Intro--

[wdtik]

Howdy All!!  New to the world of sawmilling,but have been reading regularly here
learning as much as possible.  I'm a proud new owner of a LT15 and am in the process of getting started. 

It will be milling salvage beetle killed pine and fir.   The aim is to produce lumber for my own use,
outbuilding construction and some interior finish material.  I have a log yard from this winter of
maybe 4-5k bdft ready to go, the log market locally is very low with the few big mills left offering $300ish
a load delivered, hence my decision to go the diy route.

  Vocationally, I'm a lifelong farmer/rancher and in good shape physically and not afraid to roll up my sleeves
and get my hands dirty.  The first order of business after I do some test cutting is to put a subframe under
the mill so I can move it out of the shop and get to work.  I'd searched the  forum for details on building
a frame, lots of interesting mills, this forum is a great resource.

  I looked at a stand of dead lodgepole yesterday, nice straight  80-100 fter's 6-8 dbh. 
It's too small for lumber but if split would make some nice fence boards.
Is it possible to split a 6" x16" log on this mill or is that too small?  a search didn't yield anything on the
subject.   Cowboy  Dan

[beenthere]

Welcome wdtik

Sounds like you have some interesting plans afoot.

What size fence boards are you talking?

[wdtik]

The size would be 1/2 of a 6-7" pole saw thru, eg split length wise.
.

[Magicman]

Hello Cowboy Dan.  It looks like you have been around a year and posted a few times, but I seemed to have missed you.  Anyway, Welcome to the Forestry Forum,  wdtik.   

[reride82]

Welcome to the Forum Cowboy Dan.  8) Which part of Western Montana do you call home? Right now I live and work in Butte, MT and I rebuilt a Belsaw up near Big Sandy, MT. I've been cutting the dead lodgepole for about 8 years as a hobby. First was for firewood, and now for a cabin and I cut up the tops for firewood. Good to see another Montanan on here, there are lots of great folks on here with great advice.  ;)

[beenthere]

The size would be 1/2 of a 6-7" pole saw thru, eg split length wise.
.

Then by "split" you mean sawn down the center for two halves, I'd suspect you will need to figure out how you are going to dog them on the mill bed (which isn't impossible).

"split" can also refer to driving a wedge or axe to split like firewood. And that is done to get split rails.

Sounds like you are going for sawn rails, which you may call fence boards.
Doesn't take much to confuwe me.

[wdtik]

MM Thanks

Reride82-- Sounds like a rodeo score maybe.....
I'm 60 miles north of Butte at a forest inholding in the Boulder Mtns, Powell Co.
Butte will be WILD this weekend, even if it snows.  Do you know J. Tester up in Big Sandy?
Those old circle mills are pretty cool but seem kind of dangerous.  Theres  a old one in a pile down
the road from me on a ranch, the owner got a lt15 last year,  watching him run his helped me decide
on a WM.  There's so much dead timber available now, it's getting kinda dry and splitting which concerns
me some.  But it's said to make great house logs.  Are you sawing your cabin or in the round?

Beenthere--I don't know enough to ask an intellegent question, I used a common local term.  Is it
possible to make those on a bandmill or would I need a special bed clamp?

[dblair]

welcome Cowboy , I'm fairly new myself you'll enjoy it here , I just took a bug killed pine down the other day kind of unusual kill it was 70 years old and normally can fend this off with enough sap. going to make some good lumber though it's 23 inches at the base .

[zopi]

I just nailed a bug killed tree to the side of my barn today..of course I sawed it into battens first..but hey...24" dbh..

easy to split those little beggars for fence rail...set em on the bed, eyeball level with the wedge, measure halfway up the log on the butt end with the head, run the head to the other end, set the same height and adjust the log to center...split it, roll 90 degrees and do it again..or, strap it together, roll 45 degrees, clamp and cut...just have to remember to shif the straps instead of cutting them..lol  makes nice split rail fence.   
And Welcome!

[reride82]

Reride82-- Sounds like a rodeo score maybe.....
I'm 60 miles north of Butte at a forest inholding in the Boulder Mtns, Powell Co.
Butte will be WILD this weekend, even if it snows.  Do you know J. Tester up in Big Sandy?
Those old circle mills are pretty cool but seem kind of dangerous.  Theres  a old one in a pile down
the road from me on a ranch, the owner got a lt15 last year,  watching him run his helped me decide
on a WM.  There's so much dead timber available now, it's getting kinda dry and splitting which concerns
me some.  But it's said to make great house logs.  Are you sawing your cabin or in the round?

