Thread: Dead radiata pines

Ian you are an inspiration! For the last few weeks I have been landscaping around our new house in the 'heat' down here by the coast and feeling every year of being past my prime. The thought of you doing all that work out west (10 degrees hotter in summer, 10 degrees cooler in winter ) makes me shudder!

Sweet.

070 - good saw that one. They don't make them like that any more.

Originally Posted by BobL

.....070 - good saw that one. They don't make them like that any more.

Unfortunately.

I'm sure there could be quite a few more cubic metres of sawing left in the old girl yet Bob, but something has gone awry with the governer, amongst other things, the actuating rod must be worn or something, I just cannot get it to work properly and it was becoming too temperamental to be usable. I see parts are still available (from China) so I should try & rejuvenate it, but I've lost my passion for fiddling about with that sort of stuff....
Cheers,

I’ve got this one coming down in 6 weeks - kaffir plum

0B5895FE-03B4-459A-B9EE-964790352D18.jpg 6293C2CB-960C-4049-A332-E4F8144B2A67.jpg

apparently the timber is not much use - shame.

Ian

That's good going. What length bar were you using? It looks as though it could be around 36" - 42". The mill looks like a commercial variety similar to the Wexford that once was, or may still be, sold here in Oz.

I have recently been using some radiata pine salvaged from crates in an open fire and I have noticed that it does not burn very hot compared to the other timbers. However, I have it here, and like your situation, it has to be cleared up so I will persevere with it.

Something I meant to mention was that I use a mesh face shield instead of goggles. It keeps the sawdust off, but does not fog up like goggles.

Regards
Paul

I agree with all your comments Ian ,I had to drop 5 large Pines of the Radiata variety as they going to have an impact on transmission lines,I was instructed by the power Corp to remove them or they would at my cost. It was not easy but still cheaper my way .Still have a lot of firewood left over after the rubbish was done away with.

check it out when you fall it I have used apple, lemon, olive, pear and bottlebrush that I can remember and with a bit of care it was good timber .

Originally Posted by Bushmiller

......That's good going. What length bar were you using? It looks as though it could be around 36" - 42". The mill looks like a commercial variety similar to the Wexford that once was, or may still be, sold here in Oz.....

It's a 36" bar, Paul. The bloke at the chainsaw shop was rather dubious it would work when I ordered the bar & chain, & to be truthful I wasn't super confident either. One worry I had was the oil getting around the bar properly when it's fully buried, but that doesn't seem to be an issue at all. You've got to hand it to modern bar oils, they do an excellent job. The chain remained visibly oiled & cool at the end of each cut and I only needed to re-tension it a little just before I made the last 2 cuts (by which stage I'd gone through nearly 5L of oil), which I take as fair indication that it's getting sufficient lubrication. But even in pine, the 391 can't handle a cut with the full bar engaged, so I took successive cuts for each slab/plank once they got wider than about 350mm. It leaves a slight ridge where the next cut starts each time you drop the saw, but it's only a mm or two max, which will plane out very easily. I wasn't trying to maximise yield, & allowed a generous margin for later clean-up. My "1 inch" boards are more like 28mm as sawn. I estimate it has dropped to around 25-30% MC in the standing tree so there'll be less shrinkage than if it had been sawn "wet" so I think I've allowed more than enough for dimensioning...

The mill has no name on it that I can find, it has "Ripper Mk IV" & "Pat. pending" cast into the roller block, & that's it, but it bears a strong resemblance to the one illustrated on the Westford site. It was passed down to me about 22 years ago, and wasn't new then, but I have no idea when it was bought originally..

Originally Posted by Bushmiller

...I have recently been using some radiata pine salvaged from crates in an open fire and I have noticed that it does not burn very hot compared to the other timbers.....

Pine is definitely not a good firewood. As you've noted, you get a fraction of the BTUs out of it you'd get from a good dry Eucalypt and it has another bad habit, its resins like to gum up chimneys, so I wouldn't use it for house-warming unless desperate. Brisbane council recently decreed it legal to have a fire-pit in the backyard (which the locals have been happily doing for some years anyway). Those sorts of fires, like open fireplaces, are decorative rather than functional, and even semi-dry, radiata seems to burn cheerily, so it's fine if you just want to see flames & toast a marshmellow or two. I took a trailer-load & stacked it out front with a sign "Free fire-pit wood - help yourself". It was gone in 20 minutes! I took another load up & the same thing happened. So between myself & the locals, and a good chipper (which I'll hire at the end) I should be able to clean up the mess at a steady rate!

Still got a ways to go, though!
Cheers,

Originally Posted by IanW

It also sprays sawdust in a way that buries the operator alive when pulling it through the cut. I could keep some of it out of my eyes with safety goggles, but it's been 35 degrees and about 110% RH here for the last few weeks so the goggles fogged up every few minutes to the point I could barely see where the log was! I decided not being able to see was a bit dangerous, so I made a crude handle arrangement to allow me to stand further away & wear open glasses that wouldn't fog so much. It is very crude, in fact, it was cobbled up in about an hour and isn't too secure, & also makes it awkward when pulling the saw off the rail & re-fitting to go down the other side of the log:

Been there done that.

My monorail mill firmly holds onto the saw in any orientation
Hcut2.jpg cutting.jpg
This means it can even cut with the back of the bar which shoots most of the sawdust downwards rather than over the operator.

