Milling lumber woodshop style

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Sorry this took so long to respond to, I've been away for a while. Kevin, who wanted this info, has since found me after seeing my article and pics on the Ripsaw website. I sent him the plans and pics of the original version. I still havn't designed and built take #2 since my woodshop business has kinda taken off a little bit faster than I expected and take a lot of my time. He reciprocated by sending me a chunck of some real sweet resin filled heart pine from down there in Texas that was being used as a barn foundation. I'm going to make a few nutcrackers out of it when it dries enough, and send them back down to Texas to him. If anybody else with a Ripsaw wanted the rough plans for my contraption, just ask and I will do the same for them. I use my Alaskan mill on the thing too, makes setting up much easier for small stuff around 5 ft long and less.

A contractor gave me a huge 36 inch dia red oak log... going to quarter it with the alaskan and mill that into 5/4 with the Ripsaw band mill tomorrow if the rain holds off. So I better get down in the shop and sharpen my chains and clean up my tools.

Dave
 
Woodshop to the rescue

woodshop said:
...has since found me after seeing my article and pics on the Ripsaw website. I sent him the plans and pics of the original version...

Dave

After finding this thread, I decided to take the plunge and order a RipSaw along with a few accessories. I've had the opportunity to exchange emails with Woodshop Dave and must say he's been a really big help in shortening the learning curve and answering a lot of questions. Can't say Thanks enough.

With only a couple of days experience using the ripsaw I'm a little hesitant saying too much, don't want to come off sounding like an advertisment. I can say my first impressions are very favorable :D . The RipSaw along with the 36" Alaskan make a good team, I'll report back after I've had a chance to use it a little more.

Kevin
 
flht01 said:
The RipSaw along with the 36" Alaskan make a good team, I'll report back after I've had a chance to use it a little more.

All this talk of milling kind of makes me wish that I hadn't got rid of my Alaskan.:cry:

But then I come back to my senses.:hmm3grin2orange:
 
rb_in_va said:
All this talk of milling kind of makes me wish that I hadn't got rid of my Alaskan.:cry:

Crawling around in the dirt with a chainsaw, what's not to like about that?

I'm hoping the Alaskan and ripsaw will help cure the sawdust fever I seem to have contracted since finding this site. If I'm still sweating sawdust this time next year, maybe I'll look at buying a "real" sawmill, Lucas or Peterson. You know, cheaper to operate, no heavy equipment needed, easier to set up, etc... :laugh:

rb_in_va said:
And you just have to move the mill every time you want to mill a log, right? And if you break a blade it's only $200-300 a pop, right? I'll take the bandmill/tractor set up. That way I'd have a way to move stacks of cut lumber (think forklift) too as well as do hundreds of other projects...
 
what an awsume old thread!

thanks for dragging it back out :popcorn:
 
Milling your own lumber

Hello woodshop

I started milling my own lumber because I could not get the specific type of grain pattern for making bellows for my musical instrument, to be specific Irish or Uilleann bagpipes.
I made my first chainsaw mill about fifteen years ago, which we used around the farm with great sucsess, then I made another and so on, until I could cut trees up to 50 inches in diameter without much trouble, which would blow down from time to time.
I use my own machines today which I called the Rail-O-Matic and Roller-Matic, which are both highly portable and chainsaw powered.

http://www.bagpipeworks.co.uk
http://www.bagpipeworks.co.uk/rollermatic__railomatic_chain.htm

I have just decided to go public with the machines and try to find a sponsor
in the USA and other countries, now that they have been prooved over here.

If anyone is interested in them please give me a bell 44-01748-850402.
I would realy like to buy one of those Ripsaws but there are no dealers in the UK that I know of.

Davy.
 
Welcome to the Site! Those are some nice looking setups. It looks like you have a good sturdy product there. I realy like the way the roller-matic height/depth adjustments are made. Adjustment appears to be a lot less awkard than the alaskan that I have. What range of bar length do the roller-matic fit and the price range? :cheers:
 
Welcome Davy from North Yorkshire. Interesting couple of mills you have there. Got a couple questions just out of curiousity. On both the railomatic and rollomatic, how do the mills attach to the chainsaw bar? Does it require drilling into the bar? Second, how many turns does it take to raise the mill say 1 foot with your threaded rod method? Concerning your idea of rollers making it easier to run the mill down the log, and roller instead of guide skid on side of log, my first thought was whether I really needed that extra weight, cost or complexity. Point being when I am milling with my csm the friction of the mill riding on my guide bar isn't a big problem. I might even go so far as to say it keeps me from feeding it too fast. Keeping a steady slow even feed (along with a sharp chain and strait solid guide) are the keys to successful chainsaw milling. Then again, perhaps your system of rollers helps in that regard?

