Milling up the mountain

[sigidi]

Needed a thread topic to refer too - story coming soon...and pics  ;D

[Seaman]

AWWW...the suspense !!!

[ND rancher]

I think he was to tired to finish

[Magicman]

Which way do you turn a mountain before milling ??  ???   :D

[clww]

Standing by.....

[dgdrls]

If the mountain will not come to Sigidi, Sigidi will go to the mountain.

DGDrls

[PC-Urban-Sawyer]

Which way do you turn a mountain before milling ??  ???   :D

Probably put the hump up...

:D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D

Herb

[Magicman]

May have to get customersawyer Jake to split it before quartersawing.  ;D  I wonder if you call a freshly sawn mountain, hills??

[JohnM]

May have to get customersawyer Jake to split it before quartersawing.  ;D  I wonder if you call a freshly sawn mountain, hills??

No need MM, Sig has a Lucas, he'll just set up the mill over the mountain. ;) ;D  "Lucas Mills.  The strip miner of sawmills."  (guessing this won't catch on... :)

Btw Sig this post should be up already considering you're a day ahead of us! >:( :( ;) ;D

[sigidi]

Geese you blokes are funny  ;D :laugh:

I did put together a whole heap of the story last night, got 19 pics into my gallery, the missus said diner was ready, so I went to copy and paste it all into word, in case it timed out while I had diner, anyway I clicked 'paste' first instead of 'copy' and lost the DanG lot!!!!!!  :-[    :'(

This second run isn't gonna be as eloquent and wordy....

Ever have one of those jobs.... drove over hour and half to get there, just on arrival they've decide to dig a trench to bury a water pipe that has been over the track for 17 years...that gets done, then moving the logs... the logs are reasonable sized logs...



This one was in the tune of 2.4 cubic metres and weighs in around 2,640 kg (5,808 lb)this good ol machine manages to boss them around...



but there isn't very much space on the pad and it meant moving the mill a couple of times to get through 3 of the logs and a bunch of creative thinking to move them...



we had to grab the end of this log, pick it up in the air, shove the 'roller' under it and then try and drag the log into position then had to jack each end up to be able to fit the bolsters underneath, then build the mill up over it again, we messed around more than half an hour just trying to get this one into place before this roller idea reared its head.

Now I am ashamed to admit, I didn't take pics of the nice surprises in the first two logs, but this is what I wascoming across...



to begin with I was working my way into it with hammer and chisel (well I lie no hammer, had left that at home - had to use an aluminium felling wedge as my hammer) to then grab the metal and pull it out, that got old pretty quick,then I began excavating with the chainsaw until I got colour...



and then I'd go at it with the chisel...

      

and the DanG thing snapped off!!!!! So I came in close as I dared with the next layer and did a bit more chainsaw excavation...



Luckily I got all of that one and kept on slicing, but by this stage of the game I'd lost more time digging after these little 'gems', so when more showed...



the chainsaw got a sharpen and I got serious with excavating...

         

His logs started to look like one of those wooden puzzle boxes. If that wasn't bad enough I found the strangest thing too...

   

A neat clean straight 1/2" hole. I had visions of it being the pilot hole drilled for a really large bolt buried in there somewhere, so each board I kept checking the depth with the chainsaw spanner and when it bottomed out I 'excavated' that with the chainsaw too.

On the second day, we got rained out at lunch time, customer needed 400 lineal metres of this stuff and on calculation he had somewhere between 700-800, so I pulled the pin on a day and a half...



Thanks for waiting  ;)

[goose63]

Now that's some fancy work 8) 8) 8) 8) 8)

[dgdrls]

Nice post Allan.

What is the white wheel and foot on your machine?

DGDrls

[Magicman]

I understand the feeling when you loose a post.  I have done it twice withing the past couple of months.  It always seems to be the long ones.

Even with the metal it looks like you got some nice yield.  What species is that? 

[clww]

Great looking lumber!
Is that you in the stylish shorts?

[Chuck White]

That's quite the adventure!

[mad murdock]

Nice pics, some cool wood and a great story!! Thanks for sharing your triple threat. Good thing you didn't have to do a bunch of blade work with all that "free" metal you discovered!!

[Nomad]

Nice post Allan.

What is the white wheel and foot on your machine?

DGDrls

      That's a support to keep the mill from bouncing in deeper vertical cuts.

[sigidi]

Nice post Allan.

What is the white wheel and foot on your machine?

DGDrls

Yeah, its the anti bounce strut - when you do a deeper vertical cut the sawblade tends to pull 'up' when exiting the log rather than with a shallow cut where it tends to pull 'along' the length of the log. This strut is dropped onto the surface of the log and inside it has a gas filled strut to counter the bouncing - works a treat!!

I understand the feeling when you loose a post.  I have done it twice withing the past couple of months.  It always seems to be the long ones.

Even with the metal it looks like you got some nice yield.  What species is that? 

Yup always the long posts :D

I'm not a fan of doing all 1" thick boards, it seems to take ages to get through the logs and I charge by volume not time, so it seems to drag on, but yeah other than the metal they gave nice boards. Species was spotted gum, really nice timber down here.

Great looking lumber!
Is that you in the stylish shorts?

Nope not me!!! a young fella I was supplied as a tailer for the day and half. I take the pics so that I an never in them - like Wilson from Home Improvement.

Now that's some fancy work 8) 8) 8) 8) 8)

Nice pics, some cool wood and a great story!! Thanks for sharing your triple threat. Good thing you didn't have to do a bunch of blade work with all that "free" metal you discovered!!

That's quite the adventure!

Thanks guys, was quite a fun filled couple of days ;)

Still have to go back and finish off two more logs when Carl and I are a bit less busy on our new adventure https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php/topic,71528.msg1076995.html#msg1076995

[customsawyer]

Nice sawing and hunting (for metal). I use a shingle hatchet instead of a chisel for digging around for metal it lets me hammer it in deeper and gives me more leverage for prying chunks of wood out of the log. If you do hit metal with the hatchet a quick swipe or two with a file brings it back to sharp.

[Magicman]

I also drill several holes around the object with a battery powered drill.  This procedure works well with nails.