Milling lumber woodshop style

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That's one exellent setup you got mate

Dave , that's one great setup you have mate , well thought out , great stuff , got any pic's of your workshop mate . Cheer's MM
 
Dave , that's one great setup you have mate , well thought out , great stuff , got any pic's of your workshop mate . Cheer's MM
Some of the pics I posted over the years have my woodshop in them for one reason of the other...here is a thread I posted about making the wooden nut and bolt I use for my avatar.

http://arboristsite.com/showthread.php?t=19822

Those pics are couple years old though... my shop is continually changing as I upgrade and change priorities. That thread will give you a general idea of the way I like to set things up though if you are interested.
 
Way Cool Shop WS! I can't fit my thicknesser/jointer inside my shed so I have to keep it on a veranda. I also don't have room for a bandsaw (I have access to a small one at work) - I definitely need a bigger shed.
 
Some of the pics I posted over the years have my woodshop in them for one reason of the other...here is a thread I posted about making the wooden nut and bolt I use for my avatar.

http://arboristsite.com/showthread.php?t=19822

Those pics are couple years old though... my shop is continually changing as I upgrade and change priorities. That thread will give you a general idea of the way I like to set things up though if you are interested.


I never looked at that post until now. I love looking through others work shops.

Gee that Jointer looks similar to me!

You can see mine behind the bridges that I am in the process of building. These will let me get to the back part of the wood lot when I want to mill some of the wood up the hill.

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Way Cool Shop WS! I can't fit my thicknesser/jointer inside my shed so I have to keep it on a veranda. I also don't have room for a bandsaw (I have access to a small one at work) - I definitely need a bigger shed.

The bottom line with space and woodshops... you just really never have enough. As your skills grow and your machines do also, often the size and scope of your projects do also. My current shop started as a wooden table in the corner of my basement with a few hand tools and a drill... it has now taken every square inch of my 25x30 basement, as well as a 16 x 20 two story garage I originally built (silly me) to park my car in. I plan to find room in that garage for a CNC router. Catch is the one I am looking at has a 6x11 ft footprint, so would have to do some serious re-organizing to fit that monster into the fray.

Mike in paradise, that looks like quite the project with those bridges!!! Looks like you are pretty organized though. A vital key component of a woodshop for sure. Curious what is that green on the wood, is that stain or preservative or what?
 
The bottom line with space and woodshops... you just really never have enough. As your skills grow and your machines do also, often the size and scope of your projects do also. My current shop started as a wooden table in the corner of my basement with a few hand tools and a drill... it has now taken every square inch of my 25x30 basement, as well as a 16 x 20 two story garage I originally built (silly me) to park my car in. I plan to find room in that garage for a CNC router. Catch is the one I am looking at has a 6x11 ft footprint, so would have to do some serious re-organizing to fit that monster into the fray.

Mike in paradise, that looks like quite the project with those bridges!!! Looks like you are pretty organized though. A vital key component of a woodshop for sure. Curious what is that green on the wood, is that stain or preservative or what?

It is a preservative. The stain is going to go on tommorrow as the preservative needs 48 hours to dry.

What I find is that you never have enough space to work. All my tools and benches are on wheels and are currently pushed either in the back shop or against a wall so that I have room to do this.

This is a picture of my old shop when I had a bedroom suite in it that I made for my daughter. It was 16 x 22 and no room at all for tools and a big project.

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Hi Mark,

Couple people have asked me exactly how I mill all the lumber I do. This explains my system A to Z.

