Thread: New to milling, what are the basics

You saw it green. If you leave it, it will crack. As for the bark, it matters little. The ends need to be sealed to prevent rapid drying which causes cracking. A wax or even old paint will do.

It needs to be kept out of the sun to air dry slowly, with "stickers" between the slabs.
Good milling Cheers Barry

Headingwest - first thing, find someone who is milling, spend time with them, help them out - use your ears twice as much as your mouth and your fingers/hands five times more than your ears, this way you'll get a feel for the work involved and also start to learn something....all too often if you use them in the opposite ratio than you where born with (ie, ya hands less than ya ears and ya ears less than your mouth) ya don't learn squat.
Learn about what things are called, for instance what the difference is between a cant versus a flitch, what causes tension in a log, how to predict what the tension will do to your timber, how to negate/deal with the tension...

What you are asking is for someone to put into words things they've been doing for decades, I'm still learning and have been doing it about 12 years.

When you say 5cm strips? does this mean 50mm/2" slabs? take some pics of your log, explain what you are trying to achieve, update your location and you may find one of us is close enough to help you out - give us a bit to work on

Size of log and your location would help us help you.

Originally Posted by headingwest

I've got some pieces of camellia trunk I want to play with. I want to mill into 5 cm wide strips for a small box. I'm happy to give it a go with my bandsaw or table saw.

What are the basic steps? I've read the forum and can't find a beginners outline on milling. It would be a great sticky if someone knowledgeable had the time...
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OK you have answers to your questions now for a couple of things you appear not to have thought of is you plan to use a BS or TS.

Unless you use some sort of holding jig for the log your first cut should be down the middle of the log
Then put the freshly cut face down on the table and break it up from there - ALWAYS uses flat face on the table.
If you don't do this no matter how well you think you can hold it the saw blade will want to rotate the log around down onto the table. This can result in the blade jamming and this can be very dangerous.
On a BS it can break the blade and on a TS it can result in kickback.

Of course this method results in pieces that are smaller than the full width of the log.
If you want to get full with pieces then you need some sort of way of holding the log while it is being cut

I have made both BS and TS log holding milling jigs
Here is my BS Jig - Bandsaw log cutting sled
And here is my TS jig - Resaw rig for a table Saw (pt 1)

These are a bit fancy for a "one of" log and for that you might want to just tek screw the log to some MDF and sacrifice it in the cut, - watch out for the screws while cutting

to which I shall add start with a bag of carrots, and a sharp knife. Treat the carrot as a log and proceed to slice it into 5mm x 5mm or so strips.
Keep them straight and square, just like you want your boards to be, and watch how the tension releases and how both the carrot and the strips move as you cut.

People think I'm joking but everything you ever need to learn about log stress and how to manage it can be learnt preparing a stir fry.

Originally Posted by John.G

to which I shall add start with a bag of carrots, and a sharp knife. Treat the carrot as a log and proceed to slice it into 5mm x 5mm or so strips.
Keep them straight and square, just like you want your boards to be, and watch how the tension releases and how both the carrot and the strips move as you cut.

People think I'm joking but everything you ever need to learn about log stress and how to manage it can be learnt preparing a stir fry.

And you can eat your mistakes.