Thread: Information on milling by hand

Hi Luke

what a great project

starting with your tree --
for the project you describe, you will likely need a fairly large tree.
if you are not entirely sure of what you are doing, and experienced, I suggest you get the tree felled and limbed by professionals

Tools
you will likely need a 6 to 8 foot long two handed cross cut saw to fell the tree and cut it into sections.
if you have the right tree you will be able to split boards off the tree, otherwise you will need a long two handed rip saw to break each log down.
google -- pit saw
you will also need log handling tools.

Originally Posted by Luke Maddux

... this winter (in the US)..

Do you mean this summer? If so, not a good time, better to be in winter (HERE)

Originally Posted by Luke Maddux

So all of that said, I was hoping someone may be able to direct me to some online resources for information on how the first few steps are done. Basically a tutorial about how to turn a log into boards with hand tools. After that I've got it covered, but I want to do my research so that I'm not worthless for the majority of the sweating.

Having milled many logs with chainsaws, and more recently a bit easier using a bandsaw mill and forklift and knowing how hard it is with these tools then all I can say is good luck
BUT
I don't think it's foolhardy. you will gain an awful lot of respect for how timber is/was obtained, especially in the past.

Hand milling is not rocket science.
You will need two types of saws, a ripping saw and a cross cut, the more specific the saws are the easier it will be.
You will need to learn how to sharpen these on a regular basis while milling.
You can use a saw pit and a two man saw, whereby the bloke working underneath gets showered in sawdust.
A pit is not necessary if the log is small and you can get the log up off the ground onto a tall frame of some kind
Seeing as you are only making furniture if you get a long enough saw you can probably rip short logs just above ground level.
Or get the log about half a metre above the ground and use a one man saw and take turns.
Examples of saws here http://crosscutsaw.com/wp/product-category/all/saws/

You can start by just cutting a flat surface off the side but normally the way they do it is by ripping the log down the middle since this creates a flat surface on the two halves to work with
Then the halves are halved again and boards cut off the cut faces and by rotating the quarter sections you can cut quarter sawn boards off the sides of the cut faces
If you have time I would practice this on a short small diameter log before you try it on a bigger log.

You will need handling tools for logs.
A couple of cant hooks, see https://www.woodworkforums.com/showth...ghlight=dragon
Ways of lifting the log by hand, see https://www.woodworkforums.com/showth...light=Jack+Log
If you were true to form you'd use a forge to make the tools

BTW a truer cradle to grave operation would be to plant your own tree wait for it to grow and then mill it and make something out of it.
I still have most of a log that I did this with - planted in 1978 and milled in 1998.

for inspiration, or discouragement? have a look for chop with chris on youtube. he makes furniture entirely by hand too.

Originally Posted by dai sensei

Do you mean this summer? If so, not a good time, better to be in winter (HERE)

Hi Neil

I think Luke does mean his winter.
If I have it right, trees where he is stop growing in winter and most of the sap "drains" out of the tree as a protection mechanism to protect the tree's growth layer from freezing.

Originally Posted by ian

Hi Neil

I think Luke does mean his winter.
If I have it right, trees where he is stop growing in winter and most of the sap "drains" out of the tree as a protection mechanism to protect the tree's growth layer from freezing.

Yep. This is true. I currently live in Brisbane, but I'm originally from the US, specifically the westernmost foothills of the Appalachian Mountains in central Tennessee. Think American Civil War era plantation home architecture set in farmland surrounded by deciduous forest.

The weather can vary from cool to cold with potential for snow or freezing rain/sleet. If we pick a good weekend we should have fantastic weather for grunting outside.

We will fell and limb the tree ourselves, likely using axes for the initial notch and a two-man crosscut saw for the felling cut. My cousin knows his way around this part of the operation.

As of now, the tree is looking like an ~80-100yr old Black Walnut (Juglans negra) that's on his parents' ~80 acre farm. It's right on a treeline so we can likely drop it into open space where it will be easily worked. The tree has been dead for 3-4 years, so it should still have some softer, wet material inside it.

A fallback to this plan is a live Cherry tree on my cousin's farm. Either way, we're looking at world-class furniture timber.

