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[woodbodger]

HI, Joan and I have done the sensible thing and upsized on retiring so we now have a large house and 42 acres of woodland. Since I am a retire furniture maker/ windsor chair fanatic it made perfect sense to me, however looking after the wood is so much fun and time consuming I have failed to turn a piece of wood since we have been here. Has any body out there used a chain saw lumber mill or any such to convert timber: i should say I don't want to indescriminatly chop down our wood but I hate having to turn all fallen timber into logs. I currently have a very large Ash and an Oak that have succumbed to age and weather and I would like to get some usable timber out of them, any ideas anyone?

[tracy]

welcome Woodbodger!

There is a discussion thread on chainsaw mills that you might find useful and a good starting point...

http://www.swog.org.uk/forum/topic.php?id=16

[Adrian]

Dear wood bodger

I'm using an alaskan mill III and and Alaskan mini mill to convert Larch to 8"x10", 8"x8", 8"x2" & 8"x1" up to 6M long which I will use to build a woodland bothy, If you can get Tracey to send me your email I can send you some photos of how I'm doinig it.

As long as you have saws with enough power the extra kit you need is cheap.

[tracy]

Adrian, fancy sending me the photos for the website? I think lots of people would like to see it!

[James M]

Have a looksee here as well:

http://ablett.jp/workshop/csm.htm

You can get 20mm and 25mm steel tubing from B&Q and one slides neatly inside the other - I'm just upgrading my home made chainsaw mill now.

Adrian - how are you keeping a flat surface to run the mill along for 6m? Ladders?

J.

[Darren]

Hi James Just had a look at your pictures. Nice saw mill you made,, the only problem is you have put a clamp on the roller.

[James M]

Hi mate - I only wish I had a workshop that swanky - I think it's a guy in Japan - I only used it as inspiration for mine!

[wood troll]

Hi woodbodger,

Guess what I was doing today?

I converted some 2 meter oak firewood logs for a client into 12cm x 21cm x 1.3m lintels, then made a 21cm x 23cm oak beam from another (in exchange for an equal amount of oak logs) to act as an axle for a wheeled apple press I am restoring.

My mill is powered by a Stihl 660 (7.3hp) with a 75cm blade. The rig itself is a Gruminette by Zimmer ( http://www.zimmersa.com/outillage-professionnel/exploitation/la-gruminette-guide-45cm-2062-g1.html if you scroll down the page there is a vidio of how to use the machine (hope your french is good!!!)). They are French and I have found it has worked a treat on various types of wood. It has been used regularly and has had no physical defects. I think it was about 250 euros for mine (though price varies with size). I would recommend it as a inexpensive way to start planking. The length of plank you can achieve depends simply on the length of the guide plank you have.

On the chainsaw side you need one of at least 5.5hp as it puts the machine under a lot of stress cutting across the grain and cutting for 20 minutes at a time (a 6m plank).

If you have further questions please ask.

wood troll

[John H]

Here is a picture of my chainsaw mill.

http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/FtiqAssRG-Onqf_MoexGLA?feat=directlink

I bought it soon after Oct 1987 and used it on some very large oaks.

I put it together recently to mill an oak I had here in Essex, but before I could find a volanteer to man the other end I was tempted by a Lucas Mill I spotted advertised on the internet.

http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/G6NlV74E7ygklmrRYP1asQ?feat=directlink

Woodbodger, what part of Carmarthenshire are you in? Our woods are near Llandovery.

John

[Adrian]

Dear Woodbodger and Tracy I did a little write up in June 09, and its still in the SWOG archive, it I can only add one new photo to it.

The superbly engineered rig that James M put together is almost identical to the Alaskan mill III , however if you don't have the skill or equipment to make one you can buy one from http://www.alaskanmill.co.uk/Store.aspx#P33 for under £200.

I lust after a Peterson mill