Milling sycamore

[Coralillo Lo Pro]

Too hot to mill but wanted to get started on the sycamore. For the hundredth time, when I thought i had at least one of my 87cc Stihl’s working, it wouldn’t start. So switched the 36” lo pro rig back to the 64cc Makita. Then it wouldn’t start either. Finally got it running by two pm when it was already at least 100 degrees out. Just wanted to do a first cut to see the condition of the wood. Gonna be some beautiful slabs from this. Had a near tragedy on city brush pickup day yesterday. Figured it was too heavy for their crane plus it was in my yard rather than on the curb so didn’t have to worry about them mistakenly taking it. Wrong. Luckily I was watching when they pulled up cause the crane operator had the claw out reaching for it. Ran outside and called him off. Guess those city crane trucks can handle a log that big. I need myself one of those!

 

[Sawyer Rob]

That's some pretty wood!

SR

 

[Lightning Performance]

Too hot to mill but wanted to get started on the sycamore. For the hundredth time, when I thought i had at least one of my 87cc Stihl’s working, it wouldn’t start. So switched the 36” lo pro rig back to the 64cc Makita. Then it wouldn’t start either. Finally got it running by two pm when it was already at least 100 degrees out. Just wanted to do a first cut to see the condition of the wood. Gonna be some beautiful slabs from this. Had a near tragedy on city brush pickup day yesterday. Figured it was too heavy for their crane plus it was in my yard rather than on the curb so didn’t have to worry about them mistakenly taking it. Wrong. Luckily I was watching when they pulled up cause the crane operator had the claw out reaching for it. Ran outside and called him off. Guess those city crane trucks can handle a log that big. I need myself one of those!

The rolled over log rollback job

 

[Coralillo Lo Pro]

Deeper into it now. Up to 28” wide. Should have resharpened after second cut, third and fourth slab were pretty slow for lo pro. Not doing a foot a minute any more but 9’ long cuts aren’t taking more than 15 minutes so not so bad. Had a professional sharpening shop resharpen my lo pro chains after running into some metal in other wood and unimpressed by high priced job they did. Weren’t anything close to new sharpness when I started on this log but at least they corrected the unevenness. At 26-28” wide now and the 64cc Makita is still handling it. Long rests between each cut.

 

[Lightning Performance]

Deeper into it now. Up to 28” wide. Should have resharpened after second cut, third and fourth slab were pretty slow for lo pro. Not doing a foot a minute any more but 9’ long cuts aren’t taking more than 15 minutes so not so bad. Had a professional sharpening shop resharpen my lo pro chains after running into some metal in other wood and unimpressed by high priced job they did. Weren’t anything close to new sharpness when I started on this log but at least they corrected the unevenness. At 26-28” wide now and the 64cc Makita is still handling it. Long rests between each cut.

How high are your depth gauges on the fresh chains?
I'd love to see the job they did on low pro. Those are so so easy to burn on the grinders.

Your not doing too bad at 14 minutes with 64cc should be closer to twelve in 28 hardwood with lp loops.
That stuff has some nice color.

 

[Coralillo Lo Pro]

How high are your depth gauges on the fresh chains?
I'd love to see the job they did on low pro. Those are so so easy to burn on the grinders.

Your not doing too bad at 14 minutes with 64cc should be closer to twelve in 28 hardwood with lp loops.
That stuff has some nice color.

I think I was going 11-12 min before actually. Seem to have not improved chain w sharpening, plus am at thickest 28-30” slabs in center so really slow. Was at 14 min about 8.5’ into cut when ran out of gas. Previous two cuts felt kinda slow but this felt way slower so guessing other cuts were reasonable time for their width. May be running up against limits of saw power at this width and /or sawdust clearing issues. Ash this wide got real slow too. Works good up to 26” and past that it really starts to slow down a lot for every extra inch. Probably need more power. It doesn’t bite and self feed at all and doesn’t cut much without decent pressure on mill and then I feel the teeth dig in but saw starts bogging. This is where I need one of the 87cc Stihl’s working.

 

[Coralillo Lo Pro]

Will check rakers on other shop sharpened chain and get some macro shots of teeth. Felt like they did burn the teeth on the grinder. Seem difficult to sharpen.