Few people can claim they have the ability to walk into the woods, drop a 3 ft diameter tree, buck and limb it, and then mill the logs into rough lumber right there on the spot. I have assembled a system using an Alaskan chainsaw mill, a chainsaw powered bandmill and some custom built equipment that will do just that. There are many portable bandmills on the market today that sit on carraiges or can be towed behind a truck. They have their place, and if I could afford one I would probably own one. However, they all have one major limitation. You still have to get that 800lb log from where it was cut to the saw and up onto the carriage where it can be milled into lumber. If that log is 100 yards deep into the woods and you don't have a skidder or ATV with a log carrier, you're out of luck. The 47lb chainsaw powered Ripsaw bandmill allows you to carry the mill right to the tree, so it is truly portable. Along with two 20 lb aluminum guide beams to guide it down the log you can be milling lumber within 15 minutes of setup. In one day I can drop a tree, buck it, slice it into cants with my Alaskan chainsaw mill, and then use the bandmill to mill those cants into 300-500 bd ft of lumber. No single piece of my system is more than 50 lbs, but both mills and accompanying equipment add up to about 300lbs. all together. When I do have to carry it all back into the woods, I can do it in two trips using a small sturdy wagon.

Husqvarna 365 and Echo 3450
Prior to felling the tree I use the small but dependable 34cc Echo CS-3450 with a 16" bar to clear away brush and open up a couple of escape routes. I fell and buck the tree using a 65cc Husky 365 with a 28" bar. It has plenty of power to drop and buck a 24 inch diameter tree. With a little patience and skill it will also take care of a larger one. After lopping off the big limbs and bucking the log into 8 ft lenghts, I grab the small Echo again to clean up the small stuff. I also use the little Echo for trimming away knots or small defects on a log prior to attaching the milling guide beams where a larger saw would be awkward if not dangerous.

Granberg 36"Alaskan chainsaw mill with Husky 395XP
After dropping the tree and limbing and bucking the log to 8 ft lengths, the first order of business is getting the log into 14" wide cants so the RipSaw bandmill can start making lumber. The best way to do this is to slab off the sides of the log with the Alaskan Mill. If the log is larger than 28 inches diameter, I usually quarter it with the Alaskan. Unlike the bandmill with its thin .025" kerf, the Alaskan mill uses a chainsaw bar and chain with its larger kerf that wastes more of your log. However, the bandmill is limited to a 14" wide cut, and also the bandmill blades wear out quicker going through bark. So, I do the dirty work of getting the log to manageable cants without bark using the Alaskan mill first. I power the Alaskan mill with a 94cc Husqvarna 395XP pulling standard ripping chain around a 36" bar. You lose about 6 inches of bar attaching the saw on the mill, so that leaves me with a max cut of about 30" wide. The 395XP with its 94cc's has the muscle needed to rip that much hardwood. With a lot of fussing, a 30" cut is actually wide enough to slice up a 4ft diameter tree if needed. I rarely come across a tree larger than 36" though, and most of the time I am dealing with trees less than 24" so this capacity mill and saw are plenty. You can get away with a smaller saw in the 60cc range, but it will be slow going on anything over 15 inches even with a shorter bar. All the pros say it's really hard on a small saw pulling a chain around a 36" bar especially when ripping. So, if you're going to be milling logs much over 15" diameter you will need a large saw in the 90cc and above class.

Ripsaw with Stihl MS 361
Once I have whittled the log into 14-inch wide cants, which is the max width cut of my Ripsaw bandmill, I can start milling lumber. A chainsaw powerhead powers the Ripsaw, and I use a Stihl MS361. Its 59cc's has plenty of power to pull the thin kerf 3/4" x 90" bandsaw blade through the log. With a sharp new blade the RipSaw will move through 14-inch wide oak at more than 2 ft/minute. Softer wood as well as less width goes even faster. An 8 ft long 10-inch wide soft pine log would take about a minute end to end. As the blade gets dull, the saw needs to work harder and the cutting speed drops off quickly. That's my queue to change blades. If I keep going with a dull blade, not only is it much harder on my powerhead, but also the blade starts to wander and my cuts are not true. Depending on the species I'm cutting, I get about 200 bd ft of lumber from an $18 blade before it needs re-sharpening. I can get two sharpenings from each blade if I am careful. I've gotten more than 600 bd ft between sharpenings in softwoods. I found that if I keep the blade out of bark as much as I can, it will last a lot longer. That is why I use the Alaskan mill initially to slab off the sides of the log. Sharpening a chain is much quicker and easier than sharpening a blade. Not counting my time, the cost of the blades is the most expensive part of the milling operation at about 5 cents a bd ft.

