# Building a small lumber/log hauler for the ATV



## Brmorgan (Aug 23, 2010)

This week I got down to remodeling a little trailer I picked up at one of the rural garbage transfer stations back in the spring. This is what it started out like:






Those tires were not on it when I found it; they're solid rubber tires I had found another time that happened to fit. They should be good for a pretty hefty load. They handled the 24' beam I put up in the shop with no effort back in the spring anyway.





On Thursday I cut the top frame off, extended and raised the tongue a bit (not nearly done there, more later), replaced and beefed up the back crosspiece, added three stabilizer crossmembers in the middle, and to keep weight down, added some expanded steel mesh for decking. Time will tell how well it holds up to log hauling, but nothing's stopping me from putting something over it to protect it in that case anyway.





Today, I worked on making stake pockets and removable side stakes for it. Started out with some 3" lengths of 2" perf squaretube to be welded on the trailer for pockets. The 1-3/4" perf squaretube will be the base for the quick-removal sides, and the 3/8" X 1-1/2" flatbar as stabilizers for the stakes. Pics explain it better, so here they are all welded up:





Man, I love how 6013 welds come out looking. So much cleaner. 7018 and 6011 don't seem to like the zinc coating on the perf squaretube all that much; 6011 makes an ugly porous weld and the 7018 seems to want to drop the arc more than normal and is hard to control. But it might just be my welder, who knows. DC+ though as usual and it seems to do fine on plain mild steel.





A closer view of the front side stakes roughed out and mounted. I want them to be able to tip down quickly like a logging truck's bunks, but still be strong when upright, so what I plan on doing is milling a channel out between the two sets of holes in the stakes. This way I can just pull the bottom pin, pull the stake up two inches, and lay it down, and reinstall the pin. These stakes are 21" long; the trailer deck is about 27" wide. They're 1-1/2" squaretube, which fits down into the 1-3/4" perf squaretube with just a little bit of play. Once both bolts (or pins) are installed they don't move at all though.






I was hoping to get all four stakes done today, but as you can see I kinda ran out of daylight. It's not as dark as the camera's flash makes it look though, but I was down working on this until about 8:30 or so. I'm going to have a way of chaining the tops of the stakes together to ease the load on them in case a log rolls or something as well.

What I plan on doing is making two of the stakes much longer than the others, say maybe 36" or so. I designed the stake bases so that when the stakes are laid over they're just slightly higher than the wheels. So if I had two long stakes, I could just as easily lay them over on the outboard side and use them as ramps to roll logs onto the trailer. I don't plan on using this thing for anything very big, just 8" up to MAYBE 16" diameter Pine and D Fir, 8-10' long. I need a couple hundred feet of 8X8 for retaining walls and the like, so I don't need very big timber for that.

This trailer also has a tilt deck, so I could always drag a log on from the backside as well. Ultimately I plan on building a small winch crane on it, probably up on the tongue once I figure out my final design for that. I need to make it a gooseneck of some sort, because its long wheelbase makes the spot where I raised the tongue ground out pretty easily. I'm going to flip my hitch around on the quad to see where that puts it, but I need to keep the trailer deck level or the tail end of any longer pieces will drag too much.

This thing will be a works-in-progress for a while yet. I want to make it very modular and easy to change for different uses; I plan on making solid sides for it so I can use it for yard waste and whatnot, for example. If anyone has any genius ideas, throw 'em out there; now's the time for me to incorporate any that might be useful.


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## BobL (Aug 23, 2010)

Looks Good Brad. What kind of total dead weight do you reckon it will be good for?


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## mtngun (Aug 23, 2010)

That's a well thought out mini logging trailer, Brad. 

How's business at your lumber mill ? While I was perusing the wildfire news, I thought I read something about one of the Williams Lake mills closing ?


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## Brmorgan (Aug 23, 2010)

BobL said:


> Looks Good Brad. What kind of total dead weight do you reckon it will be good for?



Thanks. I have no idea how to figure out how much weight it'll take. The tires will take a good half ton no problem though, I think, and there's no suspension to worry about. As-is, the tongue would not bear that much weight well unless it was quite tail-heavy.

