My new rails and a new challenge

[Can8ianTimber]

Well I have been sitting here in the shadows and looking at all the nice sets of rails you guys have been putting out. I fully intended to get some unitstrut for a 21' long cedar log but that is a lot of unistrut by the time you double it up on both sides. So I did some more digging at the steel yard and did not like what I saw. Everything was too heavy and pretty expensive as well. Finally I settled on some 2" square tubing for sign posts. Through my contacts at work I was able to get a great deal on it.

So here is the rough settup on the 21' cedar with the rails and no supports. I could not get 24' lengths so I had to double up the 12' sections. Not really that pretty.

Man that is a lot of sag over that legth. I was pretty disapointed but I don't know how much better unistrut would have performed over that legth.

So here you can see the supports in the middle of the log and then screwed to the log. This took care of the sag issue and the stubility issue.

Here is the action shot. Brand new chain she was cutting like a dream. I am used to cutting hardwoods so this red cedar seemed like cutting butter. I made it through the whole 21' on one tank.

Here is the log after the first cut.

 

[Can8ianTimber]

Here is the nicest slab of the bunch. There is some really nice vertical grain in there.

In all the rails worked pretty good and at an even 2" they are easy to figure into the cutting thickness. Each side of the rails weigh 90 Lbs so they are a bit of a chore to man handle.

Anyways some day I will get a nice set of unistrut rails for regular logs. I had a hard time justifying it for such a long log when I don't usually cut that long.

 

[betterbuilt]

That a really nice log. I'm jealous.


I did a job a while back where the guy had one of those car port type buildings that had blown over. The uprights for the building were 2.5x 2.5 and 14 foot long and they had a cuplink so they slid together really nice. They were really heavy and couldn't see myself hauling them to far ,but for that job they did the trick. He wanted a 10x10 25 foot long. I should have taken a picture of the setup. Basically I did the same as you did.

 

[dallasm1]

Here is the nicest slab of the bunch. There is some really nice vertical grain in there.

In all the rails worked pretty good and at an even 2" they are easy to figure into the cutting thickness. Each side of the rails weigh 90 Lbs so they are a bit of a chore to man handle.

Anyways some day I will get a nice set of unistrut rails for regular logs. I had a hard time justifying it for such a long log when I don't usually cut that long.

Pics didnt come through, but that is one beautiful chunk of cedar.

 

[mtngun]

That's an awesome log.

Please tell us that you milled some lumber out of that 1st slab ?

I would think that your sign post would be more rigid than unistrut. The open side of unistrut allows it to twist easily.

 

[Can8ianTimber]

That's an awesome log.

Please tell us that you milled some lumber out of that 1st slab ?
.

Yes, The whole reason I made such a deep first cut is so that I can throw it up on the bandmill and get some boards out of it. It just takes so much longer to cut with the CMS than the BSM so I wanted to make as few cuts as possible.

I set up the rails to on friday but I was able to make all the cuts and clean up to mess in about 7 hrs on Saturday. I don't know if that is good for everyone else but I was happy with that.

Oh I failed to mention that I am a Red and black man now. About a month ago I picked up this TK 1600. So far I am loving it. I do miss the Lucas mill when I have a bunch of small boards to make out of a large cedar log but I love the flexability of the BSM.

 

[BobL]

Man that is a lot of sag over that legth. I was pretty disapointed but I don't know how much better unistrut would have performed over that legth.

That's about what I would expect for what you used and unistrut is no better.

Unless something like 2 x 4" x 12 gauge steel beams are used, it is unlikely that 20 ft can be spanned (by something that can be lifted by hand) without it sagging. Middle support is not that difficult to achieve if the rails are tucked in so they sit as much on the log as much as possible. This is pretty easy to do if the connectors between the rails can sit in the slots like this.

The other reason for using unistrut is so that easily adjustable position cross pieces can be used to grip the log at both ends. Like this.

Anyway - that sure is a fine looking log and I hope you manage to get some decent pieces out of it.

 

[Brmorgan]

Here is the nicest slab of the bunch. There is some really nice vertical grain in there.

Otherwise, nice log!

I agree with Bob in that trying to achieve an unsupported 20' span is not practical. You'd need 4"X4"X5/16" squaretube or something for that if you wanted to avoid deflection.