guide beams
The Ripsaw mill's fence rides on sturdy hollow aluminum 2x6 guide beams that get attached to the top of the log to guide the mill giving me dead-on true strait cuts. Two 5 ft sections come with the Ripsaw package, but if you want longer boards you can attach more sections. They bolt together making one long strait beam. I also use the guide beams when pushing my Alaskan mill down the log when initially cutting the log into 14" wide cants.

small horses, floor jack & ramp
Two small sawhorses along with a lightweight aluminum automotive floor jack and a 2x6 ramp are the system I use to get the logs off the ground and thus easier to mill. I use a cant hook to roll one end of the log up onto the small ramp. This raises the log enough to allow me to get the floor jack under the log and lift it high enough to slip one of the small horses underneath. I then jack up the other end of the log, and slip the second horse under. The log is now up off the ground and much easier to mill. The small horses are sturdy enough to hold a large log and have metal reinforced wooden chocks that fit into holes I drilled into 1/4 inch thick aluminum bar stock attached to the top of each horse. While is it entirely possible to mill the log while it's on the ground and I have done many that way, I was either bending over or down on my knees pushing the mill down the log. This was hard on my back and knees both. With the log up on the horses I am standing and leaning into the RipSaw partially using my body weight to push the saw down the log.

two toolboxes
Except for saw gas, bar oil and the large items, two toolboxes contain all small items needed for the milling operation. One contains tools to service the RipSaw, Alaskan mill and the chain saws as well as spare parts, chainsaw files, spare chains etc. The second is a custom made wooden box that contains all the rest of the accoutrements necessary for safe milling. Chaps, dust mask and gloves, first aid kit, hatchet, small fire extinguisher, and wedges for felling and bucking. All the tools, spare parts and small items are in these two toolboxes. If I keep them organized and stocked, grabbing both assures that I won't forget anything.

portable worktable
I park my RipSaw for changing blades and adjusting fence height between cuts on a simple table using lightweight plastic sawhorses upon which I set a plywood plank just the right size for my RipSaw and a few tools. This little "quick and dirty worktable in the woods" really comes in handy when adjusting equipment or sharpening the saws. I used to just set things on the ground or a stump, but that was hard on the back and knees after a day of sawing.

Is this method a lot of hard work? You bet. Expect to burn some calories. Is it rewarding? You bet. Expect to get excited. I've milled thousands of bd ft of lumber with this method, and every time I open up a log I'm like a kid in a candy store. Is it expensive? Well, depending on species and where you live, milled wet lumber is still a buck or two a foot right off the saw. Much more for quartersawn boards or 14" wide 8/4 and 12/4 if you can even find it. So that 300 bd ft you milled in a day would cost you at least $500 and probably more if you had to buy it. Also, I have milled walnut and cherry crotch figured wood that looks better than stuff costing $30 a foot at the local specialty lumber retailer. So, is my system expensive? An entry level bandmill on a trailer you can tow behind your truck will still cost you the better part of $5000 and a LOT more for a good one. Everything in my system fits in the back of my minivan and all together will cost you about $3500. Around $2500 if you're willing to swap saws between mills. At 300-500 bd ft a day can my system cut as fast as the bigger more expensive bandmills? Of course not. However, I can carry mine right up to that cherry tree that blew down in the back of the neighbors yard. Within 15 minutes I am milling custom lumber exactly the way I want it cut. That is where my system shines.

That was an informative and fun post to read. Way over my head at this point.

What kind of crafts do you make? I am getting curious.

I know you are far off from me, but if you were looking for dry rough milled wood how would you go about it?

Again enjoyed the reading,

Bill
 
That was an informative and fun post to read. Way over my head at this point. What kind of crafts do you make? I am getting curious.