Glad to see you got home safe and sound. Everything as you left it?



mtngun said:


> That's a well thought out mini logging trailer, Brad.
> 
> How's business at your lumber mill ? While I was perusing the wildfire news, I thought I read something about one of the Williams Lake mills closing ?



Hm, I'm not sure; pretty sure it isn't us though, or it's news to me! The one Tolko mill will run their planer for a week or two as needed and then shut down again, but I haven't heard of any new total closures. Our mill is probably not large enough to make the news though. A couple of the bigger mills out by us might have shut down because of all the smoke though; I know my cousin pulled the plug at the fingerjoint mill he manages a few days ago. The funny thing is that if the air quality was that bad inside the mill because of something happening inside the mill, WCB/WorkSafe would shut us down, but there isn't much they can do in this case because they'd have to shut everyone down (not just the mills) and that just isn't feasible.


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## mtngun (Aug 23, 2010)

Brmorgan said:


> The one Tolko mill will run their planer for a week or two as needed and then shut down again


OK, I went back and read the fine print, it was the Tolko Soda Cr. mill and the shutdown is only for two weeks, not the end of the world. 

Good to see you posting projects again, in any event.


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## qbilder (Aug 23, 2010)

Nice job!!! I gotta get me one of those....errrr build me one. I need something that I can pull around the woods, and also use to pull my small bandmill into the woods to cut on site.


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## Brmorgan (Aug 23, 2010)

mtngun said:


> OK, I went back and read the fine print, it was the Tolko Soda Cr. mill and the shutdown is only for two weeks, not the end of the world.
> 
> Good to see you posting projects again, in any event.



OK, that makes sense. They're right across the road from us; it's the backend of their logyard that was in the photo that Bob posted a couple weeks ago in another thread. They're a studmill just like us, and stud values are garbage right now. If it weren't for the Chinese orders we're working on right now, we'd be down too since we can't make money on studs at all. Sounds like the they'll take about as much of the stuff as we can produce right now though, so hopefully that holds up for a while until construction rebounds a bit on this continent.

Yeah it feels good to be getting some projects out the door and behind me. They still keep adding up faster than I can get to them though! I hate feeling overwhelmed, but that seems to be par for the course anymore in my life. Always a distraction somewhere! Like today, I came home from the scrapyard with yet another project Stihl...


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## BobL (Aug 23, 2010)

Brmorgan said:


> Thanks. I have no idea how to figure out how much weight it'll take. The tires will take a good half ton no problem though, I think, and there's no suspension to worry about. As-is, the tongue would not bear that much weight well unless it was quite tail-heavy.


I guess ultimately it's the load weight the ATV can take managed



> Glad to see you got home safe and sound. Everything as you left it?



Yeah - a quick look around suggests everything looks OK.

Just before I left I felt like I didn't have enough decent Canadian souvenirs and so I flashed the credit card in the local Lee Valley store and picked up these. 





Nice thing about these is I can use them even with my fingers in splints. 

Interestingly the small suitcase these were packed in (together with a bunch of CS parts) were inspected by both US and AUS customs. Probably the weight of the suitcase drew attention to itself.


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## Brmorgan (Sep 3, 2010)

Bob, I didn't realize you had also posted those planes over here as well. Sorry I missed it!

Anyway, after work today I got the two longer posts cut and drilled:





Still an enormous amount of work to do to it, and a lot of finishing touches to be worked out, but it's functional so I decided to grab the saw and take it out back in the bush to try it out. The long posts are 4'; it's a bit high to worry about snagging them in the bush but if I drove around with them folded down it wouldn't be so bad.





Here's a decent candidate just a couple hundred yards out in the bush. Gonna put 'er down right between the two small ones that make a bit of a "V" in behind. Straight towards the camera would have been ideal, but it had a rather heavy lean in the other direction and I didn't feel like playing around with trying to fall it against its lean when alone in the bush. Between those trees gives me room to drive the trailer down beside it fairly easily too.





See, told ya so! Went down perfectly. It's got a bit of a sweep to it, but I need a bunch of shorter 8-10' pieces anyway, so no worries. The ported 371XP is so much fun to go falling with in wood this size. It just chews through the wood with the 8-pin rim on there, even with the aggressive profile I give it. It's a bit grabby but cuts so fast if you can keep a steady hand. Can kick like a mule when limbing too!