As for marketing here in the states, you might want to rethink the name of your product. A google search will find several products already named rollomatic or roll-o-matic. Quite frankly, in this day and age calling something xxx-o-matic in some circles here has the effect of giving the product somewhat of an old fashioned flavor, like something from the 1950's or 60's. Like a kitchen gadget somebody dreamed up and is trying to sell to the masses, not a serious milling machine that turns logs into lumber. But that's just my personal observation and thoughts. I know almost NOTHING about marketing.

Don't want to come off sounding negative there Davy... just giving you my honest first thoughts. Actually, having seen your design, I want to try one and see for myself how much of a difference pro or con, those rollers might make. As for wanting to try out a Ripsaw band mill, I'm sure they would be willing to send you one if you were willing to pay the shipping costs to get it across the pond.
 
Welcome to the site!

Pretty cool. I like the mono rail concept. What is the longest bar you have used on that frame? I know when I have my 72" bar burried in a 50"+ log there is a tremendous reaction force from the pull of the chain. I'm curious how that rig would handle it.
 
Davey, my mistake, upon re-reading your site, find you call it roller-matic, not roll-o-matic. So... tone down my comments about it sounding like something out of the 50's. Sorry, I need to pay attention better:popcorn:
 
I will try and answer all questions here.

On the Roller-Matic the bar does have to be drilled in two places, one exactly through the roller nose bearing, which is safe as the centre there has quite a large solid middle, and drilled again at the opposite side, to take the two Allen bolts that fasten everything together.
On the Rail-O-Matic the (tip only) needs drilling, as the saw itself fastens to the mill via the bar bolts with the aid of some threaded spacers.
Both saw units can be removed and replaced in a couple of minutes, without disturbing the bar and chain, so you can fell the tree and replace the saw to the mill without much of a fuss.

The rise and fall ratio on the threaded system is about 5 turns to the inch, and can be adjusted differently at either side for cutting tapered boards up to one inch difference across the board, this can only be acheived, because the mill has an in built amount of flexibility, to counter act any movement the timber has, as it releases its energy when cut, in some cases with systems that are more rigid, can cause things to tighten up when things move or warp.

Once the depth has been made, an elsatic bungee is applied across the two handles to stop it from moving, and the setting will not move once this is done.

I have used other competitors milling attachments over the last 20 years or more, which have searved the lumber industry wery well indeed, but as I got older the work became harder, so I looked at improoving on a design that has been around for a very long time, more that 70 years now, but in order to do this I had to totally redesign some principles, in order at make everything work together.
The real advantage to our system is the three point rule, first and second, the mill has rollers which vastly reduces the amount of energy that any user needs to expend, in order of guiding or pysically pushing the mill across the surface, the rollers also act as a guide on the in-cut and out-cut, IE at any one time there are two rollers touching the timber, keeping everything on a level plane.
And third, is very simple but effective in the addition of a side roller, this stops the mill from being rammed into the lumber when cutting, I'm sure most if not all understand this senario, but I will try to explain for those who might not.
When you start cutting into the lumber, the chain tends to pull the mill across and away from the saw operator, and into the side of the mill, making it harder to glide along the board, and trying to advance along the log whilst holding the mill off of the log at the same times becomes after a while energy sapping.
The side roller stops this from happening, as it is set back from the mill slightly, and touches before the mill does, and with all three systems working together, the effort needed is much less, giving you full control over the mill.

The other benefit the side roller gives you is, the mill can be swivelled from side to side whilst cutting, because when cutting at a slight angle makes it cut faster, unlike cutting square on and across the log, and as you swivel the mill the actual cutting area become smaller as you do so each way, its like a V shaped cut across the log, if you need more info on this please e-mail me and I will send a drawing/s.

The rail mill can handle boards up to 40 inches across, after that it is advisable to use a Roller-Matic with a double motor set up, with an operator on either end, where you can cut boards up to 60 inches, using the superb range of Canon bars, which we use.

Prices for each system have not yet been set, this would depend on how much intrest can be raised, but I would imagine it to be in the region of double the cost of an Alaskan, this might seem a tad expensive, but the proofe of the pudding is in the eating, even at todays prices of lumber, any mill would pay for itself in the conversion of a couple of decent sized oak trees.

In the UK, quarter sawn air dried timber like oak, runs up into the 40 quid per cubic foot price level, a system which is so portable, that can extract timber from just about anywhere, with the minimum amount of damage to the surrounding enviorment whilst doing so, wind over every time, no large lumber firm can compete with the small operator on this level, and the actual costs to the enviorment, are won over by the small operator every time.
 