Other than a small traditional Shaker side table, most of the things I make at this point are small woodcraft items like cutting boards and cracker trays, as well as unique things like wooden nut&bot clock and a wooden nut and bolt nutcracker. That is what the (mostly) women at my shows want... and therefore that's what I make. Check out this post when you have some time... it shows how much talent there is in this little group...
http://arboristsite.com/showthread.php?t=47084
 
Thanks for the link

Other than a small traditional Shaker side table, most of the things I make at this point are small woodcraft items like cutting boards and cracker trays, as well as unique things like wooden nut&bot clock and a wooden nut and bolt nutcracker. That is what the (mostly) women at my shows want... and therefore that's what I make. Check out this post when you have some time... it shows how much talent there is in this little group...
http://arboristsite.com/showthread.php?t=47084


The more I get into to this the more eager I am to learn more.
 
I know this thread is two years old but wow Its really a good one, love the attached pictures.

so Is there a better toy now days , I am loving that band saw attachment and thinking I have to have one fo my Husky :greenchainsaw:
 
I know this thread is two years old but wow Its really a good one, love the attached pictures.

so Is there a better toy now days , I am loving that band saw attachment and thinking I have to have one fo my Husky :greenchainsaw:

Yeah, it's a pity Woodshop has sort of left the scene. Being an inspired tinkerer of the highest quality he knows a lot of very useful stuff. I really hope he comes back one day - I haven't finished picking his brains yet! :clap:
 
Yeah, it's a pity Woodshop has sort of left the scene. Being an inspired tinkerer of the highest quality he knows a lot of very useful stuff. I really hope he comes back one day - I haven't finished picking his brains yet! :clap:

Gee whiz gosh golly BobL... you got it backwards, I always thought of YOU as the "inspired tinkerer of the highest quality". In fact, you are one of the people that inspired ME. Always thought it a shame that we live a couple of oceans apart and not down the road from each other. When I retire in three years I'd like to jump on a plane and come seeya down there, maybe take home a few pieces of rock hard Aussie wood to stick on my CNC table. I'm still tinkering, especially on the CNC, with which after almost two years I still havn't scratched the surface of its potential and probly won't have when I assume room temperature. So... just too many irons in the fire, had to pull some out. As surreal as it may sound, I've been serious into zydeco/cajun dancing for past 11 months, something I never new I had in me... about as much fun as you can have standing up as it gets, but point being I let it take a LOT of my time. Anyway, glad to see a couple of the folks still here that were when I was jumping on every day. Still spend most of my free time & weekends in the woodshop and milling trees into lumber only I'm very selective now since I have no room for wood anymore. My Ripsaw is going strong, wore out the big main drivewheel on it which was mostly my fault anyway not watching the tracking, but a hundred bucks fix and I'm back in business for another 10 years of milling.
 
Great to hear from you again WS! We've missed you a lot.

Gee whiz gosh golly BobL... you got it backwards, I always thought of YOU as the "inspired tinkerer of the highest quality". In fact, you are one of the people that inspired ME. Always thought it a shame that we live a couple of oceans apart and not down the road from each other. When I retire in three years I'd like to jump on a plane and come seeya down there, maybe take home a few pieces of rock hard Aussie wood to stick on my CNC table
I'll look forward to it :) Tell me what you want and I'll see what I can do!

I'm still tinkering, especially on the CNC, with which after almost two years I still havn't scratched the surface of its potential and probly won't have when I assume room temperature. So... just too many irons in the fire, had to pull some out. As surreal as it may sound, I've been serious into zydeco/cajun dancing for past 11 months, something I never new I had in me... about as much fun as you can have standing up as it gets, but point being I let it take a LOT of my time.
I admit it sounds strange, but no stranger than my brother who took up cajun music and few years ago and learned about fifty songs and can't understand a word he is singing. The CNC sounds like fun.

Anyway, glad to see a couple of the folks still here that were when I was jumping on every day. Still spend most of my free time & weekends in the woodshop and milling trees into lumber only I'm very selective now since I have no room for wood anymore. My Ripsaw is going strong, wore out the big main drivewheel on it which was mostly my fault anyway not watching the tracking, but a hundred bucks fix and I'm back in business for another 10 years of milling.
Sounds good - Keep on milling and drop in from time to time to let us know how you are.
 
Hey WS, good to hear from you again. I trust you're having a good Christmas.

