More adventures in lo pro milling

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Wrote my first instalment on this last summer. Never really got to road test my 36" lo pro bar properly because I didn't have my Stihl 045 Super rebuild running right yet. Plus after nail damaging a demo chain I'd gotten in a package clearance deal from Chainsawbars in the UK, the teeth ended up ground so far back I couldn't get it to mill worth a damn anymore. I have two fresh chains I was being too cheap to install one of, thinking I should get the most out of the demo chain. I have a bad habit of masochistically spending way too much time milling with dull/damaged chains and kidding myself that my sharpening efforts are the best I can do. I need to keep more new chains in reserve, and switch to them more regularly, if nothing else to give me a baseline of sharpness I should be achieving. When I put a new chain on today and ran it with my 87cc 045 Super, it was the fastest milling I'd ever done. I mean, it literally flew through the wood. Was resawing some 20" red oak and some 12-16" mesquite and it just ate it up. And such beautifully smooth cuts.
When I milled a bit last year with the 36" bar on my 64cc Makita, it had very little issue with chain stretch which is one of the things people assume lo pro on bigger saws and bars is problematic about. So far with the torque-y 045 Super, no worse stretch than most other new chains I've used. Conventional wisdom, particularly in the US where next to no one uses lo pro for milling cause no one sells the sprockets or bars, is that anything over 60cc is too much torque for lo pro and makes breaking chains likely. But the 36" lo pro bar seems a perfect match for the 87cc saw, and lots of people in Europe are using lo pro on 661's without issue.
I really wondered if all the time I was putting into the Super rebuilds (I finally found the glitch in the 056 last week and got it running) was worth it, but now that I have them working I couldn't be happier. My 880 just isn't much use to me in south Texas. When everything is working right like it was today, I remember milling actually can be kinda easy rather than the struggle I've so often made it. For most folks, it's not worth doing the whole sprocket/bar/chain conversion to lo pro, along with Chainsawbars in the UK being one of the only places in the world you can do one stop shopping for all things lo pro. But if you only work with really dense hardwoods like me, it's the best solution. Photos show my lo pro rig and a 3" slab I resawed to 5/4 slabs, originally cut with my 880 and .404, was milled on site in a hard to work place I didn't use my winch (which tends to smooth out my cuts) and you can see the surface was a bit ridged. But the lo pro resawing - which I didn't bother w the winch either it goes so fast - came out way smoother.
 

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Yeah when I was comparing notes with a lo pro miller in Slovakia, he said he could get a roll of Stihl PMX there for $315(!!). It's $649 at Baileys. I do need to start making my own chains, it's long overdue. Then I'd always have fresh chains around.

When I got my Logosol mill in 1999 the 63PMX loops were reasonable.
 
When I got my Logosol mill in 1999 the 63PMX loops were reasonable.
I used to think Logosol mills weren't anything for me, because I started milling only on huge trees. Now I'm in Texas and everything but the occasional large oak or pecan is bandsaw mill size, and there's a lot of resawing and trimming of 12-18" mesquite I do, Logosol mills look awesome. Can't do shallow leveling cuts with an Alaskan due to having to secure a guide to the wood and running into screws. I just did that on a slab of badly twisted red oak I was trying to level. Thought the screws were shallow enough I'd miss them but I tried to maintain too much thickness and clipped one. Sure there's router sled flattening but too much hassle to take that much stock out of badly warped pieces. Lot of limitations to using an Alaskan mill for work other than large slabbing. Because I've invested in lo pro setups already, I think a Logosol is a better affordable option for me than a bandsaw mill. On the face of it bandsaw mills seem easy, but w less expensive ones I've seen some awful blade wander problems with them in hardwoods. I had a frustrating time resawing any mesquite, red oak, or rock elm with my 3hp vertical bandsaw and gave up trying. Blades just dulled too easy then drifted terribly. Carbide might be the only good solution for that. Found way easier to chock off a slab on a table top and resaw with lo pro. I might make one of these jigs for leveling and resawing slabs, a friend in Florida built one and said it worked great.
 

