New member

[Nealm66]

 

 

 

 

 

 Hi, just recently decided to finish my working years back in the industry. Have some experience in timber falling/tree service and played around a little with a chainsaw mill and really just enjoyed making boards. Just finished assembling an hm130 and got some service work to do on an old garret 22 I bought from a friend and then it's sink or swim ha ha! Want to thank everyone for sharing knowledge and maybe I can help with the little I know. Here's a couple pics of this year's messing around on the weekends

[Nealm66]

Struggling a bit figuring out how to add pics 

 

[Walnut Beast]

Welcome. Look forward to pictures and input 

[Nealm66]

I'm about to head down to visit a neighbor in his 90's that ran a mill back in the 50-60's. Really enjoy the wisdom. Going to his place first to mill up a couple logs and see if I got everything put together correctly. Was definitely more complicated than I had in mind but I believe I have everything correct 

[thecfarm]

Welcome!!
All sorts of nice stuff in them pictures!!!!

[Nealm66]

Thanks. It's hard to stop and take pictures when I'm working but I'm going to try and make an extra effort. Looked at some really nice cedar logs that will be my first time with the bandsaw mill. They looked small enough to move around with 2 guys and up to the loading ramps to see how the winch works. Hard to find sound, red cedar around here locally. I've got the lap siding attachment but haven't installed it yet. This will all be board and bat. I'm pretty excited! 

[Nebraska]

Welcome looks like you'll be busy.

[Nealm66]

Well, I hope so. The weather and the slowing economy  might make it a little tough to start but might help give me some time to get things figured out with the mill and get the skidder serviced and ready. 

[jpassardi]

Welcome to the Forum.

Now that's a chainsaw bar...

[SawyerTed]

Welcome to the forum!  Looking forward to seeing more photos and posts as you move forward!  

Come back often.  

[Nealm66]

I suspect most of my milling pics will probably be kinda boring to this crowd but nonetheless. That's a 72" canon bar I use on my chainsaw mill. I've used a 60" bar cutting old growth on crazy steep ground to save from working off spring boards but generally I use the shortest bar possible for everything. 

[Cornerstone]

Welcome to the forum! Please fill out your profile so we can know more about you and where you're from. I can only dream of trees like that here in Texas. 

[Nealm66]

Ok, that should do it? I'm waiting to get some pictures of the mill sawing something for my profile. Should be in a week. I've got a job lined up after that's about 4 log truck loads around a house. About 16k scribner roughly and will be interesting to see how it goes. I'm worried about the mud and might be dancing with the weather. I'm thinking I can set up and yard from one spot for a lot of it so I'm not churning doesn't have to be perfect when I'm done but don't want 4' mud bath either 

[Nealm66]

Stuck. Going to get my tractor. 

 

[Nealm66]

Here's a couple cedars I pierced down the other day. Rotten, woodpecker holes,shaped like bananas leaning over power lines

 

[samandothers]

I bet your visit with your older friend that ran a mill was a good discussion!  Welcome to the FF!

[Nealm66]

It always is. He's been sitting in his kabota side by side thingy with the heater on watching me till he gets tired. I stop and ask him questions as I'm learning and when my brain shuts down. I'm getting it pretty good but still struggling huge once I've squared the log up on what/which to slice out of it and keep the waste down. Probably need to watch some videos or download an app or something. 

 

[SawyerTed]

Keep sawing and keep on learning! Experience is the greatest teacher in this business.  Sometimes you have to make a mistake before you grasp the whole picture of how to saw certain types of lumber or certain species of log. 

It's one thing to have a product come off the mill, it's another thing for that product to be usable once it is dry.  

So learning the pitfalls in the whole cycle takes a little time. 

[Wolfgang Rother]

welcome from germany

[Nealm66]

 

 From Germany. That's just cool. I finally run my tractor over to where I'm sawing a few miles from home. I purposely waited just to see what I could do with the manual mill. Man, what a work out lol 

[Southside]

What Ted said about the lumber being dry is key.  You will see stuff that splits, moves, and gets up from the pile and walks off.  Look closely at those pieces and you will start to recognize patterns that impact movement.  Juvenile wood, split piths, multiple grain patterns running across the face of a board, etc.  Those are the lessons that will tell you how to read a log and which face to saw from, how to feather out a problem area into the corner of a cant, how to read pith cracks, etc.  

Some logs won't give you what you want, they will give you what they have, if you can find it.  That's what reading them is all about.  

[Nealm66]

The old guy threw a new to me on stickering. Has me staggering a couple inches off from the ones underneath saying it allows more air. Different from what I thought. He's in his mid 90's. They ran a large mill 24/7 for a number of years mostly alder but some maple and fir. The maple sawdust was exported to the Philippines for cooking. 