I could have cut another inch of holding wood or so, but it went down nice and slow and controlled this way and didn't tear out very bad at all. Didn't have to cut much off the butt to square it up!





Cut off a ~9-1/2' length, basically as much as I could get before the tree it was up against. Got the big 4' cant hook there, with another short-handled one at the ready as well so I could have one in each hand. Ready to roll!


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## Brmorgan (Sep 3, 2010)

That went fairly well. It wanted to slide on the rails a bit, naturally, but it wasn't so heavy that I couldn't control it. Once it was up high on the rails, I held it in place and grabbed one rail in each hand and lifted, tipping the log all the way onto the trailer. The whole procedure took maybe a bit over a minute. I plan on welding some Coleman strips to the rails to keep the logs from sliding, and perhaps a couple dogs to help hold them a bit.





Still plenty of room on the trailer, so I decided to go down below to the trail that the top fell across, and load up a 10' piece about 10" down to 8" diameter. The rails are really unnecessary here since I could easily manhandle this log end by end.





Threw on a couple small pieces of the top for firewood and good measure. It could still handle more weight; the quad didn't even know it was back there and took hardly any throttle to get moving. The engine brake held really well going downhill too.






I'm really happy with how it held this weight, and the solid-rubber tires ride really nicely and don't bounce around at all with the weight on them. I'm guessing this is probably in the neighborhood of 400 lbs or so, maybe toward 450. It's riding a bit tail heavy right now, but it really needs a level hitch to sit right, and I only had a drop hitch handy, which was much too low dropped down, so I had to raise it. I have some 1-1/4" heavy squaretube, so a level hitch will be next on the project list, I guess.

I'm thinking I might move the deck back a foot or so, so I can load it forward a little bit more and take a bit more length without tail-dragging. I'm also considering goose-necking the tongue a little bit to get some more clearance there. Many tie-down and chaining points will also be added all around.

One addition I want to make is a hand winch system to put on the side opposite the rails to roll logs on. Since the loading rails can be put on either side, the winch would also need to be able to move. Not sure if I should put it on its own post, or on a crossbar between the two short side posts, or a combo of the two somehow.

This thing is going to let me move a lot of small logs really quickly. It took me less than an hour from the time I took the saw out of the cargo box until I was headed for home loaded up.


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## BobL (Sep 3, 2010)

Nice work Brad -


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## Ted J (Sep 3, 2010)

Brad,
If you replace the tongue of the trailer with a perferated tube to act like an expandable tongue, that way you can move in and out as needed, to make it longer or shorter for whatever log lengths your hauling.

Ted


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## sawkiller (Sep 3, 2010)

What about some of the expanded metal on your loading ramps for log traction?


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## stipes (Sep 3, 2010)

*Nice !!!*

Pretty good load for a atv!!!


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## SPM in King (Sep 3, 2010)

sawkiller said:


> What about some of the expanded metal on your loading ramps for log traction?



...or some teeth welded to the face of the ramps every 4-6" or so. This is what the WM ramps have on them. Small bits of metal, perhaps 3/8" thick by 1" wide by 1/2" long (I could measure but this should do it).


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## Brmorgan (Sep 3, 2010)

SPM in King said:


> ...or some teeth welded to the face of the ramps every 4-6" or so. This is what the WM ramps have on them. Small bits of metal, perhaps 3/8" thick by 1" wide by 1/2" long (I could measure but this should do it).



Yep that's what those Coleman strips I talked about earlier are:






They're replaceable toothed inserts for feedrolls and such at the sawmill. I have a bunch of 6" and 8" lengths downstairs somewhere. They're very durable and hard, and easy to weld unlike that darn expanded mesh stuff.

I've been mulling over some designs for dogs to hold the logs on the ramps; I want to make them on springs so they'll flip down as I roll the log over them and then pop up behind it to stop it rolling back again. Shouldn't be too difficult to do.


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## BIG JAKE (Sep 3, 2010)

Looks pretty good so far Brad-you'll get it tweaked in. Was looking at the ground clearance of the thing and had the idea you could raise the deck 3-4 inches with two rails under the deck(if you find you need more) depending on the tubes you use. Would be able to get slightly longer logs on then. Lengthen the tongue maybe? Wouldn't weld too solid in case you want to reconfigure later it'll be easier to get apart. I like it-great find!