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I used to think Logosol mills weren't anything for me, because I started milling only on huge trees. Now I'm in Texas and everything but the occasional large oak or pecan is bandsaw mill size, and there's a lot of resawing and trimming of 12-18" mesquite I do, Logosol mills look awesome. Can't do shallow leveling cuts with an Alaskan due to having to secure a guide to the wood and running into screws. I just did that on a slab of badly twisted red oak I was trying to level. Thought the screws were shallow enough I'd miss them but I tried to maintain too much thickness and clipped one. Sure there's router sled flattening but too much hassle to take that much stock out of badly warped pieces. Lot of limitations to using an Alaskan mill for work other than large slabbing. Because I've invested in lo pro setups already, I think a Logosol is a better affordable option for me than a bandsaw mill. On the face of it bandsaw mills seem easy, but w less expensive ones I've seen some awful blade wander problems with them in hardwoods. I had a frustrating time resawing any mesquite, red oak, or rock elm with my 3hp vertical bandsaw and gave up trying. Blades just dulled too easy then drifted terribly. Carbide might be the only good solution for that. Found way easier to chock off a slab on a table top and resaw with lo pro. I might make one of these jigs for leveling and resawing slabs, a friend in Florida built one and said it worked great.
When setup properly the Logosol mills make true boards/beams with a finish better than bandsaw mills if you use 63PMX chain.

Another nice thing is you can mill a bunch of flitches, then place a bunch on the mill on edge , to edge.

The mill is limited a bit by weight of log. Because of this I never really need a >25" bar. Bigger dia logs get a 1st slab off the top, turned 180, another slab, then turned 90 and another slab. At this point turned 180 and final outer slab to give a square cant that is <25". Then it's off to the races ripping boards......
 
When setup properly the Logosol mills make true boards/beams with a finish better than bandsaw mills if you use 63PMX chain.

Another nice thing is you can mill a bunch of flitches, then place a bunch on the mill on edge , to edge.

The mill is limited a bit by weight of log. Because of this I never really need a >25" bar. Bigger dia logs get a 1st slab off the top, turned 180, another slab, then turned 90 and another slab. At this point turned 180 and final outer slab to give a square cant that is <25". Then it's off to the races ripping boards......
Hoping to build a house on some acreage of my father's in Florida in the next couple of years, wanted to try to mill a lot of beams and dimensional lumber for it. Figure the Logosol would be great for that. At the rate hurricanes are hitting Florida, there should be plenty of opportunities to get all the free pine I want.
 
Hoping to build a house on some acreage of my father's in Florida in the next couple of years, wanted to try to mill a lot of beams and dimensional lumber for it. Figure the Logosol would be great for that. At the rate hurricanes are hitting Florida, there should be plenty of opportunities to get all the free pine I want.

The Logosol will shine on pine <25" thick. You can get extensions to do lumber > 15' long. It is great to do beams too. Two people can carry the assembled mill and it will fit on back a pickup.

Have you considered a timberframe for your build? I've learned a good deal about timberframing from an old master. I can lay out joinery without modern tools. I don't even need a tape or a square.

This is a wood rack I made with milled ash. Layout done using a compass/divider, chalkline and straight edge (see scribings on joinery). Last picture is a shouldered mortise and tenon.

wood rack.jpgscb M +T 2.jpgscb Sh M+T.jpg



Here is a pile of 5/4 black cherry I salvaged from blowdowns on my property. I took the choice straight logs from the trunks and the stack is all clear #1 or FAS random widths. The rest went to firewood