Are you on the Deerlodge or the Boulder side of those mountains? I've done a few Mineral Surveys North of Basin up Cataract Creek and surveyed a fair amount East of Deerlodge. Butte wasn't too wild over Patty's Day, did you make it down for the festivities? If you did and went to Maloney's, I was one of the big guys working the front door.
I like the old Circular Mill, it makes me smile whenever that blade opens up a log  ;D Although I have a few more safety features that it didn't come with to keep people away from that blade and to slow down the flying debris  :D I have been having great luck sawing these dead lodgepole up for this cabin. Basically, I am flattening the top and bottom of the logs to make stacking easier and so I can use a gasket between logs. I also decided to cut off the side of the log that faces the inside of the cabin to reduce peeling and the circle sawn look on the inside of the cabin should look pretty neat. I've peeled live lodgepole, and these dead ones are ten times as worse. There has been talk in another thread that a pressure washer might work and I shall try that one of these weekends  ;)  And as far as the timber splitting is concerned, I am kinda picky anymore. I try to only use the trees that are straight grained or are slightly right-hand twisted. A straight grained tree that splits is really easy to work with, just align your cuts along the split and you still get a fair amount of lumber out of it. And I've met Tester once, and one of my girlfriend's parent's is related to him. They used to play cards with him  :D

[Bogue Chitto]

Welcome  Wdtik,  I have been to Montana  and love it.

[Cedarman]

Welcome Wdtik,
We cut cedar poles in 1/2 every so often, even 1/4 them sometimes.
I have 2 jigs that have V nothches cut into them that will cradle poles. Mine is made for 3 , but yours are a little bigger, so 2 might be the thing. You can shim one end up so that you are sawing right down the pith.  Having an offbearer pushing down while sawing keeps them from moving.  After getting 2/3's down the log, then the offbearer lets go while you hold down pressure.  We don't set any speed records getting from one end to the other, but you will find a sweet speed that cuts fast enought, but not so fast as to pull the log sideways out of the V.

Try some of them, seems the wood is cheap enough to do some R&D.
The worst that can happen is you have more sawdust and firewood.

[Cedarman]

This is off the wall thinking on my part.  What if you have the log in jig and as you saw you rotate the log a full 360 as the saw proceeds down the log making a corkscrew fence board.  You would have vertical faces at 8' foot intervals to attach to posts.  Trick would be rotating the post at a critical rate as the saw traveled down the log.
I've tried sillier things.

[Bibbyman]

Easily done, hard to describe.   

The old-time mountain gunsmiths that hammered out their own barrels rifled them using a tool on a rod.  The rod would be pulled through the barrel to cut the groove.  After so many passes, a little shim would be added under the cutting bit to cut it deeper.  But how did the cut spiral?  They attached a wire or cord of some kind to the rod.  The wire or cable was the strung along under the rifling jig to the turret that had the blade mounted in it.  The cable was wrapped around a pulley on the turret. As the rod was pulled, the cable would turn the turret.  Simple mathematics.  If you want the stock to turn 360° in 8' then the circumference of the pulley would have to be 8'. 

[wdtik]

Thanks to all who replied, esp with the tips on cutting the split rails,
when it finally quits snowing here I'll be giving it a try.

Cedarman I think a jig might be a good idea, the small
post yards in these parts hand feed into a small circ saw kinda
like a table saw and eyeball the feed, I would hate to be in direct line behind a 2' blade.

Reride, I passed on St Paddys day in Butte, KXLH news noted 60 arrests on Saturday alone......
most for bar fights, drunk and disorderly and dui.  I heard Friday was the time to go and have
a good time without all the crazys..I'm on the DL side near the Spotted Dog Ranch.  It sounds
like you're making "D" logs.  Some say that's the best way to go for a tight cabin.
Where/how much$ are you getting your logs?  I heard this week that RY was paying $100/load net
stumpage...that's what .02 cents a bd ft?  That's really cheap.

I had an offer of $100 each for our graded house logs on the landing
but they wanted the RH twist. cut skidded limbed and decked only so I passed.

Check out "Fred inMt" cabins on the timber
framing forum, really nice work.  He is/was up the Figure 8 by York, lots of guys doing cabins
these days.  In regards peeling dead LP, if your not in a big hurry they will almost self peel
if they are cut but off the ground and covered with snow for a winter.  Go for a hike and
look for recent blow down LP bug kill.   The bark come off in sheets and the log has a really nice
patina.  DFir will do the same if a strip is peeled first.

The old Swede's would cut and deck their logs, peel a "check strip" go up and turn them 180 in the winter
so they would dry straight.  Then they would notch and stack.  No/little checking visible.  sorry so long  CBD