Miniature Scale Milling

[VooDooChikin04]

 I figured I'd share the first hand full of boards I milled, which is what got me into milling.  I wanted to get into wood working, my dad being a carpenter most of his life, because it felt like a natural progression from metal fab mechanical projects into wood fab and skill building with wood.  I set out and purchased a decent collection of equipment for excellent deals on CL and FB market across the midwest spanning Colorado to Missouri.  I'll keep adding pictures to this as I get them taken and uploaded.

The Grizzly 513 is a 2hp beast with 16-1/4" throat and a 12-1/8" resaw capacity. Has electronic motor brake.




This is a J-line table saw that has a 3hp powermatic motor swap. Excellent saw that i've never bogged down. But it lacks basic safety features, beyond the on/off switch




 Delta 15" planer I snagged from a door manufacturer. Google says it weighs 600lbs.. idk about that but its HEAVY. Two of us could barely slide the body out of the truck.




Couple pieces cut from a silver maple log that came from my inlaws. Plan to make something for them from this.




These next few pictures are some highly figured thornless honey locuts I got from a local residential yard.  This stuff weighs a ton and when dry is extremely dense and hard.


 

 

 



These are the very first boards i've ever milled.  Unknown wood species, it was standing dead for many years. Very lightweight.




My first attempt at stacking and stickering.  Micro stack of maple, honey locust and some small american elm branches I ran through the saw.




Showing off the Grizzlys ability to cut thin accurate cuts.  This piece of wood is extremely tight grain pine flooring that came out of an old house. Its very strong, and smells awesome when its cut.

[Don P]

Nice stuff! I started milling basically the same way, I guess most of us probably did, turning a log here and there into lumber on shop tools till ya got get a mill. I toasted an old Farm Boss chainsaw along the way :D.

I've got the same planer, it is out of production and unsupported so a couple of tips to help it hang on. Take off the black right side chain cover, notice there is no idler on the rearward chain and it is slack. I rigged up a little idler just to take up some of that slack and give the chain more wrap, mine hopped and chewed the sprockets up, I may well have bought the last set of parts there. Keep good bearings in the cutterhead, when they go it takes out that tiny feed pinion gear on the end of the cutterhead, a Grizzly 15" uses the same pinion gear. Check and change the gearbox oil, very easy for that to develop a leak and get gone. I've smoked the OEM motor and replaced it with a 5 horse, wish I had done that years ago, it makes it a beast. Mine has travelled to many jobsites and it is a heavy thing. Slide 2 2x4's thru it and bring the head down snug for carry handles and it'll only cause moderate herniation :D. Holler when you wear it out, there's a bunch of us that will be scrounging parts in the future.

If I had to guess your mystery wood looks like American elm, look at the end grain for a wavy pore pattern. Although the light comment makes me wonder if you got hold of an ailanthus.

[VooDooChikin04]

Awesome tips! Very much appreciate it! 

[VooDooChikin04]

Here was the load of thornless honey locust I received as well as the load of silver maple I took home.   Unfortunatly at the time I didnt have plans for a sawmill, so I was taking sizes I thought I could work through with the bandsaw.



 

 

[Sawdust creek]

That looks like sassafras to me, and you have some on one of the trailers 
Lee Gibbs. @ sawdust creek 

[VooDooChikin04]

Googling sassafras, wrong leaves wrong bark. I've been able to identify it as thornless honey locust. Same leaves, same bark, and matches most photos of lumber.  That's the first load with the orange centers.  The second load was a large silver maple with the helicopter seeds.

Unless you mean that light colored wood thats milled..  not sure what that was. It was a dead standing trunk on my property. So I have little to go on.