[beenthere]

The old guy threw a new to me on stickering. Has me staggering a couple inches off from the ones underneath saying it allows more air. Different from what I thought. He's in his mid 90's. They ran a large mill 24/7 for a number of years mostly alder but some maple and fir. The maple sawdust was exported to the Philippines for cooking.

That argument doesn't hold a lot of "air". And have been in and around a number of large mills and have never seen stickers staggered like described. The weight of the stack should be over a straight line of stickers so the load down through the stack doesn't apply bending forces to your lumber while drying. 
But then, I'm only in my mid eighty's. I say line the stickers up one over the other. Also sticker out to the ends of the boards too, as much as possible. These tips are in the drying manuals. 

[redbeard]

I remember when the sticker police busted me few years back, I can assure you if you post a pick of staggered dry sticks they will be all over you.
Welcome!
Sounds like your on the peninsula
Land of the giant trees.

[Nealm66]

I'm in eatonville but cut timber all over. Cut up out of randle/pack wood for a # of years before the owl then jumped around like a fart in a skillet for 20 years. I've always stickered everything in line for weight transfer like you say but I'll do as he likes. They cut a lot of live edge alder so I suspect they would have saw problems pop up pretty quickly if there was an issue with they're method of stickering. They didn't have a kiln 

[jpassardi]

 

 

In the interest of saving your back, you may want to build a winch driven log turner like this one I made for my LT15.

[Nealm66]

That's pretty slick. I'm a little stiff today even though I had the tractor yesterday just from turning like you say and not using my noodle and just man handling to save time on a few things that really should have used the tractor. Sounds weird but I'm having so much fun it's like an adrenaline rush. Another thing I'm struggling with is keeping track of what I'm cutting. It's a 50/50 split and I'm also wanting to keep track of scribner vs linear.  I just get so wound up and then it's getting dark ha ha

[fluidpowerpro]

Regarding sticker placement. I can see where staggering them would provide more exposure to air in that spot because at least one side is not covered by a sticker. When placed directly in line, both sides of the board are covered by a sticker on that spot.
I'm not saying that's the way it should be done. Just that I can see the logic. Maybe it is more viable on thicker material that is less likely to bend?

[K-Guy]

Has me staggering a couple inches off from the ones underneath saying it allows more air. Different from what I thought.

It won't give you more ai but it will give you wavy boards.

[firefighter ontheside]

Welcome aboard from Missouri.

[Nealm66]

I hit a fricking log stop today with an almost brand new blade cutting bats out of cedar wane aaahhhh crap !

[Nealm66]

I would think if it would make wavy boards he definitely would have noticed it air drying live edge alder but who knows. It was back in the 50-60's if I understood him correctly 

[SawyerTed]

I hit a fricking log stop today with an almost brand new blade cutting bats out of cedar wane aaahhhh crap !

They're those who haven't yet, those who have and those who lie about it.  
Welcome to the club!  I know it feels like burning a $20 bill every time it happens. 

[thecfarm]

Nealm66, you will never hit a log stop with a blade that is just about no good.   ;D

[Nealm66]

Ya. I'm so green. Tunnel visioned siting down all those random height boards then drop down 2" and then the horrible sound. Rest of the day went ok except I think I should have bucked a 16' log in half as it had a lot of sweep and swell. Still trying to wrap my head around every thing 

[SawyerTed]

The odds of hitting the log stop, failing to raise the blade before jogging the head back for the next cut and any number of errors go up in direct proportion to the crowd standing around chewing, scratching, spitting and critiquing.  

[Southside]

$20 band Ted? It has been a while since you sold the 35 hasn't it?  :D

[Nealm66]

I need to order another pack of blades. I bought the sharpener setup from woodland but haven't opened the box yet. Should I order more blades from woodland or is there a better choice?  Sawing mostly coastal Doug fir

[JRWoodchuck]

I haven't ran Woodland bands. But have run Cooks Kasco and Woodmizer and I like Woodmizer the best. But I am running the carbides which are expensive but give me such a better cut quality it's worth it for me. 

[fluidpowerpro]

I've got a Woodland Mills sharpener and setter and I use Woodmizer blades. It sharpens them fine so don't worry about that being an issue.

[Nealm66]

Thank you. Really appreciate all the knowledge that is shared. So another newby question. I have a bunch of 16' logs let tapering about 2 inches and they want 16' 2x6's. Should I measure up from the large end to the center and raise the small end to match or split the difference which in my inexperience thinking I would get some 1" squaring the log off both sides. Is there some videos to watch that would help?

[beenthere]

What is small end diameter of the 16' logs?

[Nealm66]

Range from 10-20" 

[Nealm66]

The first 16' log I cut it had a fair amount of sweep and swell and I felt like I should have bucked it in half but I ended up just cutting the wane in 2" and then cut it in half and carving out what I could. It ended  up 10 or 20 bd ft over scribner so I thought I did ok. I'm learning as I go