 

[Lightning Performance]

I think I was going 11-12 min before actually. Seem to have not improved chain w sharpening, plus am at thickest 28-30” slabs in center so really slow. Was at 14 min about 8.5’ into cut when ran out of gas. Previous two cuts felt kinda slow but this felt way slower so guessing other cuts were reasonable time for their width. May be running up against limits of saw power at this width and /or sawdust clearing issues. Ash this wide got real slow too. Works good up to 26” and past that it really starts to slow down a lot for every extra inch. Probably need more power. It doesn’t bite and self feed at all and doesn’t cut much without decent pressure on mill and then I feel the teeth dig in but saw starts bogging. This is where I need one of the 87cc Stihl’s working.

Try lowering the depth gauges a fuzz. I've notice one thing even with 375 or 404. 18 cutters is about all the saws can clear of any size. 21-23 is much much slower. You may have hit a wall at 18-20 cutters in the wood. Take off every other set as they are now or lower the depths. If it was me I'd move back every other set and just use them as shovels nothing more. Cut the tooth sets back and leave the depths gauges alone. Lower the others in play 0.010. I did this for quite some time before grinding them off on my one 404 setup. It just goes faster with more work in each cutter and less drag. On Facebook most of them just won't listen to reason or test results. Running a 60" bar and still don't need two power heads and I still run full comp lx sometimes but never run full skip because it's slower. Full skip runs hotters and wears the bar rail faster. It also tares up the chain chassis more in my experience. Others have their own ideas. Have no need for hyperskip on my setups.

 

[Coralillo Lo Pro]

Haven’t been impressed w full skip or hyper skip at all. Brand new hyper was very average in some 30” pecan I tested my 72” bar on. Last full skip .404 I got was mediocre in the big cottonwood I milled. Best results of any .404 chain for me so far has been grinding off every other tooth pair, did it on a damaged chain and have loved the results in big wood. Have that one sharpened for cross cutting now and put it on my 780 when I rent it to a tree service friend for cutting up big trunks and he loves how it cuts. Probably time I tried that on some more milling chains. It seems to be an obvious array for good results to me but like you say hardly anyone runs it. Thought I read something about it being a fairly common tooth array for milling 40-50 years ago but never found that again.

 

[Coralillo Lo Pro]

Hey, it’s like you know what you’re talking about lol, I checked my lo pro loop and the last slab I did, 18-20 cutters were engaged for nearly the whole length, almost 21 cutters when the bar was maxed for the first foot or so. My experience meshes w yours that past 18 cutters, you hit that clearing wall. I don’t like to rock the mill around much cause it makes the cut less clean but past 18 cutters engaged pushing/winching straight, it improves the hell out of the speed to go back and forth w only 10-12 engaged at a time. You slow to a crawl if the whole bar is engaged.

 

[thenne1713]

Deeper into it now. Up to 28” wide. Should have resharpened after second cut, third and fourth slab were pretty slow for lo pro. Not doing a foot a minute any more but 9’ long cuts aren’t taking more than 15 minutes so not so bad. Had a professional sharpening shop resharpen my lo pro chains after running into some metal in other wood and unimpressed by high priced job they did. Weren’t anything close to new sharpness when I started on this log but at least they corrected the unevenness. At 26-28” wide now and the 64cc Makita is still handling it. Long rests between each cut.

TIPS: 1) Keep x3-x4 CHAINS, file sharpen/ touchup no more than x2-x3 in field and then swap chain, bench grind all at night; 2) Sharpen BEFORE it gets dull, after first slab or two, you will know when that is by feel/speed; 3) Check/ file depth gages every other sharpening, and after bench grinding; 4) Get a magnifying glass or use cell camera to check/ inspect cutters, if needed. 5) Allow engine to idle 45-60-seconds before shutdown for fan cooling after each cut. 6) Study/ learn the geometry of the cutters and best hand sharpening methods. It is NOT difficult and will greatly enhance the milling efforts, and help diagnose/ troubleshoot problems as they occur.

 

[Seachaser]

That's some pretty wood!

SR

Very pretty. Didn’t know sycamore milled like that.

 

[Seachaser]

@ GeorgeHurchalia
How did the pecan turn out?

 

[Coralillo Lo Pro]

@ GeorgeHurchalia
How did the pecan turn out?

