Thread: Chainsaw mill

Short answer is no. The 395 will buckle and vibrate 1.2mm wall thickness Al to bits.

I wouldn't use anything less than 3mm Al wall thickness for a chainsaw mill. The other BIG problem with using Al is that any bolt based locking mechanism to set the depth of the cut will crush Al, and if the locking mechanism is not set firmly enough the saw will vibrate it even looser.

BTW If you buy the Al from Capral you can get double the wall thickness for the same price you would pay at Bunnings.

I have made 4 chainsaw mills and 3 are all steel.
One uses 19 and 25 mm x 1.6 mm wall thickness SHS and even that has crushed under the pressure of the locking bolts. If I was to build that one again I would not go less than 2mm on steel.

The 4th one is all Al but that uses a cam operated compression locking mechanism to set the height.
A WIP of the build of this mills starts here https://www.woodworkforums.com/f132/m...25/index9.html
and continues here https://www.woodworkforums.com/f132/bil-mill-wip-50374/

The uprights and the full length handle are 25 x 3 mm tube
The Mill rails are 42 x 42 x 3 mm T-slotted Heavy duty Highway sign with HDPE
The cross rail pieces are 6 mm thick 50 x 75 angle

This is what it looks like on the day I took it out for its first run.

If you do build one out of aluminium, don't buy it from Bunnies, there is a great supplier at Currumbin (on way to Gary Pye's) at cnr of Currumbin Crk Rd and Teatree Ave.

whats the name of this aluminium supplier Neil? school has finished so I might go up next week and take a look at Gary Pye and get some aluminium, also Bob how much does a cs mill like the one pictured cost to build?

Thanks
Bailey

Originally Posted by Woodturner101

whats the name of this aluminium supplier Neil?

Sorry, don't remember, but you can check out Google Maps street view

Originally Posted by Woodturner101

whats the name of this aluminium supplier Neil? school has finished so I might go up next week and take a look at Gary Pye and get some aluminium, also Bob how much does a cs mill like the one pictured cost to build?

I don't know what it would cost to get someone to do it.

At one stage I worked out that it contained ~$250 worth of materials including a couple of cartons for my BIL

But that required purchasing long lengths of various Ally cross sections and not counting the materials I did not use.
I was lucky that I was using a lot of ally at the time and could use the remainder for many other things
For example, the 42 x 42 mm T-Slot heavy duty highway sign only comes in 6m lengths and costs ~$100 a length.
I ended up buying 3 lengths but out of that I made
- two chainsaw mills
- A double set of really nice roof racks for my Van
- A macrophotography stand
- and then managed to on sell the remainder to another WWF member.

I also bought a couple of 6m lengths of 25mm diameter x 3 mm wall thickness tubing (a$40 each) and used those for the uprights and the handles on two mills.

My BIL just gave me the other pieces of ally I needed for the mill
- 200 mm of 38 x 3 mm tubing for the upright locks
- 600 mm of 50 x 75 x 6mm thick Al angle for the cross pieces
- 300 x 250 x 6mm thick plate for the bar mount
- assorted bites and pieces of 25 x25 mm bar for the nose clamp
- 300 mm of 6 x 38 mm ally for the

I cut up and shaped all the ally pieces and my BIL did the ally welding in a morning.
Getting it all square so the uprights slid up and down smoothly was a pretty tricky.

The cam locks and wheels required a bit of MW turning which I did myself. I did all the sanding, fitting, polishing etc.

I have used many different chainsaw mills including several homemade and commercial mills like the Westford and Granberg and mine better that the others by a long way.
The mill is designed to attach to the saw by the bar bolts which makes it very strong and it means the chain can be removed from the saw without removing the saw from the mill.
It also means I only lose 2.5" of bar compared to a conventional alaskan mill which requires 6" of bar to attach to the saw.
After making a number of tools and machines in the last 8 years this chainsaw mill is the one that works much better than I originally expected it to.

If you can weld and have access to a welder I throughly recommend building one out of steel first. That is the only way you can work out and experience the pluses and minuses of how these things work and the subtleties that are involved. I built a steel mill to suit my 50 cc McCulloch and learned a lot from doing this. I still have that small mill and use it with a 70 cc Stihl 441 for small logs - this is MUCH easier to use than the bigger mill on small logs.

