How to cut my own wood?

[Richard Mertens]

I'd like to start salvaging logs for my own use. Last year I picked up an 11-inch log from a crab apple that had blown down in a local city park and hauled it--with difficulty--to a sawmill and kiln operator I know in the country. That worked, but I'd like to learn how to cut logs myself and air-dry them. But how? James Krenov recommends using wedges and a maul to split up larger logs and then rip them on a bandsaw. There's also, I see in the Lee Valley catalog, the Alaskan chain-saw mill for occasional use. Does anyone have any experience with cutting their own logs? What do you recommend that doesn't involve a large investment of money? Thanks.

[David DeCristoforo]

"What do you recommend that doesn't involve a large investment of money?"

http://www.wealddown.co.uk/images%20magazines/yip%20pit%20saw.jpg

[Douglas Dompkowski]

Richard,

I am assuming you 11" log is the diameter...

If you have a chainsaw, some patience (and a strong back helps too) you have all you need to make rough lumber.

I've been making some of my lumber myself with minimal investment. My logs are usually 12"-18" in diameter and 3'-5' in length.

I then stand the log on end and rip with my chainsaw down the log by hand and eye. It's not easy work, you end up on your knees toward the bottom of the log, and you have to be very careful not to let the chain touch the ground (it will dull it instantly).

It takes some practice, and some effort- but I can get rough 8/4 out of a log with straight cuts.

The cuts are ROUGH and you WILL need to flatten the boards (face joint or planer sled).

Ripping is HARD on a chainsaw (I burned up my Homelite Ranger within a year of doing this). Powerful chainsaws help (a Stihl MS290 is good, an MS440 is better, I have an old 036 I bought at a State Surplus Auction and fixed up) and full chisel chains help too. Ripping chains are the best, but I haven't gotten any yet.

As for air dry, I have a 4 x 8 "shelf" in my shop that I just stack the pieces with stickers between them (I use the Trex ballisters from BORG) and let them go for a year or two. I get checking and twisting- but I don't use this wood for large projects like furniture...

I would like the Alaskan 20" myself, but I just don't do this enough to justify the $100+ cost. Clearly your yield would be greater resawing on the bandsaw or even with the Alaskan- but for my little projects, this works for me...

[Spencer Hochstetler]

In addition to feedback here, you will find sage advice on cutting and milling your own lumber at www.arboristsite.com (http://www.arboristsite.com). They have an active milling subforum.

[Jim Becker]

Don't discount having a local sawyer with a bandmill cut up the logs for you. This is HARD work, especially with a chain saw mill...and at about $50 an hour, the local guy is pretty economical, especially if you contribute as the "helper".

[Don Naples]

Richard: Douglas makes some good points about the strength of the saw and the preference for a ripping chain. I have an Alaskan Mill and do not like it as it restricts the width of the cut with the outer support and is awkward to adjust for the thickness of the cuts. I then purchased a Timberjig from Logosol. It is easy to adjust the cut thickness, provides smoother cuts as it uses a (home made with a board) rail as a starting reference, provides nearly full bar length cuts, and provided square cuts on the logs. You can get more information about them at http://www.logosol.com/_sawmills/bigmillsystem/bigmill_timberjig.php
I am not associated with them. They just make a good product that works well and with which it is easier to get good results. When you are in the field with gas, vibration, noise, fumes, dust, and heavy objects, anything that makes the job easy is appreciated.
Don

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

What do you recommend that doesn't involve a large investment of money? Thanks. - - - AND Effort~!!


Call a wood-mizer or other manufacturer and ask them who in your area has a portable mill. Orr just open the phone book and look for saw mills.

[Keith Cope]

I would recommend going the route of hiring a portable sawmill as well--just hired someone to mill over 1600b.f. of walnut a few weeks ago, cost $450. Would have been less if it weren't for the nails--ended up buying a few blades in the process.

[Dewayne Reding]

I really want to go the chainsaw mill route. Everyone I talk to that has actually done it says a 75CC saw is the minimum requirement, and larger is much better. That's an expensive saw that is too heavy to be good for much else. You can try it with a smaller saw. It will be slow, and the saw will wear fast from the heat build up of continuous duty in an application it wasn't designed for. Big saw, plus the mill and a good ripping chain is making it very hard to justify. I will have to steal a used saw for it to come close to making any sense.

[Jake Helmboldt]

I suggest doing what I did; discover (via dumb luck) that your neighbor has a sawmill in the "backyard".

While considering a chainsaw mill my neighbor's lost a big cherry tree in a windstorm earlier this year. I lamented that it was a shame that such great wood was going to probably end up in a landfill, or at best a fireplace, that it would be great if there was a way to get it sawn. A which point Sue (the neighbor) says "you know, Earl (another neighbor down the road) has a sawmill".

HUH?!:eek:

A quick email to his wife Jane (who I deal with on civic issues) inquiring if in the future he would be willing to saw salvaged wood results in her saying "Earl would never take any money from another woodworker".

I get a call from Sue saying that Earl had my wood and needs to know how I want it sawn. Next thing you know I'm loading the pickup with 4/4, 5/4, 8/4, some interesting curved slabs, and even a beam that is ~6x10x10' long.:D Turns out Earl has an old circular saw mill, and is that thing neat; big diesel engine with a huge belt turns one heck of a big blade. I guess next year I'll need to make a few cherry pieces for the neighbors.

OK, I guess this qualifies as a bit of a stealth gloat.;)

[Frank Stone]

Hi, Richard. I had some logs sawn a few years back and dried them with great success. I can't help with the sawing except to say that getting help with a portable bandsaw mill is good. I have located one in my area for future use.