5:4 cherry.jpg
 
Nice work. I'm likely to do some form of timber framing, an architect friend of mine who is going to do the plans for me when I get to it said this last year "Materials are top-of-mind for all builders and designers, and have been for a year. One way we dodged all that here was to build in straight-up traditional post-and-beam: we got the Timbers at a local sawmill and used building systems that didn’t need nails or fasteners. It actually was cost-effective, cheaper than commercial framing lumber."
Was going to do steel I beam frames until steel went out of sight, then timber framing with my own milled beams became way more attractive. My woodworking is mostly single slab products with no joints so have only recently started to dabble in mortise and tenon work. The mortise part always seemed way too labor intensive for my liking but since I got an edge guide and spiral plunge bit for my router, mortises seem pretty easy. I like the idea a lot of floating tenons for strong joints in tables. I like the shouldered mortise and tenon joint you did. Super strong. Lots for me to learn about that aspect of woodworking yet. People who buy my slab work think I'm this amazingly talented woodworker because of the beauty of it but truth be told I do very little conventional woodworking and still have loads to learn about different techniques. (Ninety percent of fine/high end woodworking and making grain look incredible I've learned is finish - sand sand sand and use natural oil/wax finishes. But surprising how few people seem to grasp this.) Want to work more on ordinary things like bed frames, benches, racks, and the like with mortise and tenon joints. As I learned doing "thru dowels" on bookshelves and the like, it's way easier cutting a mortise joint for timber framing if it's a thru tenon. Should have employed that on a large bench I built the frame out of salvaged 4x4's and 2x4's, but I was making up the design as I went along and didn't think it through. Was meant to be a quick and dirty thing screwed together, but then I started doweling some of it, then I decided to nicely finish it with some leftover cedar I had no other use for. Next one I'll just do with mortises.
 

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This is interesting stuff. I read this and your previous thread.

I have limited experience milling, just a bunch of maple prior to the last few weeks, I'm in the middle of milling a bunch of red and white oak right now. A couple of which are almost 40 inches across. The white oak I started with milled smooth and easy ( Woodlandpro 33rp ), but it's not the large logs. I'm in the middle of a 40 inch red oak ( first red oak I've ever milled ) and it's kind of a ball buster. My saw ( brand new 3120 with an unlimited coil and adjustable carb ) had a lot of bogging in the cut, which I didn't expect. I figured it would have no problem pulling a 52 inch chain. I couldn't find ripping chain on short notice for that long a bar so I'm running Oregon crosscut chain, so that may be part of the problem. 3/8 .063. Don't remember exactly which one. Part of the center is dry and partially rotted, so it's like very hard sawdust. And the bark is almost 2 inches thick. I did grind away the outer part of the bark but I didn't want to damage the wood edge ( this will be used for live edge bar tops ) so there's a good inch of the inner bark still. It seems like the bark is kind of gumming up the chain a bit? And the sawdust is so dry.....

Now you have me nervous about cutting with my bandsaw too. I've got a 1.5? HP 13" cut. I was planning on using it to mill boards out of larger chunks once they had dried. If I have too much trouble maybe I'll wire it to 240V and see how that does.

ANYWAYS, I wonder if the LP chain would do any better? I won't have time to try it in this pile probably but maybe I'll order some stuff from that company in Britain. I've never used them before but I've seen them. Good to know they'll ship over here.

Out of curiosity how do you think the .325 chain would work? Also being smaller than 3/8. I have a roll of .325 ripping chain on the way (along with a roll of the WP 33RP so I don't have to rely on others for my chain), I was going to try it in my little saws for quarter sawing the top and bottom of the slabs but I never thought about using it on larger stuff. I love the thinner kerf for less waste.
 
