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John TenEyck
10-21-2015, 9:04 PM
An arborist friend dropped off these WO logs a couple of weeks ago. They are in the 23 to 26" dia. range.

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The first log I milled was almost 11' long, but my drier can only handle boards 8' long, so rather than cut 3' off for firewood I decided to cut the long in half. That made the logs a lot easier to handle which was important because I wanted to try quarter sawing it as Danny recently described here. After getting the log on the mill I took off a slab at the top and then made a cut about 6/4 above the center.

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I pulled off the top slab and then cut two 6/4 slabs, one of which looked like this.

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I turned the remaining portion of the half on the mill up vertically against a fence and took 4/4 slices.

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A heaved the other half back up onto the mill and cut it the same way. Then I stacked up the boards of similar width against the fence and cut off the bark.

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When I was done I had this:

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John

Danny Hamsley
10-22-2015, 7:56 AM
Very nicely done. Using that method yields for me about 50 - 60% quartersawn with most of the rest being rift sawn.

John TenEyck
10-22-2015, 7:33 PM
I'd say that's about right Danny. Of course, the true QS is only those 3 or 4 boards right around the center. They show the "bat wing" figure so characteristic of WO. The next 2 or 3 boards out have lesser figure but are still very nice. From there to the last couple of boards closest to the top and bottom you get very nice mostly rift sawn figure transitioning to plain sawn at the centerline. That's probably why some folks cut a single quarter of the log at a time, and rotate it 90 deg between cuts. That approach should give only QS and RS. Maybe I'll try that on my last log and see if it's true.

John

Danny Hamsley
10-22-2015, 9:13 PM
It also gets to be a matter of practically and yield. To cut only quartersawn lumber results in a significant amount of wasted wood.

Cody Colston
10-23-2015, 1:10 PM
The attached link shows the QS method I use. It also renders some rift-sawn along with TVG lumber. I can always use both types and, in fact, don't like to build with all QS lumber. Too much of the ray-fleck figure begins to look "busy" to my eye. Of course, that's just me and YMMV.

http://alterra-wv.com/wood/quartersaw.htm

John TenEyck
10-24-2015, 2:04 PM
Thanks for that link Cody. It would take a pretty big log to make it worthwhile to mill it as shown in that article. With my roughly 24" dia. logs I would end up with a lot of really narrow boards, and a lot more waste.

I milled the last log as I did the prior two, halving the log, turning them vertical, and then sawing through. I ended up with maybe 2/3's of the boards being 8 - 10" wide and the others going down to 5 - 6". I haven't figured out yet how many BF I got from those 3 logs but there's plenty for several really nice projects. I made most of the boards from the last log at 5/4 thick, so I have a good mix or 4/4, 5/4, and 6/4. There are quite a few with beautiful QS character and a lot of nice rift sawn, too. The few boards I got near the bark with plain sawn orientation have a lot of sap in them and will likely end up for shop projects.

I once toured an old mansion somewhere in VT or NH, can't quite remember which state. It was owned by a guy they called Colonel, though I don't know if he actually was one. Anyway, he gave a fascinating tour of his mansion and I remember when we got to the dining room that he pointed out the dining room table. It was somewhere around 48" wide and had to be at least 12' long. He said the top was made with only 2 or 3 planks of QSWO, I can't remember for sure. If it was only 2 boards wide, imagine how big that tree must have been! Something in the 5' dia. range, or more.

John

David Mealey
01-06-2016, 5:41 PM
Hi John,

I'm new to thread and listserve, I'm curious what type of chainsaw mill your using? For anyone else following this thread, do you have a recommendation for a chainsaw mill, Granberg vs. Logosol? or any others?

David M.

John TenEyck
01-06-2016, 7:35 PM
Hi David,

It's a home built mill of my own design but I stole a lot of ideas from others I saw on the web. More details and a SketchUp model can be found at the link below. It has a Huskvarna 385XP chainsaw with a 42" bar and can handle a log up to about 32". I use Oregon ripping chain with an auxiliary oiler at the end of the bar.

I started with a Granberg Alaskan mill and milled several thousand BF with it, but as I got older that got to be too much work. I looked really hard at the Logosol mill before building my own. Cost was one issue, but the real issue was that it cannot easily be used with large logs. It works best with logs of less than maybe 15" diameter, and I don't mill many that small. Most of the ones I mill are at least 20". If you plan to mill larger sized logs, the Alaskan mill would be a better choice. For small logs, either would work but the Logosol would be more efficient and easier on the body. Or a home built like mine can mill logs of any size up to the width of the mill.

John

https://sites.google.com/site/jteneyckwoodworker/current-projects/chainsaw-lumber-mill

Scott T Smith
01-07-2016, 8:59 PM
Hi John, great post!