Right now the chainsaw is fitted with a 25 inch bar, I can't drill through the bar because its my dads but later on I am going to buy a larger bar dedicated for milling. I am going to build a simple mill pretty much like this one https://www.woodworkforums.com/f132/my-first-cut-161062/ with some scrap steel because I have a tree that recently fell down in my back yard and my dad has threatened to burn it if nothing gets done with it so I thought I would try to get some slabs from it.

Originally Posted by Woodturner101

Right now the chainsaw is fitted with a 25 inch bar, I can't drill through the bar because its my dads but later on I am going to buy a larger bar dedicated for milling. I am going to build a simple mill pretty much like this one https://www.woodworkforums.com/f132/my-first-cut-161062/ with some scrap steel . . . . . .

25" bar on that mill will be limited to about a 19"cut but if that is OK it sounds like a good start.

I have a Westford mill and it uses the smaller road sign section when compared to BobL's mill, 25x28mm and about 3mm wall thickness, they use a round head square shank bolt that slips into the slot and then a flat washer and nut for attachments, I have mine setup with a 42" bar, the smaller section works OK for that regards stiffness so a smaller mill should be fine.

I utilize that same size for many other uses in the workshop so have bought it from my local Al supplier, Ullrich Aluminium, google to see if they are where you are, you will most likely have to buy a 6m length but ask if they have any offcuts, last time I bought some there was change out of 50

creates a slight angle.jpgextra cross pieces.jpgfront wheel.jpg
A few pics of my mill, first two showing attachments, I added extra cross pieces to provide better stability at the start of a cut, if you look closely my method of attachment uses flat steel 25x50x5mm thick which slides nicely into the slot of the road sign channel, I make these with 2-10mm threaded holes that I then can put a bolt thru to hold attachments, I really like this system as it provides larger clamping area (no crushing) one spanner to tighten and no Al welding.
Last pic is my front wheel, a little bit different to Bob's but does the same thing, if you can do this it really helps.



Pete

19 inches should be fine the tree is a golden wattle with a max diameter of about 450mm. I have 6 weeks of school holidays so I will try and build something similiar to your cs mill.

Originally Posted by Woodturner101

Right now the chainsaw is fitted with a 25 inch bar, I can't drill through the bar because its my dads but later on I am going to buy a larger bar dedicated for milling. I am going to build a simple mill pretty much like this one https://www.woodworkforums.com/f132/my-first-cut-161062/ with some scrap steel because I have a tree that recently fell down in my back yard and my dad has threatened to burn it if nothing gets done with it so I thought I would try to get some slabs from it.

The main problem with that design is that it only works for a fixed bar length so if you get a longer bar you will have to chop the mill up to fit the bar.

It's not that much harder to make it bar length adjustable.
Here is how I did it on my small "all-steel" mill which can cater for a bar from 16 to 25" long.
https://www.woodworkforums.com/f132/m...tml#post468773
Basically it uses 19 mm SHS sliding inside 25 mm SHS.

BTW if you decide to use locking bolts, since making that little mill I learned about welding the locking nut on the corner of the SHS.
This is the same locking locations as used on Reese Hitch tow bars and has the effect of pushing the internal SHS into the opposite corner so it locks tighter than if the locking nut is just welded to the face of the SHS.
The other thing this does is reduce the amount of crushing of the internal SHS since corners are much stronger than faces.

Originally Posted by Woodturner101

Right now the chainsaw is fitted with a 25 inch bar, I can't drill through the bar because its my dads but later on I am going to buy a larger bar dedicated for milling. I am going to build a simple mill pretty much like this one https://www.woodworkforums.com/f132/my-first-cut-161062/ with some scrap steel because I have a tree that recently fell down in my back yard and my dad has threatened to burn it if nothing gets done with it so I thought I would try to get some slabs from it.

Hi Woodturner

That's my first attempt at a mill. It works pretty good.
As said above though, there are many ways to improve on that design.
Don't know where you are on the north coast but she's yours for a carton, which is cheaper than the cost of the steel.
Might save you some time.
It would be a good stepping stone and if you continue you will certainly build many more.
Or you could sit down and read all of Bob's posts ( if you have a couple of days to spare ) I did. Then you will have all the knowledge you need to build the Ferrari mill.
I've got Mark 11 and Mark 111 on the go now.

Cheers

Thanks for the offer Barterbuilt but I live a few hours away near tweed heads. I got a bunch of free steel on saturday and have already cut it to the right lengths I just have to borrow a mig welder to weld it all together.