Sawmills & Chainsaws & Resaws

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

I'm looking for input using gadgets like the logosol or other chain saw based sawmill gadets.

My gut says it is a monstrous lot of work.
The videos make it look way too easy. Oh how fast that Chainsaw slices through a log. It's almost magic. I suspect it is the magic of speeding up the film.


I have sawn logs down the middle freehand. I’m a dab hand at it. It is, however, a brute of a job. It is a beastly ugly exhausting brute of a job just to make that one center cut. I can't bring myself to imagine the other 20 or so cuts are going to be markedly easier using a logosol or other gadget.
Note on my chains: I use chains with no anti kick components and when I sharpen them I grind off the Depth-of-Cut limiters. So I am cutting as fast and free as the chain can possibly cut. My saw is a Stihl 038. It's not the 7-HP saw one might want to use on a saw mill.

I could get a big re-saw band saw and simply build a trestle for the halved log stock.

Any ideas?
Any input on using the chain saw – saw mill gadgets?


I about 1 - 2 years off from any big purchases so I have time to think about my options.

[tod evans]

cliff, are you nuts? i wouldn`t wish making lumber with a chainsaw on anybody, it`s an ungodly slow and labor intensive process. it`d be easier on you physically to hire out to the local brick mason as a laboror and pay a sawyer your wages to cut timber with a bandmill..
if you just gotta mill your own lumber these units are of good quality and made right here in the sticks;
http://www.baker-online.com/DOCUMENTS/Band%20Sawmill%20selection_menu.htm

all that said, i buy my lumber kiln dried delivered to my door....02 tod

[Tom Andersen]

cliff, are you nuts? i wouldn`t wish making lumber with a chainsaw on anybody, it`s an ungodly slow and labor intensive process. it`d be easier on you physically to hire out to the local brick mason as a laboror and pay a sawyer your wages to cut timber with a bandmill..
if you just gotta mill your own lumber these units are of good quality and made right here in the sticks;
http://www.baker-online.com/DOCUMENTS/Band%20Sawmill%20selection_menu.htm

all that said, i buy my lumber kiln dried delivered to my door....02 tod

Hmmm, Tod, with all respect, I use an Alaskan for milling my own wood for the workshop. I have three Stihl chain saws. Mayby I am nuts but it's lots of fun!

Tom

[tod evans]

you`re a better man than i tom! we heated with wood growing up and for several years i harvested my own wood with a chainsaw and ax. now i`m getting lazy in my old age, this past week i processed a little over 700bf of kd lumber, if i`d had to mill that it would have taken me another week to cut and dry time-n- fuel on top of that. i just don`t have it in me any more...02 tod

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

cliff, are you nuts?

Occasionally


i wouldn`t wish making lumber with a chainsaw on anybody, it`s an ungodly slow and labor intensive process.

Yah that's what I thought. Slicing the lumber down the middle is a beast of a job. That is just one cut too.

Sort of kind of wondered if the chain saw lumber mills weren't all muscle and advertising.

I have looked at the Ripsaw band saw. It uses a guide trak and provides for mounting the owher's chain saw to it as the power unit.

The Band saw looks at least like a saner option. But still it's got to be a beast of a thing to do all day long.
It is, however, a rather expensive exercise machine at more than $1500.00

I got a double bit axe for that.

[Roger Bell]

I have done a fair amount of milling with Alaska type mills. These are excellent in a backcountry setting where a real mill cannot go. They are probably ok for that single log you encounter every now and then that doesnt warrant the mobilization and expense of a real mill. They are slow. They require larger capacity saws and a lot of stamina, preferably the kind that much younger people are known for. The last few times I have used mine, I have said "never again".

Don't get me wrong....they do work and they are appropriate sometimes when you just can't have anything better. I should sell mine before I forget (again) how much stamina I no longer have. I did quite a bit of chainsaw free-hand ripping of bowl blanks from a huge maple just last weekend.....milling lumber would be twice as hard.

[Michael Cody]

I'm looking for input using gadgets like the logosol or other chain saw based sawmill gadets.

My gut says it is a monstrous lot of work.
The videos make it look way too easy. Oh how fast that Chainsaw slices through a log. It's almost magic. I suspect it is the magic of speeding up the film.


I have sawn logs down the middle freehand. I’m a dab hand at it. It is, however, a brute of a job. It is a beastly ugly exhausting brute of a job just to make that one center cut. I can't bring myself to imagine the other 20 or so cuts are going to be markedly easier using a logosol or other gadget.
Note on my chains: I use chains with no anti kick components and when I sharpen them I grind off the Depth-of-Cut limiters. So I am cutting as fast and free as the chain can possibly cut. My saw is a Stihl 038. It's not the 7-HP saw one might want to use on a saw mill.