Interesting, thanks for the quick response. Curious, what is "40 quid" roughly in American dollars? And do you mean a board foot or an actual cubic foot? Regardless, you won't get an argument from me that most mills under a grand or so do pay for themselves pretty quickly if you had to go out and buy the lumber they produce. That begs the question though, would you go out and actually BUY that much lumber if you couldn't get it so cheap milling it yourself? In my case, no, I couldn't afford it. Bottom line though, is that milling wood is actually something enjoyable for many of us. The wood is icing on the cake.
 
When I try to think back and remember what my family and I have built using lumber we milled, it blows my mind to think what the market value of it all could potentially be. There would be no way we could afford to buy it from anyone else.

Nearly every time I fire up a mill I'm like a kid in a candy store. My blood gets pumping when I finish a cut on a 3'+ wide slab and open it up. Plus, I don't recall ever seeing something like this at the local lumber yard.

pineslabs1.jpg
 
aggiewoodbutchr said:
When I try to think back and remember what my family and I have built using lumber we milled, it blows my mind to think what the market value of it all could potentially be. There would be no way we could afford to buy it from anyone else.

Nearly every time I fire up a mill I'm like a kid in a candy store. My blood gets pumping when I finish a cut on a 3'+ wide slab and open it up. Plus, I don't recall ever seeing something like this at the local lumber yard.
Aggie, I couldn't have said it any better. Every time I spend the better part of a Saturday milling, I come home with at least 200 ft of lumber, and often twice that. If it's oak or cherry, we are talking between $500 and $1000 worth of lumber once it's stickered, dry and S2S on my planer. Right Aggie, wide boards like in your pic fetch a premium price IF you can even get them. No doubt about it, if you're willing to spend the time and willing to burn some calories, milling lumber will definately pay for itself if you're a woodworker as I am, or can sell it to somebody that is.

I like roller-matic's ideas... and am curious just how much easier his system or rollers makes things. Would have to do the "touch and feel" test though, use it couple weekends milling up some lumber. He PMed me saying that with his rollers the mill just needs to be guided down the log with much less effort. I'm all for that. Hope I didn't come off as too negative with my initial first reactions. Hey the more folks we get on board milling lumber, the better for all involved, some ways not necessarily evident right away.
 
The price of 40 pounds Sterling comes out at about $ 70.00 Dollars, and that is for a solid foot cube, not board length.
You can buy it cheaper if its green but not a lot cheaper, as agie says, its a good way to save yourself heaps of money buying it from someone else.

Just imagine how much lumber is cut up for logs each year, why I imagine you could feed a small country on the proceeds, best not to say too much as the IRS could get wind of things and start snooping around Heh Heh Heh.

On the roller subject, they really do work for you, the whole mill glides along with them and control is an easy affair, the whole mill turns on a dime without any strain whatsoever on the operator, rolllllllllllllllinnnng on >>>>>>>.

A two man two saw head unit, is where the real benefits come to the fore
because two saws working together take the strain off of each other, the saws themselves last a lot longer and the bar has no bearing roller nose to wear out, you just turn the bar over every hundred feet or so, and the fuel to board feet cut is much much better, because the saw are not working any where near as hard, if you use a smaller pitch bar like a 3/8" the cutting speed can be quite impressive.

And if one saw stops running you can carry on as if you had a one saw system, and on a smaller width board you can turn one saw off to save on fuel, and turn them both back on for the really big stuff.
If two people share one mill you can share the costs and laugh all the way to the bank, pool ones resorces.

I also get a real buzz from doing things with my mill, we did a job for a freind who bought a derelict barn which had three lovely straight oaks growing out of the middle of it, once he had cleared the undergrowth, we topped the trees, about sixty feet high in total, so we could fell them inside, without hitting the walls.
We then milled them into three 15" x 9"x 22' beams, and once the walls were built back up to the right height, we lifted them into place using an old A frame, block and tackle, which now hold up the upper floor of the property, if he had to go out and buy the beams and get them delivered, it would have cost him over £ 1500.00 quid, that was around fifteen years ago.

We bought the big Stihl 088 new for 850.00, I made the mill for around 120.00worth of materials, so it paid for itself in the one job, we went on to make everything else for the house, including the A section roof trusses and even a 20 foot log cabin at the end of the garden, with some spruce which was growing nearby.

What really concerns me is, all the cheaper European oak that is coming into the UK from places like Romania, Poland, and other developing countries, what the air and road miles is doing to the enviorment is just plain silly.

What I would like to do one day, when I win the Lotto, is to buy one of those wilderness plots, and build myself a summer retreat by a lake somewhere, using my own mill, dreammmmmmmmmmmm on why not.

