A very uncommon project....

[Ronald Blue]

Very interesting! Always nice to see photos of a unique and challenging job like this. Thanks for posting and I look forward to seeing more of the photos when you get them on.

[Curt Harms]

Scott wins the "cool toys" contest going away! Thanks for the thread and I'm looking forward to part 2.

[Dan Hintz]

Very cool, Scott... can't wait for part II.

[Jeff Bartley]

Thanks for sharing this project Scott! What an incredible experience to work with timbers of that size! I spent a few years timber-framing and the timbers always came from a mill in Ohio.....they had some sort of four-sided planer to dimension the logs. But I never saw a timber over 26'-28' long.
Looking forward to part 2 and if you can let us know how to follow the project after it leaves your mill! I'd love to see a timber-frame with 43' timbers!!
Awesome!!!
Jeff
ps-----now I know who I'll call if I ever get the chance to build that dream timber-frame house......

[Phil Thien]

That is impressive. And an amazing beam. Let's hope it doesn't twist, because it is taking whatever is attached to it along for the ride if it does!

[mreza Salav]

As others have said, very interesting thread and photos. Thanks for sharing.

[Ole Anderson]

Very cool! Tell us about your saw. Diameter, hp, effective cut depth, how you sharpen it, etc.

[Warren Johnson]

Very interesting post. Looking forward to the next set of photos.

[ray hampton]

this size of logs would be perfect for a saw pit to explain how it were done back when
how will the beams get installed ?

[Joe A Faulkner]

When I was in college, my step Dad was the owner\operator of one of these babies. A day in the mill, rolling logs, and off loading lumber was a pretty good days work. Your set up looks much safer. He ran his off the PTO of an Oliver 88 row crop tractor.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twPbrKblTKk

Do keep the pictures coming. Very interesting.

[Scott T Smith]

All - thanks for your comments, encouragement and kind words. I'll post some additional pix later this week.

Let me see if I can address some of the specific questions asked...

Ole - I have a Peterson Winch Production Frame swing-blade mill. These are made in New Zealand and are designed to be both portable as well as mill extremely large diameter (60") logs. The blade is around 26" diameter, engine is 27hp, and I can mill a 10" deep, 20" wide beam w/o turning the log. Beyond that, I can mill up to a 60" x 60" beam by turning the log, or yield 20" wide boards at any level. I retip my own blades (silver-soldered carbide tips), and use both on-mill as well as off-mill sharpening systems (I have one that is similar to those used for sharpening 4' diameter circle sawmill blades on-mill). For these beams, I staggered the tips so as to accentuate the circular saw marks at the customer request. I'm set up to mill a log up to 58' long, although thus far 44' is the longest that I've milled. I'm almost finished building a 30hp dedicated slabber with a 7' bar for the mill as well.

Ted - these beams will be installed green. The only way to kiln dry large oak beams w/o damaging them is by using an RF Vacuum kiln (of which very few exist, and I'm now aware of any available in the U.S. that could handle beams this long), and oak beams this thick would require many weeks in the kiln.

Dan Bowman: GREAT IDEA!!!

Jared, logs like this cost around 2K apiece when/if you can find them.

Joe Bradshaw: Wish that I'd known that...... <grin>

Larry: You've been milling up in Alaska? What kind of mill (and if it's a chainsaw mill you have my respect (and sympathy!) sir!)

Mark, you clearly have a discerning eye regarding great dogs!

Phil: I think that we should be ok regarding twist, as the raw logs were fairly straight grained and I've gone to a lot of effort to make sure that the pith is centered in the beams.

Scott

[Erik Christensen]

"I would have paid money to watch the whole process" - Oh great another calamity about to be inflicted on our society - TOOL PORN - where do I get tickets?

[Ole Anderson]

Scott, can you explain how you mill a 60" wide log when it seems that the 27" blade can only cut 10" deep? Are you truly milling the log or sawing it, or can you do either? And how do you mill the bottom of a 10" x 20" beam without turning the log? As starters I am guessing that the blade is flush on the bottom with no protruding arbor nut, but then you would be limited to removing just the thickness of the blade. I'm stumped.

Ok forget these questions, I went to their website and now I think I understand. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjDJu...layer_embedded

[Scott T Smith]

Thank you to everybody so far who commented and has enjoyed my post about milling some 43’ timbers. In this and the next post I’ll document the rest of the project.

My initial post showed the milling process up to the point where two faces had been milled on a log. The milling process changes somewhat for the second two faces, due to the fact that taper in the log no longer has to be factored into consideration and also the process to turn the logs for subsequent cuts is different.

When we milled the first two faces, we picked up the log and swung it over onto a couple of bunks, and used a backhoe bucket to turn it.






For faces 3 and 4, we have to turn the log in steps, because the sharp edge resists turning and will slide on the bunk if we use the backhoe. So instead, we offset the log on some blocks to facilitate turning.







We then set it back up in the bunks on the sawmill, but this time we have adjusted all bunks to be equidistant from the sawmill blade, as opposed to the different depths that there were originally set to allow for log taper. This will allow our cuts on opposing faces to be parallel to the opposite face

Here we are set up and ready to mill the third face:







And milling now commences.







You can see in the photo one pix back that the butt end of the log is significantly larger in diameter than the opposite end. I have taken advantage of this extra material to mill some special corner guards with my sawmill. Swing-blade mills are unique in that they allow the operator to cut a 90 degree corner boards, similar to a piece of angle iron. I needed to make something that we could attach to the sides of the beams to prevent the cable chokers from the crane from gouging into the corners of the beam, and some 90 degree corner boards would be perfect for this application. We call them “sling guards”.

Because a swing blade sawmill allows the operator to swing the blade from horizontal to vertical, initial cuts going down the log are typically made with the blade in the horizontal position, and the return cuts are made with the blade in the vertical position. A single pass down and back usually produces a finished board. In the next photo I am making some of the corner boards, and I have milled out the inner portion of the corner, and am about to make my second pass in the vertical position.






Here are the resulting corner boards after being trimmed to length;







And the corner boards installed on the log and rigged for picking:







The sawmill blade has replaceable carbide tips that are silver soldered in place. I retip my own blades, which not only saves me time and money but also allows me to adjust the tip placement for varied effects. Normally I center the tips, to minimize the milling pattern and reduce friction while milling. However, the customer for these beams wanted to accentuate the milling marks in order to add to the visual impact of the beams. After experimenting with several different positions for the tips, I settled on one that produces this pattern:







After completing the third face, we picked the log/beam back up, moved it out of the mill and wedged it over to the fourth face, and then set it back in the mill in preparation for milling the fourth face:







More to come in the next post.

Scott

[Mike Cozad]

Amazing process. Thanks for sharing your work! I would never had known how something like this is done without your posting here.