Thread: Contract cutting

Well done

Nice one Al, had to do a job similar once over here. 350x350 boxed heart posts, heavy stuff

Allan

Nice looking logs. Long and straight. I don't think you mentioned what species they were. I had to do a similar job once and I was working in conjunction with a man who had...wait for it...a Lucas.

The commission was for about 80 posts for a monstrous house, columns really. We started off with 300mm square but only 3.3m long. Nothing like your monsters. However they were being kiln dried and we worked out that after drying the stringybark lost 10% from shrinkage. So then we cut them at 330mm square to compensate.

They were all boxed hearts, the same as your job.

Incidentally, when I talk about setting up a saw bed, which I have in other posts, this was the job where exactly that was done. In the second picture you can see (just) the Lucas in the background, although the improvised bed is difficult to see. They used railway iron. The first picture was the biggest log I had cut (total volume). I can't remember the size exactly but it was over six metres long and about 800 diameter in the middle. The bed of my sawmill is 8m to give some idea.

I do remember that the front end loader we were using couldn't lift it and we had to sling the log around the blade on the contractors bulldozer. We didn't try to get boxed hearts out of that one.

Regards
Paul

I would be picking them to be ironbark bushy!!

Originally Posted by Travis Edwards

I would be picking them to be ironbark bushy!!

Could well be by weight. I haven't often seen ironbarks that straight and that long. Also ironbark tends to check in rectangles and squares and I couldn't see any evidence of that. There again they were probably not long cut (actually they were cut pretty long ) and hadn't had time to start checking yet.

In any event I won't be betting against you on this one. Allan might have to settle the dispute .

Regards
Paul

I see in those pic s Bushmiller your original laidlaw bed and the swing mill you were talking about

Originally Posted by itsposs

I see in those pic s Bushmiller your original laidlaw bed and the swing mill you were talking about

That's the one. John Laidlaw was not a fan of circular saws and I think mine might have been one of about four he made. Bandsaws were his thing. Incidentally the canopy was a modification I made to lessen the chance of me melting in my boots. I prefered to work in the shade. Besides which I appear better in a dim light.


Regards
Paul

Its even got the Blue swing mill blade guard just like the lucas one there ya Sigidi ya can get a blue one if you want
It would be nice to get more info on John Laidlaw and his machine's I found one for sale a while back. But couldn't muchinfo on the Internet about him

Originally Posted by Bushmiller

In any event I won't be betting against you on this one. Allan might have to settle the dispute .

Regards
Paul

Yead lads it was Ironbark, apparently grey ironbark too, but I don't get that special on ironbark