However, it stills shoots enough sawdust upwards to give me the tom tits so I only use it when I have to. I reckon Alaskan type mills are much gentler on the operator - not just from a sawdust point of view but also because the log can be placed on a slope and if the chain is on song the mill needs little if any pushing.

The photo below show the most extreme slope I used on some Liquid Amber shorts about 30" wide - this was before I had my remote throttle. Zero pushing - just hang onto the throttle handle
Problem was at the end of the cut the slab slid off the log trapping the mill. I got around this by, after starting a cut and had the bar buried in the wood, Tek screwing a piece of wood across the kerf onto the front end of the log
On this slope the mill went through this thing like butter, on some narrower logs (24") I even had to hold the saw back or it got bogged - or use a shallower slope. Any slope helps.
P1020919.JPG

Once an operator has some experience I reckon Alaskans also produce a better finish

Nicefinish.jpg

Thanks Ian.

I got the name slightly wrong, but it brings up the Westford site, which is pretty ordinary to view.

A friend and I put a 42" bar on his Stihl. I don't recall which model now but it was 90cc (Magnum I think) and would now be twenty years old. We too were hesitant, but that was a superb saw (just because it is a Stihl does not automatically mean this ) and it did not bog down at all. We were cutting Spotted Gum! Unfortunately he died about eighteen months ago and the bar, the chain and the saw have disappeared despite my representations to the relatives as the bar I had purchased and I was keen to acquire the rest.

I only use the pine in our chimenea. I would not have realised the poor firewood quality if I did not cook jacket potatoes in the ash of this fire. Using cypress pine, not hardwood, the usual size potato takes between one hour and 1¼ hours to cook. With radiata pine, and a far more active fire, after 1½ hours the spud is still not cooked!

This is with Cypress Pine and you can see the flames exiting the chimney section. Burning Radiata Pine that does not happen.

P1060525 (Medium).JPG

I had the fire stoked up in this instance as I was annealing some leaf springs.

Regards
Paul

Edit: I think the Stihl was a Magnum 660. Does that sound right to the Stihl experts? I am pretty certain it was approximately 90cc as it was similar to the Husqvarna I had at the time.

Originally Posted by Bushmiller

. . . . I think the Stihl was a Magnum 660. Does that sound right to the Stihl experts? I am pretty certain it was approximately 90cc as it was similar to the Husqvarna I had at the time.

Magnum is a secondary name used on some higher end Stihl models eg the 93cc 056AVSE an 056 AVSEQ, the 92cc 066 and 122cc 088/880/881.
Usually it means a few % more HP although there are also slight power differences due to which country they're being sold in.

The stock MS880 sold in Oz is 8.5HP, the Magnum is 8.7HP
The 880 Magnum sold in the US is 8.6HP - probably a tuning or muffler thing to meet EPS standards.

Paul, the 660 is 91.6cc according to the Stihl site, so you were close enough for the bush. That's about 10ccs less than the 070, but still a lot more than the 64cc of the 391. A 391 is not really suitable for this job, but it's the best I've got, so it has to do. The 070 is a solid, all-metal job, and had a slightly longer stroke than the more modern engines, which seemed to give it tremendous lugging power. When it was working properly it would grind a 3 foot blade through ironbark & barely change note.

Bob, the handle dad made for the 070 was perfect - it kept you clear of sawdust & blade and made the thing easy to push through the log at whatever pace it needed. I've got a pic of it in action somewhere, I'll see if I can find it, later. My too-quickly made attempt failed mostly because it's hard to attach solidly to the 391.

I made an "Alaskan" frame for the 070, but because of the way the two saws are made, it needs modification to fit the 391 even though the blades are the same overall length. I just haven't had the time or enthusiasm to fix it, & in any case I was trying to convince myself that my milling days are over. But yes, the horizontal frame is nicer to use, especially on a good slope (never tried one as extreme as the one in your pic, though! ).

Cheers,
Ian

Originally Posted by IanW

Pine is definitely not a good firewood. As you've noted, you get a fraction of the BTUs out of it you'd get from a good dry Eucalypt and it has another bad habit, its resins like to gum up chimneys, so I wouldn't use it for house-warming unless desperate. Brisbane council recently decreed it legal to have a fire-pit in the backyard (which the locals have been happily doing for some years anyway). Those sorts of fires, like open fireplaces, are decorative rather than functional, and even semi-dry, radiata seems to burn cheerily, so it's fine if you just want to see flames & toast a marshmellow or two. I took a trailer-load & stacked it out front with a sign "Free fire-pit wood - help yourself". It was gone in 20 minutes! I took another load up & the same thing happened. So between myself & the locals, and a good chipper (which I'll hire at the end) I should be able to clean up the mess at a steady rate!

Still got a ways to go, though!
Cheers,

I use all my dry pine for kindling only merely for getting the fire going .I'm usually using Jarrah,Sheoak, Karri ,Banksia hardwoods for a the fire. Plenty of that around here.

Wipe the insides of your safety goggles with cheap shampoo applied with a soft cloth. Thin film will do.
Breaks the surface tension and your goggles will not fog up.

Wearing masks here in cold weather is a real bugger for fogging, dangerous for work and driving.
I have a "Fog Stick" from my hunting days, used on rifle scopes and binocs. and glasses.