Nice work. I'm likely to do some form of timber framing, an architect friend of mine who is going to do the plans for me when I get to it said this last year "Materials are top-of-mind for all builders and designers, and have been for a year. One way we dodged all that here was to build in straight-up traditional post-and-beam: we got the Timbers at a local sawmill and used building systems that didn’t need nails or fasteners. It actually was cost-effective, cheaper than commercial framing lumber."
Was going to do steel I beam frames until steel went out of sight, then timber framing with my own milled beams became way more attractive. My woodworking is mostly single slab products with no joints so have only recently started to dabble in mortise and tenon work. The mortise part always seemed way too labor intensive for my liking but since I got an edge guide and spiral plunge bit for my router, mortises seem pretty easy. I like the idea a lot of floating tenons for strong joints in tables. I like the shouldered mortise and tenon joint you did. Super strong. Lots for me to learn about that aspect of woodworking yet. People who buy my slab work think I'm this amazingly talented woodworker because of the beauty of it but truth be told I do very little conventional woodworking and still have loads to learn about different techniques. (Ninety percent of fine/high end woodworking and making grain look incredible I've learned is finish - sand sand sand and use natural oil/wax finishes. But surprising how few people seem to grasp this.) Want to work more on ordinary things like bed frames, benches, racks, and the like with mortise and tenon joints. As I learned doing "thru dowels" on bookshelves and the like, it's way easier cutting a mortise joint for timber framing if it's a thru tenon. Should have employed that on a large bench I built the frame out of salvaged 4x4's and 2x4's, but I was making up the design as I went along and didn't think it through. Was meant to be a quick and dirty thing screwed together, but then I started doweling some of it, then I decided to nicely finish it with some leftover cedar I had no other use for. Next one I'll just do with mortises.

If you are going to timber frame start gathering the tools. The old ones are often the best ones if still in good shape. Chisels in particular.

An old slick, framing chisel, and divider/compass.

1 chisels.jpg

For mortises you want some good auger bits and a boring machine. The old ones were made by Snell, Millers Falls, and Boss. T-augers or hand braces are slower and take more effort. I don't have a picture of my machine but do of the bits, an internet photo of a Millersboring bits chisel sheaths.jpg

1 millers boring machine.png

Check out The Timber Framers Guild, and The Forestry Forum's Timber framing/Log construction forum. Lots to learn both places.

Back to milling. I've not done much in a while. But I do have some blow down black cherries , and a huge red oak also felI, want to work on when the snow melts. I'll try to get some pictures when I do.
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This is interesting stuff. I read this and your previous thread.

I have limited experience milling, just a bunch of maple prior to the last few weeks, I'm in the middle of milling a bunch of red and white oak right now. A couple of which are almost 40 inches across. The white oak I started with milled smooth and easy ( Woodlandpro 33rp ), but it's not the large logs. I'm in the middle of a 40 inch red oak ( first red oak I've ever milled ) and it's kind of a ball buster. My saw ( brand new 3120 with an unlimited coil and adjustable carb ) had a lot of bogging in the cut, which I didn't expect. I figured it would have no problem pulling a 52 inch chain. I couldn't find ripping chain on short notice for that long a bar so I'm running Oregon crosscut chain, so that may be part of the problem. 3/8 .063. Don't remember exactly which one. Part of the center is dry and partially rotted, so it's like very hard sawdust. And the bark is almost 2 inches thick. I did grind away the outer part of the bark but I didn't want to damage the wood edge ( this will be used for live edge bar tops ) so there's a good inch of the inner bark still. It seems like the bark is kind of gumming up the chain a bit? And the sawdust is so dry.....

Now you have me nervous about cutting with my bandsaw too. I've got a 1.5? HP 13" cut. I was planning on using it to mill boards out of larger chunks once they had dried. If I have too much trouble maybe I'll wire it to 240V and see how that does.

ANYWAYS, I wonder if the LP chain would do any better? I won't have time to try it in this pile probably but maybe I'll order some stuff from that company in Britain. I've never used them before but I've seen them. Good to know they'll ship over here.

Out of curiosity how do you think the .325 chain would work? Also being smaller than 3/8. I have a roll of .325 ripping chain on the way (along with a roll of the WP 33RP so I don't have to rely on others for my chain), I was going to try it in my little saws for quarter sawing the top and bottom of the slabs but I never thought about using it on larger stuff. I love the thinner kerf for less waste.

Might want to look at skip or semi-skip chain with the 52" bar. Don't feed the saw faster than it can take the wood in the cuts. You can file or grind crosscut chain back to a milling angle. Might want to do that with each sharpening so not to waste cutter life.

I'm not sure how picco/lo pro holds up with 100cc + saws and very long bars? You'd also need to locate drive sprockets and a lo pro bar that long. I know people have run the lo pro on 066/660 with 30" plus bars.
 