First off, you need a big saw .. that will make it easier work, but I've cut with an Alaskan mill too. For 1-2 logs every now and then, no problem but it's a lot like work. However I have seen a lot of stuff cut with a Logosol, been to demos, used on a couple of times at a demo. It's wasteful, but for the price it's about as easy as it gets. I wouldn't want to do production work with it, but the new small one (woodworker mill) with a good big saw, rip chain, etc..will cut one load of wood without to much work. See if you can find a demo near your at a wood show... they are one slick setup for under 3K w/a Husky 385xp.. I would love to have a bandsaw mill, but I couldn't justify the expense. I too am considering buying one of the logosol mills in next couple of years, just for the fun of harvesting wood. (odd what we consider fun eh?:D )

[Ian Abraham]

Have a look at this thread.
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=40223

Depending on what you are doing it might be an option for you.
Very easy to use, thats my partner MJ and the first board she cut in the pictures on the 2nd page :D No loud chainsaw, no force required to cut and no need to move or roll the log around as you saw it.

The mill can also be used in conjunction with an Alaskan type chainsaw mill if you want to cut large slabs. You can alternate cutting dimensioned boards and full width slabs by just pushing the circle blade head out of the way and dropping the chainsaw mill onto the rails

Chainsaw mills can be cool, for breaking down really big logs, cutting wide slabs and cutting up logs in places you otherwise couldn't recover the wood from. But easy to use and efficient? .... umm.... no :rolleyes:

Cheers

Ian

[Steve Clardy]

Chain saw mills are for the younger people.
As above, they are good for an occasional log.

They have a massive amount of waste though. Pushing that 3/8" chain through a log wastes several boards by the time you count up the # of cuts in a log.

[Jake Helmboldt]

First, the saw (038) is far too small to use with any regularity. The occaisional short log is one thing, but it isn't representative of how it would work to mill w/ a chainsaw.

Second, filing off the rakers is a bad idea. They are there for a reason; to control the engagement of the cutters, otherwise it gets grabby and dangerous. Plus, they help clear the kerf, especially important since when ripping you don't get ships but long, curly strands which like to pack up in the kerf and the saw. The important part of the chain for milling is the angle of the grind; much shallower than for cross cutting. You can buy a ripping chain already ground properly from Baileys.com.

Jake

[CPeter James]

If you are going to do any amount of logs, the saving in lumber not used up in sawdust by a band mill will pay for the cutting. A chainsaw takes a kurf about 4 or 5 times thicker than a band mill. When I have lumber sawed on a band mill, I get at least 150% of the 1/4" scale because of the saving.

CPeter

[Jim Andrew]

Your post doesn't give your location, but if you live in the middle of Kansas, bring your logs over, when I get caught up we can cut them on
a weekend. Bought a MP32 Cook mill a while back, and need to get some
projects finished before I can get to cutting. Jim

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

First, the saw (038) is far too small to use with any regularity. The occaisional short log is one thing, but it isn't representative of how it would work to mill w/ a chainsaw. Yah I Understand the 7 HP saws are better suited for this app.


Second, filing off the rakers is a bad idea. There once was a time I might have agreed. I like the way a sharp blade modified as I do simply sinks into a cut like it has a mind of it's own. I strip the rakers and grind to 10 Degrees along the lead and not the factory 25 Degrees.

The longer the blade engagement the slower the cut. I should try dead square sometime. The shorter the engagement the more the blade will tend to drift off course. That's abut the only difference I can discern.

I can plunge the tip of my saw into wood with impunity. It's a litter pickier than a blade with all that safety stuff but, I've spent a lot of time felling, bucking, and occasionally climbing all with the same saw. Before this one I has an 045 that I wore out. Eventually I bought an little Echo for climbing.
Now I'm old and fat so I don't climb.



they help clear the kerf, especially important since when ripping you don't get ships but long, curly strands which like to pack up in the kerf and the saw.
My experience shows me that there isn't any meaningful difference.
Example: The other day I was ripping a freshly felled maple I had an older blade on as modified till I hit an old Telephone company anchor. I put on a new one fresh out of the box and the only difference was the new blade was slower. I get most of my strips jamming in the sprocket. clearing them from the kerf is merely a matter of backing the blade up.


[quote=Jake Helmboldt]The important part of the chain for milling is the angle of the grind; much shallower than for cross cutting. You can buy a ripping chain already ground properly from Baileys.com.[/quote/

I do believe that if you grind the face edge at 10-degrees you will have made a rip chain about as well as it can be made. And you won't pay more for it.

I sharpen my blades on an old beat-to-death table saw. I use a 10" diameter metal cutting blade and a hand held water sprayer I have a little wood jig that holds the blades at the angle I prefer. It is super fast and super accurate producing a nice flat rake grind and a really sharp edge. It's nothing like the rounded edge that a file produces.

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

Your post doesn't give your location, but if you live in the middle of Kansas, bring your logs over, when I get caught up we can cut them on
a weekend.

Why thank you so very much. Sadly I earn my living ( My wife too) around a population center. So I am in NJ. Rural NJ where there are still farms but it's still NJ.

[Brad Schmid]

Cliff,
If you haven't already, stop on over to arboristsite dot com and visit the Milling & Saw Mills forum and the Chainsaw forum. Lots of info to be had.
cheers

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

Milling & Saw Mills forum and the Chainsaw forum. Lots of info to be had.
cheers

Thanks I'll check it out.