Thread: Chainsawmill running really hot :-(

Originally Posted by weaver

Pith is the very center of the heart of a soft wood log. I'm not sure if hardwoods technically have a pith or not for practical purposes they don't. In many soft woods the pith is so soft that you can chisel it out with a tough finger nail.

By measure I meant ruler or tape measure. What I find is that I measure the distance from the mill bed to center of the heart/pith at the thick end of the log and then go up the other end of the log and measure the distance from the mill bed to the pith. I then raise the thick end of the log with a jack by a bit. Unless the thick end of the log is actually resting on a joist of the mill bed it pivots so that the distance from mill bed to the pith changes (decreases). I then repeat the process until the distance from the mill bed to the pith at both ends is the same. Depending on how fussy I am being and how well I'm concentrating this can mean going backwards and forwards several times until I've got it right. If I'm milling dimensional lumber then I have to do this twice per log (1st cut and 2nd cut at right angle to 1st.)

I tend to just eyeball it.

Have you worked out if you actually have an 0.058" bar yet?

Originally Posted by BobL

Have you worked out if you actually have an 0.058" bar yet?

I can now absolutely state that it is a 0.058" bar. I got a hole stack of tools a while ago including feeler gauges (i think that is what they are called). The 0.058" combo snugly fits into the bar groove. The 0.063" combo may have gone in if I forced them but I don't think that is how you use them is it?

So it is a 0.058" bar and I've added another tool to my repertoire.

Unfortunately the hard nose bar I've got seems to be a 0.063" bar so I won't be using that straight away.

Originally Posted by weaver

I can now absolutely state that it is a 0.058" bar.

Ok, good, then next thing I would look at it is the chain. Did David take a look?

See if you can take a close up side onto the chain links like this - or as big as you can get the links.


Cheers

I havn't had the chance to fire the mill up lately between Christmas, New Years and the weather but today I did.

Aim was to test my mill in its around the log configuration.

Here is today's log.

Attachment 126765

Slightly less than 1500mm wide and I was hoping would be some very interesting figure due to the crotch grain.

Indeed the first cut reveled a mass of marble wavy looking grain pattern. However after the first cut the saw bogged down about 12" into the second cut and before I stopped the saw to work out what had gone wrong the chain broke.

I had a a break and a think and eventually surmised what had happened and then found the culprits.

Attachment 126766

Since the aim was to prove that the mill carriage could work independent of its mill bed today was a success. Even though I only managed to make one and a partial cut I did prove that the concept works although I did think of a few things that need changing. If it had only been one strand of Wire I might have been tempted to use a hole saw to cut around it and then extract the plug. Since it turned out that the reason the saw bogged down was the first piece and then the chain broke on the second I think I will give the log a miss. Since it is only pine and since I have plenty more I think I will consign this big fella to fire wood. Rather annoying But I have plenty more logs to chose from.

Bugga!

Actually double bugga considering it was pine!

thats one reason I wouldn't waste my time on pine! most pine trees planted on farms etc were planted along fence lines and farmers had a tendency to use them as fence posts, so if you are cutting any farm trees from a fenceline, waste the first 5 or 6 feet!!
another reason is that pine is cheaper to buy than to mill especially when you start breaking chains.

Oh and just a point Do NOT try to rejoin that chain, it would have suffered damage on more than the link which broke and will break again possibly damaging your equipment or yourself.

Originally Posted by Travis Edwards

Oh and just a point Do NOT try to rejoin that chain, it would have suffered damage on more than the link which broke and will break again possibly damaging your equipment or yourself.

Bugger. Better safe than sorry though.

On a positive note I had not got round to rejoining it so I haven't wasted a pair of straps

I agree with you about the pine but I wanted to practice on the pine so that I wasn't making a mess of some of the cypress, redwood, oak and cedar logs that I have lined up.

On the other hand many Americans would really appreciate the figure and spalting (you would call it blue stain) of some of these logs. My appreciation of pine has gone up since I expanded my knowledge of wood. I now consider radiata to be a good timber in its place and for its purpose.

For example a friend of mine makes six board chests. If he makes them out of oak then they are beautiful but they are very heavy empty and once full of stuff take a serious effort to move.