Don’t be surprised about bogging. Aggressive chain, especially if sharp, will bog 880s snd 3120s on big cuts if you don’t pull back on the saw some. Even new ripping chain will dig and bog at times. Bogging is actually kind of a good sign your chain is sharp and really wants to bite in the wood. But it would definitely be less aggressive w ripping chain. It’s all about a light touch, pushing or pulling back to maintain steady RPMs.
 
Might want to look at skip or semi-skip chain with the 52" bar. Don't feed the saw faster than it can take the wood in the cuts. You can file or grind crosscut chain back to a milling angle. Might want to do that with each sharpening so not to waste cutter life.

I'm not sure how picco/lo pro holds up with 100cc + saws and very long bars? You'd also need to locate drive sprockets and a lo pro bar that long. I know people have run the lo pro on 066/660 with 30" plus bars.
A guy on another forum in the UK was griping about breaking chains on a 48 lo pro bar w an 880. Flat out bad idea. Too much stretch too much torque. Can be done but only w the lightest of touches. Too many novices in the UK are starting to buy the biggest saw and lo pro bar they can and breaking chains. GB makes the mounting slots in the 48 (and a 60” that Chainsawbars doesn’t advertise but will sell by special order) in 880 size mounts to be adapted down for other saws which I think is a bad idea. Lo pro has no business on 121cc torque monster grunt saws.
 
Might want to look at skip or semi-skip chain with the 52" bar. Don't feed the saw faster than it can take the wood in the cuts. You can file or grind crosscut chain back to a milling angle. Might want to do that with each sharpening so not to waste cutter life.

I'm not sure how picco/lo pro holds up with 100cc + saws and very long bars? You'd also need to locate drive sprockets and a lo pro bar that long. I know people have run the lo pro on 066/660 with 30" plus bars.
I'm using a winch. I learned the value of that while pushing through the 30-some inch maple I had to cut. I actually have to hold the saw back. It wants to go like a Powerstroke pulling a small trailer but then grabs and bogs. Someone else mentioned this happening when the chain was sharp and that actually fits what's happening pretty well. It seemed to do best when the saw was at a fairly aggressive angle. Any time I let it pull in square to the log (it really wanted to) it bogged down instantly.

Maybe I will grind the chain some, it's due for sharpening this morning before I go back at it. Not looking forward to it though, I think 78 teeth per chain? I actually couldn't find any ready made skip chain in this length readily available, which is weird if you think about it.
I do have that Woodlandpro ripping chain on the way, but it's full comp.

If I try the lo pro I'll start smaller. I have a Husky 394 I need to put together and a Husky 575, so I'll get a smaller bar to start and mess with that.

Thanks for mentioning the Logosol BTW. I really like the idea of being able to recut slabs. I've been pondering how to go at that if I ran into it.

Ebay has some Makita timber framing routers up right now. Has a frame so you can cut large mortises in timbers.
I needed to cut some large mortises in 6x lumber so I ended up making a really large baseplate for my Milwaukee router and 3 inch bit. These would be more accurate and probably cut deeper.
 
A guy on another forum in the UK was griping about breaking chains on a 48 lo pro bar w an 880. Flat out bad idea. Too much stretch too much torque. Can be done but only w the lightest of touches. Too many novices in the UK are starting to buy the biggest saw and lo pro bar they can and breaking chains. GB makes the mounting slots in the 48 (and a 60” that Chainsawbars doesn’t advertise but will sell by special order) in 880 size mounts to be adapted down for other saws which I think is a bad idea. Lo pro has no business on 121cc torque monster grunt saws

Yeah, I don't intend to try it on the 3120 to start. Probably my Husky 575. After I buy some other stuff. This is an expensive hobby...
Any thoughts on the .325 chain?
 