I dried my green wood in a black plastic covered shed in the back yard. I weighed 6 pieces on the digital bathroom scale and logged the weight of each one. I then weighed each one every two weeks and plotted the weights. When the curve flattened, or the weight stopped going down, it was as dry as it would get and I moved it to the garage. I lated made some beautiful oak stair treads with it and has no issues.

I did see a local wood shop dry wood in a shipping container by closing up a dehumidifier and a fan with stickered green lumber and the drain hose led outside the container- he called it the poor man's kiln.

Good luck

Frank Stone

[Mike Ross]

In 1997 my Dad and I spent 2 days using an Alaska style chainsaw mill. I think we produced about 20 2x6's. Talk about miserable NOISY dirty work. Then I milled three sides on two 22' Alder logs for beams in my shop. That took another day to make six cuts. We were using a monster chainsaw with a stinger and a ripping chain. They are pretty awesome beams but it was slow, tedious, dangerous and noisy work.

We have a woodmizer now and its a whole different world. Thin blades, smooth cuts and it loads and turns the logs. As a side note we milled some salvaged old growth cedar that had to be cut in quarters with the chainsaw so that it would be small enough to get it on the mill. Some of those logs were 60" at the small end!

If you are cutting 4/4 with a chainsaw you are losing almost half your lumber to sawdust. Plus its dangerous, kickback is very likely especially using a crosscut chain.

So you could go buy a $700.00 chainsaw and a mill and make a big pile of sawdust. Or you could hire a local band mill guy and yield more boards for less money in the end.

But you would like to salvage and mill logs yourself. I understand that. Its a great feeling to start with a log from a local tree and 2 years later build something that is beautiful.

It sounds like you are working with pretty small logs to start with. I think you would be able to manage a 11" log on a medium size bandsaw with the right blade and a helper. Maybe you split it in half with a chainsaw and build an infeed/outfeed support system and just go slow. I would start small with some firewood size pieces and work up to larger stock as your skills and equipment allow.

Drying is a whole subject in itself. It easy to make little mistakes that show up later. We have a woodmizer kiln that I am loading with 1800 feet tomorrow. If I use wet stickers or misalign them or some other silly thing it shows in the boards as sticker stain, warping, excessive checking, collapsing cellular structures etc....

When I air dry I use truck straps around the whole load spaced 24" apart to help keep everything flat. As the lumber shrinks I can tighten the straps. Use dry nonreactive stickers and they must be directly over each other. You need air movement as well. Box fans work great.

Sorry to be so long winded. I hope this encourages somebody. Making lumber is enjoyable work and at the end of the day extremely gratifying. I would really like to hear from folks that are using medium size equipment and milling their own.

Mike Ross

[Matt Vallad]

Lumber salvage has become an obsession of mine lately. I use a timber making attachment from harbor freight on my $100 eager beaver/mcculoch 18" chainsaw. I've also reground a chain to 10 degrees for ripping. It's only 40cc's and I don't expect it to last forever. And it's hard work. But the saw has paid for itself in 1 weeks use.
I'm just pulling all the wood I can right now. I take full logs or slabs if the tree it too large in diameter.

I'll rip them to fit through my bandsaw which has a 12" resaw capacity. I plan on building a solar kiln for faster drying. I'll stack what won't fit in the kiln to air dry or to wait it's turn.

Lots of good info in the site mentioned by spencer also.

Here's a good read (well so far, I'm half way through):
http://www.amazon.com/Conversion-Seasoning-Wood-Principles-Practice/dp/0941936147/ref=sr_1_1/103-5611956-6857415?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1189182282&sr=8-1

I also recomend a hoist or crane. I just bought one from HF for $100 (web price match). It's awesome. Though the supports that come with the kit are insufficient. It needs a larger steel plate bolted or welded to the box/trailer bed. Trust me, under the weight of a huge box elder ripped in half, it punched through my pickup bed like it was a tin can last night. I'll be mounting a large steel plate tomorrow.

Lots of work, but well worth it.

[Al Weber]

I also recommend you go to ArboristSite.com and go to the milling section. That is a dedicated bunch of experts that will help get you started. I just recently bought a used RipSaw which is a small portable band mill powered by a chainsaw power head. You don't need a big chainsaw for it since it is only powering the band. Mine has a Stihl 036 on it. It will handle up to a 14" diameter log directly or up to a 20" with a bit of trickery. The price new is about $3000 but you can often pick them up used and since they are relatively simple things, they are often inexpensive. I paid less that half the commercial price for one that had probably been used for 20 hours or less. Chainsaw mills work but they are, as everyone has said, hard work.

[Roy Clarke]

I'll just throw this in for comments, but what about getting the works (less the motor and stand) of one of the larger home bandsaws and arranging some rails and bits so it can be used as a bandmill? It seems to me, that if you arranged a fixing to take a chainsaw engine, you might have a lower cost piece of kit. What do others think?

[Dewayne Reding]

"I use a timber making attachment from harbor freight on my $100 eager beaver/mcculoch 18" chainsaw. I've also reground a chain to 10 degrees for ripping. It's only 40cc's and I don't expect it to last forever. And it's hard work. But the saw has paid for itself in 1 weeks use."

Matt, I'm not saying it isn't so, but a 40CC saw is completely in conflict with the advice I received on arborsite.com. And a Stihl dealer basically refused to sell me a new Stihl MS390 (64CC) saw this week, when I told him I intended to mill with it.

Are you saying you are milling large logs with a hundred dollar saw? Or are you resawing old lumber? Please share some tricks if you are milling.