Chainsaw Mills

[.264winmag]

Hey 264, i have a couple firs, a hemlock, and 3-4 cedar trees layed over from novembers storms in the fraser valley.
If i were to buy all the equip for a chainsaw mill, could you estimate the price?
All in, and stacking!

I have a husky 394xp, to do the milling, and a jonsered 630, to buck and limb.
Thank you.
Awesome thread

just the 36" mark 111 mill was $330 shipped Iirc. The mini mill was $150, rest of gear was kicking around, cordless drill, drywall screws, old ladder bars/chains I already had. You could get away with just one of the mills, but they compliment each other well. 394 on the Alaskan would be perfect, johnnie red on the mini mill and you're styling.
My buddy just picked up a 30" Alaskan for s whopping $20 at a garage sale, things mint sob!
Need more info let me know
Cheers

[.264winmag]

how long does one have to dry it our for under shelter until you can use it?
i heard u can paint the ends of beams to prevent cracking/splitting?

I keep hearing this 1" per year to season, I'm with Otter it don't take long in the right conditions. I've got all my beams stacked with lathe between and so far so good. Will be good to go in the fall no problem.

[digger dogger]

Thank you.
Im sure I'll have a few questions.
Looking forward to a sore back

[Salty]

Well done D!! I did a shit ton of chain saw milling back in the day too. But I went with a frame unit from this guy on Quadra

http://woodbug.com/

The 'C' shaped frame with a simple system to quickly line up the log in one increments made for pretty quick milling.
The biggest thing I learned from this guy though was a weird sharpening method done with a guide where there's a small angle front to back and another angle top to bottom. I forget what the degrees were but when you looked down on the tooth the top was actually about dead straight. The hollow was down to up in shape sort of like a snow plow. 3/8 skip tooth filed this way threw chips like a mo fo.

Just throwin this out there for you guys thinking of starting from page one it looks like ol 264 (with some logging in his past) has figured things out pretty sweet

[.264winmag]

That's a sweet looking rig Dan! Has my interest get sure. I'm trying to talk a buddies dad into selling me his old Jonsered mill, has a husky 3120 mounted on er but horizontal not vertical. Saw traveled down the 20ft cribbing on stainless guide rollers. There would be advantages to s vertically mounted power head though.
Heres how I file with best results so far: 3/8 skip tooth, don't touch the rakers for smoothest cutting.

Found an old husky 2100 for the Alaskan, great saw for it! No top end but tough to bog her down, and has manual oiler for big try wood. Didn't come with chain brake but I just take em off anyway so it sits nice upside down for filing. Also take off dogs for more cutting width if needed:

Talked to the Revy saw shop, he'll build a ripping chain for an extra $20. He grinds down the width of two teeth in a row leaving the third alone. Gonna try one out...

[Salty]

Ya you've got it filed the same way by the looks nice and square anyway. That's the biggest thing for ripping loose the spaghetti shavings you get if you file for normal cutting and get nice small chips that clear quick with the square cut. I ran an old 394 it did pretty good on the wood bug frame. Moving up to a 3120 wouldn't hurt a bit. The other thing is I layed into a cut and opened her right up and had my buddy who was a 2 stroke genius fine tune the carb. Had that bitch poppin! Can't believe it never blew up actually I cut lumber and siding to build about a 700 sq ft shed/greenhouse with it back in Bowser. Lots of fence posts and what have you. Definitely a good tool if you've got some property

[dabber]

Not sure if you have a tree or something close to were your ripping the wood. I saw a guy hang a weight off of a pulley, a second one for change of direction then to the Alaska Mill. It seemed to pull it along nice and smooth.

[.264winmag]

Not sure if you have a tree or something close to were your ripping the wood. I saw a guy hang a weight off of a pulley, a second one for change of direction then to the Alaska Mill. It seemed to pull it along nice and smooth.

Seen winches mounted to em also, slowly crank her along. I find if chain is sharp and plenty of oil going around it kind of pulls itself through. If you have to force it there's something wrong. It's a slow process either way lol

[North Arm Knives]

Nice lumber you've made there! I agree it is very rewarding to build using timer you've processed yourself.

We've done quite a lot of chainsaw milling and found that switching from .404 to 3/8 chain made a noticeable difference when doing larger diameter logs. The saw wasn't working as hard and we could push it through the log faster. This was doing 2-3 ft diameter logs with a husq. 394. I'm sure you're aware and your setup is perfect for what you're doing, but just thought I'd share that.

[hardnocks]

i have done a lot of milling with an 090 stihl....but we found that round chipper chain best for ripping . i had found some new old canon roller nose bars. we had torn down the old CPR round house in revelstoke some of the timbers were 50 ft long. we cut planks from them for years . my BIL sold lots of planks