Yeah, I don't intend to try it on the 3120 to start. Probably my Husky 575. After I buy some other stuff. This is an expensive hobby...
Any thoughts on the .325 chain?
It's a less expensive option than lo pro for a bit narrower kerf than 3/8", but though I don't have specs I think the kerf difference between .325 and 3/8" is so marginal it's not worth it and weaker chain. For the 3120 I'd stick with at least 3/8" chain. Yeah, it can run into some money, chainsaw milling. I've thrown far more at it than makes sense for the limited milling I do for my woodworking. But I'm also looking toward producing dimensional lumber for a house, so all my investments in saws and chains and building better widgets should someday be worth it. Lo pro is something I mainly see as suitable to really tough sub-30" slab hardwood milling - mesquite, pecan, hickory, osage, eucalypts - and for resawing either w a Logosol or w an Alaskan. Someone just posted a very simple technique of gang ripping 2x4's with an Alaskan I'd never thought of. They created a cant - though truth be told, you don't even have to square the sides of a log first - then I think chalk lined 4" wide marks on the surface of the cant and cut each line full depth with a circular saw 2 3/8" or so. Then they set their chainsaw mill for 2" deep and milled the cant, creating something like six 2x4's at a time out of a 25-26" cant. Ideally the circular saw will have cut deep enough to leave scoring lines in the wood below for the next cuts. I have a Big Foot that will cut 3 7/8" deep and a Makita 5401NA that will cut 6 1/4 deep, so I could minimize kerf waste and use the chainsaw less if I made 2x4's by cutting 3 7/8" deep w the Big Foot 10 1/4 saw and make all the cut lines 2" wide. (The Makita is slow and a bit underpowered for ripping 6" depths, can be done, but would probably stick with the Big Foot for 2x and 4x dimensional unless I wanted to cut 6x beams.)

I got lucky with some demo deals from Chainsawbars, and in general over time I've bought much of my gear in clearance/demo packages at 1/2 to 1/3 normal cost. I call my Stihl an 880 not to confuse people, but it's actually a 780 which is a tuned down gruntier 880 that Stihl markets more in the Second/Third World. I got it in Mexico for $950 brand new w a 36" bar (hardnose so I quickly sold it and got a rollertip) and had a friend bring it up to Texas for me. I got a new GB 72" bar years ago on clearance when Gregg Grande went out of business for $240 plus shipping that I had to bore out from a Husky to a big Stihl mount. My 87cc Stihls cost me $400 and $200 initially second hand but have easily spent that again and then some in throwing money at partial rebuilds and finally rebuilding both top to bottom. But they'd easily be worth $700 each now if not more, both as collectibles and great work saws. I got like $450 worth of 36" bars, chains, and lo pro sprockets from Chainsawbars in a bargain demo package shortly after I'd bought just a bar from them for $150. So now I have three bars so could likely hook you up with a 36" bar and maybe I have an extra lo pro sprocket to fit a 575 if you ever want to try out lo pro. You can get a WP lo pro chain from Baileys though the last one they sent me was uneven tooth junk so I didn't try WP lo pro again and am using Panther chains from Chainsawbars (they make the only lo pro full skip ripping chain so want to try that next).

Archer is one of the only companies I see making a full skip 3/8" ripping chain ready to go for your 3120. Though I think Forester does too. Here's the Archer - https://www.ebay.com/itm/3848386907...xOG2R_TW8o8T9vrdsY60xeKdYh133oYkaAp64EALw_wcB
 

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@George Hurchalla

Have you ran any LP chain on 8 or 10 pin rims?

I know from first hand chats with people testing the 100cc plus saws snapping chain from too much load can happen. I mill with 050 375, 063 375 and 404. Almost all full comp full chisel. Have some Semi skip and semi chisel full comp but use it very little. I do run full skip bucking with my longest bars.

Considering an lp setup to run on the 28" roller 10 pin for testing it. This should relieve the chain snapping grunt in my bigger saws. Not much point in going to full skip or smaller power heads when it just slows down my cut times milling. 90 plus cc is my go to. The beam tool got smaller power heads and does just fine.