I have just took the plunge and got a freind in Minesotta to buy me one of those Rip-Saws from KT, it will come in handy for the majority of the smaller beam sections and save the big mill for the donkey work.
 
Rail-O-Matic said:
The price of 40 pounds Sterling comes out at about $ 70.00 Dollars, and that is for a solid foot cube, not board length.
You can buy it cheaper if its green but not a lot cheaper, as agie says, its a good way to save yourself heaps of money buying it from someone else.

Just imagine how much lumber is cut up for logs each year, why I imagine you could feed a small country on the proceeds, best not to say too much as the IRS could get wind of things and start snooping around Heh Heh Heh.

On the roller subject, they really do work for you, the whole mill glides along with them and control is an easy affair, the whole mill turns on a dime without any strain whatsoever on the operator, rolllllllllllllllinnnng on >>>>>>>.

A two man two saw head unit, is where the real benefits come to the fore
because two saws working together take the strain off of each other, the saws themselves last a lot longer and the bar has no bearing roller nose to wear out, you just turn the bar over every hundred feet or so, and the fuel to board feet cut is much much better, because the saw are not working any where near as hard, if you use a smaller pitch bar like a 3/8" the cutting speed can be quite impressive.

And if one saw stops running you can carry on as if you had a one saw system, and on a smaller width board you can turn one saw off to save on fuel, and turn them both back on for the really big stuff.
If two people share one mill you can share the costs and laugh all the way to the bank, pool ones resorces.

I also get a real buzz from doing things with my mill, we did a job for a freind who bought a derelict barn which had three lovely straight oaks growing out of the middle of it, once he had cleared the undergrowth, we topped the trees, about sixty feet high in total, so we could fell them inside, without hitting the walls.
We then milled them into three 15" x 9"x 22' beams, and once the walls were built back up to the right height, we lifted them into place using an old A frame, block and tackle, which now hold up the upper floor of the property, if he had to go out and buy the beams and get them delivered, it would have cost him over £ 1500.00 quid, that was around fifteen years ago.

We bought the big Stihl 088 new for 850.00, I made the mill for around 120.00worth of materials, so it paid for itself in the one job, we went on to make everything else for the house, including the A section roof trusses and even a 20 foot log cabin at the end of the garden, with some spruce which was growing nearby.

What really concerns me is, all the cheaper European oak that is coming into the UK from places like Romania, Poland, and other developing countries, what the air and road miles is doing to the enviorment is just plain silly.

What I would like to do one day, when I win the Lotto, is to buy one of those wilderness plots, and build myself a summer retreat by a lake somewhere, using my own mill, dreammmmmmmmmmmm on why not.

I have just took the plunge and got a freind in Minesotta to buy me one of those Rip-Saws from KT, it will come in handy for the majority of the smaller beam sections and save the big mill for the donkey work.

Welcome aboard,glad you have joined us.

I am very impressed with your ideas,you should do well.Best of luck to you and thanks for posting your pics. Mark
 
Hi woodshop top post mate , exelent info , not sure how I got to this post , but glad I did , just a quick question , not sure I understood something correctly , the ripsaw blade's last about 2 sharpening's or less , is this right? still sound's ok though , by the sound of how much timber they cut . Thank's Dave ..... Cheer's MM
 
Hi woodshop top post mate , exelent info , not sure how I got to this post , but glad I did , just a quick question , not sure I understood something correctly , the ripsaw blade's last about 2 sharpening's or less , is this right? still sound's ok though , by the sound of how much timber they cut . Thank's Dave ..... Cheer's MM

The Ripsaw blades are relatively small compared to most larger milling bandsaw blades. They are only 3/4 inch width and 90" length (19mm x 2.3M for the rest of the world). They are also a bit thinner, at only .025 inch, which means they do take less of a kerf than standard larger bandmill blades. Unless you hit metal or rock, they can be sharpened once and sometimes twice. If I keep them out of bark and dirt, I usually get between 250 and 400 ft of lumber from a new blade, and 200 or so from a sharpened one. Lots of variability there... soft pine or cedar I've milled over 500 ft of lumber one blade. The key of course is keep them out of bark and thus embedded dirt and grit. Some wood, butternut if you're going through bark for example seem to gum up the gullets and they stop cutting in less than 200 ft. A good cleaning and they are back in action though. I clean them with mineral spirits or turpentine and a brass brush after soaking them in kerosene. That is where I keep my spent blades waiting to be sharpened, I coil them up and drop them in a 5 gal bucket of kerosene. That keeps them from rusting and the kerosene helps soften the gum and junk milling loads them up with and makes them easier to clean before sharpening.
 
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