though, so this won't happen till Fall probably.

I'd be happy to share my plans with anybody interested.

 

[Tree Machine]

Thank you for that, Mr. Woodshop.

 

[TreeDivision]

Milling in the yard

I got a great call today, and went to see and hopfully be a major role in a nice project. The customer started me off with his property, asking to thin his modest wood land area. He mentioned wanting to mill some of the wood and if I could arrange it and like any good business man I said yes. Then he took me to a spectacular 1935 millionairs retreat that is about to recieve the care it deserves and that is when the potential really struck me.
That said who could come on site in NH and mill for us?

 

[Tree Machine]

Wow ! What a fun project. As far as the milling, I would leave that to the end stage of the project. Do the tree work, stage the logs. It sounds like you'll be spending days there, yes?

Give Woodmizer a call, 1-800-553-0182. Ask if they have a custom sawyer ot in your region of New Hampshire. They keep saw owners on record for referral purposes.

Good luck on that job.

Also, Welcome to Arboristsite. Glad to have you in on things. We look forward to a few pics when available.

 

[Tree Machine]

Tree Division..... is that like some subliminal pun? Tree division, like dividing up a tree, into boards,... like milling..... milling is another way of saying Tree Division. Milling = Tree Division, oh, I get it,... HA ! You're funny.

 

[TreeDivision]

More simple actually

When naming ones company, creativity often goes no further than Bobs Tree Service. But I thought what better name to be an all round tree service than Tree Division, the obviouse and then the more deep, dividing of trees as you said so nicely. The digital camera and crew are heading up there today to define the project. It will be a very fun one, Love using the crane, getting any and every toy we can to the site. So, pictures to follow.

 

[Newfie]

Treemachine is a good guy and shares his wealth of knowledge most willingly but sometimes he cracks himself up much too easily.

 

[MasterBlaster]

As well we all should do.

 

[TreeDivision]

That's great. I was hoping to scan through the postings and find some good info... I sent the guy my bid on the job to day so I will either need the milling or not here soon. I went the route of breaking the hard news ($) to him before I start doing too much tracking down and lining up, for an aspect of the job that might sticker shock him.

 

[flht01]

Woodshop's Ripsaw thread

just wanted to bump this one back to the top and ask if the #2 version was underway. I'd really be interested in more info.
Thanks,
kevin

Well... not sure I would use the words "beauty" and "simplicity" to describe it, but its basically a set of spring loaded pins with small wooden handles. They are contained in the fence itself on each end, held there with cotter pin and washer. You squeeze the handles pulling the pins to the center of the fence, thus out of the indexed holes, then lower or raise the fence to the desired height and unsqueeze, the springs pop the pins back into the holes at that height and you're good to go for another slice. The catch is to remember to do this when the RipSaw is at the opposite end of the fence, as moving the fence up and down with a 50lb mill at that end can be done, but not easily. Also, for those wondering how I get the ripsaw on and off the fence, one of the ends folds down away from the base, which lets you do that when setting up.

I am actually in the process of take #2 with that thing... this next version will improve upon the this one is several ways. It will be more precise, allowing 1/8" indexing instead of only 1/4, because I want it to double as a kindof resaw bandsaw. I have lots of rough lumber that I cut 6/4 and 8/4 years ago, and would like to be able to resaw those in half to make 1/2 and 3/4 lumber. So I'm going to make another one of these, but longer to accommodate an 8ft board, and redesign the sliding dogs lower so I can resaw a board leaving as little as 1/2 inch under the Ripsaw blade. Got too much on my plate at the moment though, so this won't happen till Fall probably.

I'd be happy to share my plans with anybody interested.