Following our initial discussion, we talked about a process similar to this:

Felling the tree as mentioned above, then limbing it with broad axes and selecting a nice, straight log 6-8ft in length, which would be cut out of the tree with a 2-man crosscut saw. Then splitting the log lengthwise with wedges, sledges, and froes, then splitting the two halves, leaving quarters. We would then hew the quarters into flat faces using drawknives and broadaxes and roll the quarters individually onto some kind of large scale sawhorses/cradle, where we would go after them with large rip saws, cutting the flat sides of the quarters into rift or quartersawn boards. For the smaller boards of each quarter, we could move to something like a large Disston D-8. We felt like this would be the most manageable way to do it with 2-4 people. We would take turns sawing.

Following this we would seal the ends with wax melted over a campfire.

I like the idea of planting a tree... Maybe we'll do that at the same time.

Open to critique or advice on this idea.

Cheers,
Luke

Furthermore, is anyone aware of a company who is making a dedicated, one-man rip saw which is designed for logging-scale work? It seems like anything larger than a large carpenter's saw (like a D-8) is a dedicated crosscut...

to rip the logs in half and then into boards, you can do it with a "saw pit". I seen it on some documentary about how they used to cut boards before steam engines/electricity back in the middle ages.

they put the log over a long pit (or up on a scaffold), and then they use 2 men with a push/pull saw. one on top of the log, and the other below the log in the pit (yeah..this is a horrible job, get covered head to toe in sawdust and sap and whateva else) then they just cut planks off. its effectively the same as using a bandsaw today...but using manpower instead.

Google "saw pit" and look at the images.

Originally Posted by Kuffy

to rip the logs in half and then into boards, you can do it with a "saw pit". I seen it on some documentary about how they used to cut boards before steam engines/electricity back in the middle ages.

they put the log over a long pit (or up on a scaffold), and then they use 2 men with a push/pull saw. one on top of the log, and the other below the log in the pit (yeah..this is a horrible job, get covered head to toe in sawdust and sap and whateva else) then they just cut planks off. its effectively the same as using a bandsaw today...but using manpower instead.

Google "saw pit" and look at the images.

We talked about this technique. I think that, if we were going to make a habit of this it would be worth building it, but for one log I don't think it is really worth it. Especially the whole excavation side of things.

We will likely just use the largest rip saw we can source and take turns doing it by hand with the log elevated off of the ground somehow.

Originally Posted by Luke Maddux

Furthermore, is anyone aware of a company who is making a dedicated, one-man rip saw which is designed for logging-scale work? It seems like anything larger than a large carpenter's saw (like a D-8) is a dedicated crosscut...

I doubt you will find a supplier of new ripping saws - not much call for these
So you are in for finding a used one or a good old school saw doctor should be able to convert a cross cut to cut as a ripper.

I would be looking at splitting planks off as my first option
Of course that would depend on the straightness of the timber.. These guys split timber using a large froe https://youtu.be/dcoTnER4Efg

Originally Posted by code4pay

I would be looking at splitting planks off as my first option
Of course that would depend on the straightness of the timber.. These guys split timber using a large froe https://youtu.be/dcoTnER4Efg

Yeah, that video is awesome.

There is a series on American PBS about a guy that went to Alaska and built a home with the trees around him and his hand tools. It definitely displays many different techniques for hand milling.

Originally Posted by Luke Maddux

Furthermore, is anyone aware of a company who is making a dedicated, one-man rip saw which is designed for logging-scale work? It seems like anything larger than a large carpenter's saw (like a D-8) is a dedicated crosscut...

Luke

I think you could chase the larger handsaws for this purpose. You can commonly source 28" models and saws such as the D-8 can be obtained with the thumbhole handle if you wish.

Another type of tool to consider is the Docking saw and although they were typically crosscut, it is easy to convert to a rip tooth configuration. Frequently they had a steel handle, but also timber handles were around. They were 30".

Simonds No.347 Docking saw restored 004.jpgSimonds dock saw.jpg

The first saw is mine, but the second is a current listing on US Ebay

http://www.ebay.com/itm/231565352977...%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

If your cousin is in the US he could pick this up for probably less than US$50 including freight, but less than two days to go.

Regards
Paul