Funny, I was just looking at it today stacked in a corner, forgotten. It’s like 3-3.5’ long short slabs, 28-30” wide, a little short for conventional coffee table, too wide for entry/side tables. But fine for small coffee tables. One edge piece of pecan I planed was beautiful, not a ton of character but fine grained light white hardwood. Need to level and sand my stack of pecan slabs and put them in my air conditioned storage unit now they’re fully dry after 2+ years, til I build something w them.

 

[Coralillo Lo Pro]

Very pretty. Didn’t know sycamore milled like that.

I’d seen pics of big slabs for sale in E Texas and admired them, but never got a shot at one in San Antonio til now.

 

[Coralillo Lo Pro]

TIPS: 1) Keep x3-x4 CHAINS, file sharpen/ touchup no more than x2-x3 in field and then swap chain, bench grind all at night; 2) Sharpen BEFORE it gets dull, after first slab or two, you will know when that is by feel/speed; 3) Check/ file depth gages every other sharpening, and after bench grinding; 4) Get a magnifying glass or use cell camera to check/ inspect cutters, if needed. 5) Allow engine to idle 45-60-seconds before shutdown for fan cooling after each cut. 6) Study/ learn the geometry of the cutters and best hand sharpening methods. It is NOT difficult and will greatly enhance the milling efforts, and help diagnose/ troubleshoot problems as they occur.

All good stock advice, mostly known already but a matter of time and money to act on it all. Woodworking and keeping up w my huge array of blades and tools for that hogs most of my time. As I’ve been in the process of going to mostly lo pro milling, I’ve yet to build a lo pro chain arsenal due to high expense and poor availability in the US. Haven’t gotten a good grinder yet nor tools to make my own chain loops. Still working on my 87cc saws that are supposed to be my lo pro outfits and making do w 64cc Makita in meantime that’s less than ideal in big hardwood. Don’t have much of a road map for lo pro in larger hardwood because so few people mill w it in US, so learning its limits as I go. Plus constantly milling new woods I haven’t before. In short, stable baselines to refer to are hard to establish w what I have and what I’m doing. Is the chain dulling or are the slabs getting much wider? Is the chain dull or have I maxed out the sawdust clearing ability of the chain? Not always clear. Depended so far w lo pro taking down rakers w 2 in 1 Pferd file but it is a bit shallow a raker setting for anything but newish teeth so need to separately file rakers deeper after teeth get filed back some. Do need to study teeth and sharpening results under magnification more often and stop guessing at the quality of my sharpening.

 

[Lightning Performance]

7° angle of attack in the tooth or more.
3x reading glasses.

 

[Lightning Performance]

Any old grinder will do George the guy operating it is the key. it's not the grinder even the junk ones will do a decent job if you tap tap tap. As far as chain tools you need a grinder a punch and a small ball peen hammer nothing else now you're making chain. I'm considering buying cheap Archer U25lp and burn the cutters a bit on my grinder and run it at near 120dl. If it snaps or stretches oh well. Save it for the little saws running 14"-18" loops.

 

[Coralillo Lo Pro]

Any old grinder will do George the guy operating it is the key. it's not the grinder even the junk ones will do a decent job if you tap tap tap. As far as chain tools you need a grinder a punch and a small ball peen hammer nothing else now you're making chain. I'm considering buying cheap Archer U25lp and burn the cutters a bit on my grinder and run it at near 120dl. If it snaps or stretches oh well. Save it for the little saws running 14"-18" loops.

I have an HF cheapy but mainly got it to even out damaged chain and it’s useless for that, no power. I have realized it’s fine for sharpening if I ignore where it wants to set the chain - it’s so flexible it has no consistency- and just tap tap tap sharpen lightly. Will get tools one of these days so I can buy the Archer LP and start making chains. Slowly but surely. Most income goes to woodworking stuff. The last of the cut I quit on yesterday went real easy this morning when it was down to 26” or so, chain is pretty sharp after all. Was just I think as you said on the 28-30” parts of it, too many cutters engaged to clear sawdust.

 

[Seachaser]

Funny, I was just looking at it today stacked in a corner, forgotten. It’s like 3-3.5’ long short slabs, 28-30” wide, a little short for conventional coffee table, too wide for entry/side tables. But fine for small coffee tables. One edge piece of pecan I planed was beautiful, not a ton of character but fine grained light white hardwood. Need to level and sand my stack of pecan slabs and put them in my air conditioned storage unit now they’re fully dry after 2+ years, til I build something w them.

Thanks.