Interested in knowing what chain brands your running and your power heads, ported, stock and rim pin numbers your currently using. 2100xp 8 pin ported I've been told snaps chains. Currently here I'm running 38, 40, 42 and 43mm strokes so options are available to tune my torque curves. I get two fuel tanks and 28 minutes on average of milling with 375 loops. 404 doesn't really last longer it just takes more abuse in big nasty dirty bark on the long bar. Trying to keep that stuff clear of my chain inlet side and some filthy logs just get stripped or wind blow trees filled with sand outside in the thick bark get stripped. LP takes very little of that abuse. I run lp regularly on small power heads.
 
@George Hurchalla

Have you ran any LP chain on 8 or 10 pin rims?

I know from first hand chats with people testing the 100cc plus saws snapping chain from too much load can happen. I mill with 050 375, 063 375 and 404. Almost all full comp full chisel. Have some Semi skip and semi chisel full comp but use it very little. I do run full skip bucking with my longest bars.

Considering an lp setup to run on the 28" roller 10 pin for testing it. This should relieve the chain snapping grunt in my bigger saws. Not much point in going to full skip or smaller power heads when it just slows down my cut times milling. 90 plus cc is my go to. The beam tool got smaller power heads and does just fine.

Interested in knowing what chain brands your running and your power heads, ported, stock and rim pin numbers your currently using. 2100xp 8 pin ported I've been told snaps chains. Currently here I'm running 38, 40, 42 and 43mm strokes so options are available to tune my torque curves. I get two fuel tanks and 28 minutes on average of milling with 375 loops. 404 doesn't really last longer it just takes more abuse in big nasty dirty bark on the long bar. Trying to keep that stuff clear of my chain inlet side and some filthy logs just get stripped or wind blow trees filled with sand outside in the thick bark get stripped. LP takes very little of that abuse. I run lp regularly on small power heads.
Haven't gotten too much into the performance aspect of my saws yet, I was challenged enough just doing rebuilds that worked lol. The MS780 I'm just running stock as it came new and don't know the exact specs. Supposedly same as 880 but slightly different carb tuned to pull more torque in lower and mid bands. Rev limited like 880 I believe. No porting. Compression is nothing special when I've tested it but for some reason requires way more muscle to start than 880 even with decompression valve depressed. I'm a strong guy and have to two hand pull it. Someone said the same on OPE about a 780 they came across at a dealer, but just assumed it had monster compression. Anyway, I just run .404 on it - Archer for the most part cause it's cheap - mesquite is dirty and thick bark, and in general I like running it in the field where I'm time constrained to get logs slabbed and removed and don't have time to clean up a tree. Then I can go to lopro on smaller saws later to resaw slabs that I've had time to clean up.

The 045/056 Supers are rebuilt stock, one with dual port exhaust, one with single port, no exhaust porting. 87cc and stroke is 38mm. Honestly never bothered rethinking rims either, just gone 7 pin across the board for all my saws usually. I'm told the Supers are old school grunt saws, more torque than chain speed, so maybe it would make sense in lo pro to go to at least an 8 pin on them. My understanding of lo pro is you want more speed and less torque. Oh, except no one makes a big saw lo pro 8 pin, the only available rim is a 7 pin.

Running Panther brand lo pro 36" chains on the 045 Super, the house brand of Chainsawbars in the UK. Bought one 20" Stihl 63PMX chain and one or two more 20" Panther chains, was running them on my 64cc Makita but don't want to wear it out milling so may switch that rig to the other Super once it's dialed in.

I've been all over the place on chains looking for a magic bullet on faster milling, and eventually have concluded that chain sharpening skills make infinitely more difference than whether it's full, skip, or hyperskip. Yeah, in really big logs I definitely prefer skip, but just being a master sharpener is way more important which I still have a lot to work on. So many people who swear by some chain type do so because they bought a new chain and it worked much better lol. I do like sharpening less teeth on longer bars, that's the main appeal of skip to me. But in lo pro I dunno if there's any reason at all for skip in 36", so should maybe just stick to full comp. Think I'm mostly running semi chisel as it's fairly standard in ripping chains - has been explained as full chisel has too much vibration except in softwoods.
 