The final thing that got me over my prejudice against raidata was a visitor who saw one of my pine slabs and said "what a beautiful piece of timber". I could have educated him out of his ignorance by informing him that he was wrong because it was radiata and therefore not capable of having any such virtue instead I changed my perception of what I had been going to cut into pallet material for my home brew crates. Since then I have read up more on radiata timbers properties and read several posts where Americans waxed lyrical about blue spalting they had found in pine logs. In Australia such logs would probably be rejected as "stained".

If offered pine logs at the moment I wouldn't take them because I have more than I can presently handle but I'll be cutting more of them in the future.

Originally Posted by weaver

Bugger. Better safe than sorry though.

On a positive note I had not got round to rejoining it so I haven't wasted a pair of straps

I agree with you about the pine but I wanted to practice on the pine so that I wasn't making a mess of some of the cypress, redwood, oak and cedar logs that I have lined up.

Save me a bit of that redwood, just a small bit that I can make something with, even if it is just enough to turn an egg cup or something. just want to put some on the shelf, would have liked to bring some home from california when I was there, but customs can be hard to deal with in that regard. Would have liked to sink a nice big stihl into some of the Giant sequoias over there too.... ( guess that will only ever be a dream!!!)

Originally Posted by weaver

On the other hand many Americans would really appreciate the figure and spalting (you would call it blue stain) of some of these logs. My appreciation of pine has gone up since I expanded my knowledge of wood. I now consider radiata to be a good timber in its place and for its purpose.

For example a friend of mine makes six board chests. If he makes them out of oak then they are beautiful but they are very heavy empty and once full of stuff take a serious effort to move.

The final thing that got me over my prejudice against raidata was a visitor who saw one of my pine slabs and said "what a beautiful piece of timber". I could have educated him out of his ignorance by informing him that he was wrong because it was radiata and therefore not capable of having any such virtue instead I changed my perception of what I had been going to cut into pallet material for my home brew crates. Since then I have read up more on radiata timbers properties and read several posts where Americans waxed lyrical about blue spalting they had found in pine logs. In Australia such logs would probably be rejected as "stained".

If offered pine logs at the moment I wouldn't take them because I have more than I can presently handle but I'll be cutting more of them in the future.

I spent a number of years working in the pine industry in the southeast of south australia in my late teens and early twenties, as a result I cannot stand the things. I have seen all manner of figure, stains both pink and blue, sirex damage, ingrown needles, (which do look somewhat cool in match lining) and numerous other features.

Nowdays even the smell of them makes me feel sick and the milling residue (dust etc.) causes me to break out in hives and gives me severe hayfever, And I am one of them "Just Do It" kind of people.

Originally Posted by Travis Edwards

I spent a number of years working in the pine industry in the southeast of south australia in my late teens and early twenties, as a result I cannot stand the things. I have seen all manner of figure, stains both pink and blue, sirex damage, ingrown needles, (which do look somewhat cool in match lining) and numerous other features.

Nowdays even the smell of them makes me feel sick and the milling residue (dust etc.) causes me to break out in hives and gives me severe hayfever, And I am one of them "Just Do It" kind of people.

Understandable. Does the same go for all the pinus species or just Radiata? I've been offered some Eastern White Pine and Scots Pine. The Scots Pine I definitely want but the from the information I can find the Western White Pine is basically a Raidiata equivilent.

Originally Posted by weaver

Understandable. Does the same go for all the pinus species or just Radiata? I've been offered some Eastern White Pine and Scots Pine. The Scots Pine I definitely want but the from the information I can find the Western White Pine is basically a Raidiata equivilent.

I don't really know I haven't really cut any to find out. Personally I have no desire or necessity to cut pine. If it was some of the big douglas firs or cedars or redwoods I have seen around your area I would have a go.

I usually only bother with rarer or feature timbers, basically things you do not see every day.

The pines are too commonly available for me to bother. I do not even bother with cypress unless I have a job which requires some and a log becomes available at the time I need it.

Well there is pine and there is pine. While I will make a case for the use of Radiata if I have a choice I'll probably go for almost anything else as there are many light weight woods around.

The Scots pine is one of the species that is often labeled as Baltic Pine and has an excellent close grain. While you see a fair bit of it in board form I don't come across many in Log form because all the ones that are about people want to keep and when they do come down they tend to go into foot blocks or chips very quickly because they are grown in gardens and streetsides.

There is another pine that I would really love to get hold of from America. It has an ADD of around 950kg/m3 It is so tuff that they use it for railroad sleepers. For a pine that is impressive.