Some small timber milling

**BobL** · 11th October 2019, 07:31 PM

Finally got back to some milling with my small chainsaw mill. The milling jobs I have agreed to over the last few months have started to pile up and felt like I really needed to move on them. These jobs are small enough to tackle in my back yard - as long as I run the chainsaw in the middle of the day when most of the neighbours are at work.

The first job was flattening a dry short Marri log/stub for a friend who wants to use it as a small butchers block and chopping board.

Butchers.JPG

From here in my mate can use a belt sander and fill the cracks.
Butchers2.JPG

The next job was to extract a 100 x 100 x 1000 mm crack free billet out of this Sheoak log.
The timber was for a couple of blokes at the mens shed who are making a matching turned plinth for a school chapel.

Sheoak1.JPG

I docked 50 mm off each end so it would fit into my small milling rig plus it removed most of the cracks and crap therein at each end.
I also had to trim a bit off one side so the 25" chainsaw bar I use on this small mill could have enough clearance.
Sheoak2.JPG

The log was bone dry and has some attached charcoal, termite tunnels and borer tracks, plus the wood had absorbed silica so it was a bugger to cut.
The last 100mm or so of each cut was a real struggle to get through despite touching up the chain after every pass.
I peeled 3 x 25mm slabs off the top until I got down to reasonably solid wood and managed to extract this 100 mm thick slab out of it.
I will leave it to the Mens shed blokes to chose/select/extract the final 100 x 100 out of it with a band or table saw

Sheoak3.JPG

Grain closeup
Grain.JPG

And even after this small amount of milling I am physically;yu shattered and will leave the remainder of the milling jobs until I recover, hopefully in a few days.

**Euge** · 11th October 2019, 10:23 PM

Love the the last 2 shots showing the beautiful WA sheoak figure & colour that its renowed for ... NICE!

**dai sensei** · 14th October 2019, 10:17 AM

Beautiful mate. We are all getting too old for this sort of stuff

**BobL** · 14th October 2019, 10:23 AM

Originally Posted by dai sensei

Beautiful mate. We are all getting too old for this sort of stuff

You could be right Neil, except it's just rewet my appetite for it

I also decided to measure my rakers on that chain I was using to mill the Sheoak and found they were way too high so no wonder I was having problems.

When I filled the rakers down to what they should be they looked like this and then it cut much better
Rakerdepth2.JPG

This will be the last sharpen for this chain and then I will retire it. I'm surprised some of these short cutters have not broken off.

**chambezio** · 14th October 2019, 10:44 AM

One of firewood chains had filed down so the teeth when looking from above were triangles. I was surprised that I cut as much as I did with the condition of the chain. Blame my parents....both had gone through the Depression and so they ingrained in me to make every thing last! My kids have not picked up this trate

**John Saxton** · 22nd October 2019, 07:51 PM

Nice piece of Sheoak Bob,always looks nice when freshly cut. Is there a way of reducing the chain rakers by machine otherwise I find it laborious ? When you run to multiple chains for a few chainsaws its something I usually do in the cooler months ,still find it a chore at times !

**BobL** · 22nd October 2019, 09:03 PM

Originally Posted by John Saxton

Nice piece of Sheoak Bob,always looks nice when freshly cut. Is there a way of reducing the chain rakers by machine otherwise I find it laborious ?

A chain grinder can be used on standard rakers but for a number of reasons I stopped using grinders on most of my chains.

1) I don't file my cutters to the same length (I stopped doing that back in 2009). I file cutters to remove edge glint. Longer cutters will developers more glint so they will naturally get filed more. Only if they start to visibly look too long will I give them an extra swipe or two once the edge glint has been removed.
2) As a result of 1) my cutters are all slightly different lengths so I don't file the rakers down to a specific depth but to a specific angle. This means they all have slightly different depths depending on cutter length
3) The above chain above is a safety chain so the bumper links also has to be ground down and the grinding wheels on most chain grinders are just not wide enough.
I will use a grinder if I significantly damage cutters and need to remove metal to get them back to more or less the same length.

I touch my cutters up after every tank of mix and the rakers usually get a couple of swipes after every 3-4 tanks. This is all done by hand on the mill or saw. At the end of every few milling days I check the raker angles with a digital angle finder (DAF) with the bar in a vice and the chain looped around the bar.
Here are some vids of me touching up cutters and rakers off the saw

I find that way my chains are fully optimised for cutting more most of their working life.

Thread: Some small timber milling

Thread Tools

Search Thread

Some small timber milling

Similar Threads

Small milling job - ACT

How and why did you get into small timber milling??

About time to see some milling on the small milling forum!

Milling Some Small Logs at DJ's Timber

Posting Permissions