Haven't gotten too much into the performance aspect of my saws yet, I was challenged enough just doing rebuilds that worked lol. The MS780 I'm just running stock as it came new and don't know the exact specs. Supposedly same as 880 but slightly different carb tuned to pull more torque in lower and mid bands. Rev limited like 880 I believe. No porting. Compression is nothing special when I've tested it but for some reason requires way more muscle to start than 880 even with decompression valve depressed. I'm a strong guy and have to two hand pull it. Someone said the same on *** about a 780 they came across at a dealer, but just assumed it had monster compression. Anyway, I just run .404 on it - Archer for the most part cause it's cheap - mesquite is dirty and thick bark, and in general I like running it in the field where I'm time constrained to get logs slabbed and removed and don't have time to clean up a tree. Then I can go to lopro on smaller saws later to resaw slabs that I've had time to clean up.

The 045/056 Supers are rebuilt stock, one with dual port exhaust, one with single port, no exhaust porting. 87cc and stroke is 38mm. Honestly never bothered rethinking rims either, just gone 7 pin across the board for all my saws usually. I'm told the Supers are old school grunt saws, more torque than chain speed, so maybe it would make sense in lo pro to go to at least an 8 pin on them. My understanding of lo pro is you want more speed and less torque. Oh, except no one makes a big saw lo pro 8 pin, the only available rim is a 7 pin.

Running Panther brand lo pro 36" chains on the 045 Super, the house brand of Chainsawbars in the UK. Bought one 20" Stihl 63PMX chain and one or two more 20" Panther chains, was running them on my 64cc Makita but don't want to wear it out milling so may switch that rig to the other Super once it's dialed in.

I've been all over the place on chains looking for a magic bullet on faster milling, and eventually have concluded that chain sharpening skills make infinitely more difference than whether it's full, skip, or hyperskip. Yeah, in really big logs I definitely prefer skip, but just being a master sharpener is way more important which I still have a lot to work on. So many people who swear by some chain type do so because they bought a new chain and it worked much better lol. I do like sharpening less teeth on longer bars, that's the main appeal of skip to me. But in lo pro I dunno if there's any reason at all for skip in 36", so should maybe just stick to full comp. Think I'm mostly running semi chisel as it's fairly standard in ripping chains - has been explained as full chisel has too much vibration except in softwoods.
Hone your skills with the grinder and a file.
Getting 8 and 10 pin rims isn't easy to run with LP chain. I found the 8 pin is definitely faster if, the big if, you can pull full comp. I can on 36 or 40" and the big saw would surely need 10 pin being modified or the ported one. I will say the nasty 660 is enough to tareup 375 Oregon loops. When that happens it's back to 404 on the 28" and up setups milling or stumps. I've been known to pull 404 in 28" on the 660 for dirty deeds. My biggest gripe is hanging on to 10k in the cut. Once my chain speed on 7 pin drops below 9k on the 660 the chip starts to get jammed on hardwood or softwood wood over 30" wide. Pulling 404 in the big wood on the 60" with full comp needs about 12hp so the next saw will have a broader top end run to try lp on and forget about the midrange on the next 084 cylinder. It has plenty of bottom end on the modified saw running stock cylinders. I'll never have 088 grunt but I rarely buck anything over four foot. Done most of the tree work I used to do so the 660 sees most of it's time on the mill. The 066 handles killing and bucking most times with 32lw. I'm not into swinging the 40 or 60 much bucking. That's a young man's chore. Will the LP take the kind of abuse put to it, idk, time will tell. I know the LP won't handle dirt or heat like the big chain does. Archer isn't even on the list of test chains. The big three are.

The new plan is building climbing saw from old to brand new and stick with the 394 stroker plan and the 660 stroker. The big saws can rest more if quality wood is being milled with LP chain. White oak and locust wouldn't be on that list. LP cutters generally can't take the heat or sandy bark like wind row black oak or mulberry.
 

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