About the Zydeco thing... In general it ain't my style of music, HOWEVER, I love this song (and I'm sure you know it):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-VLjwSSz_Q

One of the very first things I can remember was kickin' it to that song when I was maybe 3 years old up at our cottage in Ontario in the mid-80s. You can imagine how much fun that song can be for a toddler! So while it's not really my favorite music it does have some strong sentimental ties. For some reason I'm really like that with music/songs. Took me bloody FOREVER to find it again as an adult after the whole MP3 craze started a few years back though. The above video is the exact version I remembered; there are myriad others out there and I have no idea if this one is the original or a later cover. My dad even has a copy (by a different artist, not sure who) on an old 45, it's in English on one side and French on the other. It's probably a collector's item by now.

PS - if anyone DOES know for certain who did the above version, I'd like to know since there were a couple other songs on that old tape by the same guy that I can vaguely remember and would like to find, but I have no idea what their names were, which makes it doubly difficult.
 
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Thanks Brad... I had the pleasure of seeing and dancing to Buckwheat and his band when he came north couple months ago to this area. No he didn't play that tune, in fact most zydeco music is a bit livelier than that particular song. Anyways... staying within the bounds of this milling forum, I milled a ton of osage orange that I got a hold of a while back with my Alaskan mill and then the Ripsaw. Dense hard but easily worked wood. So happens in zydeco they use an instrument called a rub board, also called a frottoir. It looks like a metal washboard and it's worn on the chest and "played" with sharpened spoons or other metal utensils. I wanted to see what a wooden one would sound like, so took some of my hardest wood, osage, slapped a V bit on the CNC and wrote a quick and dirty program to make parralell grooves to make a small wooden one. Instead of using metal to run up and down it, I used a small piece of soft maple. Still a hard wood, but not as hard as the osgae. I figured that anything I used to "play" it had to be at least a little softer than the frottoir wood itself or it would slowly be destoryed. Results of this little experiment were mixed. Believe it or not, it has more of higher pitched "clackity" sound than the metal ones do, in fact almost ear piercing if you get too close to it and press and rub it too hard. For this and other reasons, I didn't ramp it up into a full sized one, nor experiment more with whether I should put a slight round edge on the top of the ridges etc. Maybe at some point in the future when I have more time to play I will. Was fun to do anyway. Here are a few pics of this thing. I might have even posted these pics already on AS a while back, don't remember.

zydecon1.jpg


zydeco.jpg
 
Question for woodshop: in post #32 (mill 4.jpg) and several other places, you show a stack of cut boards under the guide beam. Did you make all the cuts with only one placement of the guide beam? I haven't tried it yet (I have a ripsaw myself), but it looks like a workable technique for multiple 1" lumber. The downside is that there is only 9" of height to work with, and the guide beam plus end clamps take a minimum of about 3.25" from that.
 
Question for woodshop: in post #32 (mill 4.jpg) and several other places, you show a stack of cut boards under the guide beam. Did you make all the cuts with only one placement of the guide beam? I haven't tried it yet (I have a ripsaw myself), but it looks like a workable technique for multiple 1" lumber. The downside is that there is only 9" of height to work with, and the guide beam plus end clamps take a minimum of about 3.25" from that.

That is correct, I found that adjusting the Ripsaw depth was much faster than pulling the guide beam off every slice. I actually don't see a downside to the 9" limit, since that band takes so little kerf, you still get 7 1" boards and a thicker 1 1/2 or 2" for the top (last) cut. You can also start from the top and slice DOWN, but I found that the boards sometimes move on you doing that, where if you start at the bottom and slice UP, the weight of the cant/boards above you limit that to a minimum. Also, if your blade is not sharp and tentioned enough, and thus you don't get flat cuts, the boards tend to move and wobble on you as you slice up or down.
 
Hey, Dave saw you posted and had to come in and say hi. Have a happy New Year.

Got a dado blade off my brother the other day and was working on a cherry table top yesterday. (Of course cherry I had milled). Off to get some bar clamps to glue it up later. Other than that same old same old. Climbing, felling, milling, drying, planing, measuring, sanding, oiling, burning, studying and enjoying trees.
 
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