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## Brmorgan (Sep 3, 2010)

BIG JAKE said:


> Looks pretty good so far Brad-you'll get it tweaked in. Was looking at the ground clearance of the thing and had the idea you could raise the deck 3-4 inches with two rails under the deck(if you find you need more) depending on the tubes you use. Would be able to get slightly longer logs on then. Lengthen the tongue maybe? Wouldn't weld too solid in case you want to reconfigure later it'll be easier to get apart. I like it-great find!



Yeah I have thought about raising the deck, and am leaning towards doing so, but I don't want to go too high because it's just that much higher I'll have to roll/lift the logs to load it. It would be easy to do though - the deck is just welded to two pieces of pipe that are around the axle; this also acts as the tilt hinge. I'd just need to break the welds and put some 2" squaretube inbetween the deck and the axle and weld it all into place.

I was off work today (well, had to put in 2 hours this morning to make up some time I owed) so I stopped by one of the industrial supply stores to pick up half a dozen Coleman strips to augment the few I already had:






The ones I had are on the right, new ones on the left. They're ever so slightly different, not like it matters or I care though.






I got the strips welded onto the long rails, and I also cut a channel out between the mounting holes at the base of each. Just took the angle grinder with a Zip disc and cut a line between the holes, and cleaned them up with the die grinder afterwards. It works really well. I never have to remove the top bolts now; just pop the bottom one, lift the post so it's clear of the stake pocket, and lay it over.






So that's the haul from last evening and today. The Doug Fir logs all came from the one tree I took down, plus another ~18' of top that's in the firewood log pile. I got that whole tree back in just three trips - two big logs each time plus whatever small ones I could find to round out the loads - and then went back for a couple small Pines that were down on the ground near where I was working. I ended up fitting five trees plus a couple other random small pieces on that load. Not bad.


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## BobL (Sep 3, 2010)

Brmorgan said:


> So that's the haul from last evening and today. The Doug Fir logs all came from the one tree I took down, plus another ~18' of top that's in the firewood log pile. I got that whole tree back in just three trips - two big logs each time plus whatever small ones I could find to round out the loads - and then went back for a couple small Pines that were down on the ground near where I was working. I ended up fitting five trees plus a couple other random small pieces on that load. Not bad.



Pity you didn't have that stash read to go when I was there, I could have given you a hand to whip them into some useful lumber!


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## Brmorgan (Sep 5, 2010)

BobL said:


> Pity you didn't have that stash read to go when I was there, I could have given you a hand to whip them into some useful lumber!



Yeah, that would have been great, but as I remember it we were already a bit short on time! 

It was kind-of a chicken-and-egg situation; I could have hauled those logs with stuff I already had, but it would have been more work and taken a lot longer. So I wanted to get that other trailer put together first and then start on the logs. This way it only took me a grand total of about 3.5 hours to cut and limb all that wood and get it back to the house in four trips. Those small logs will give me a good boost to the firewood pile too. I like having a good stack of small stuff like that; I don't have to bother with splitting it, and it burns more slowly when left round than when split.


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## BIG JAKE (Sep 5, 2010)

I've got a little trailer I use for moving logs/lumber. To load logs onto my big trailer, I use two bigger slabs off milled logs as skids to roll logs up into the trailer. Then I can mill logs I didn't have time to mill up in the mountains, at home, as in first pic. Then I made a long frame out of 4x4's for my little John Deere box trailer to haul logs, slabs, and boards(2nd, 3rd pics). This lets me offload lumber/logs from the big trailer straight onto the little one, and move them around easily(4th, 5th pic). The little trailer works good with the 4 wheeler too, to shuttle lumber from remote logs I'm milling out in the woods. It wouldn't work well for loading logs as the hard part would be getting them on there by myself.
Brad you're little trailer is more suitable for log hauling, but it's interesting how some of your techniques on that trailer I use to load logs on my big trailer. I have a 3000lb electric winch in the garage. I'm going to weld receiver tubes at three different positions on the trailer so I can just drop the winch in and pin it depending on which direction I'm loading from. Winch base will be pivoting so it will point straight at the load.
I may incorporate some 2x2 tubes that fold out for ramps, that I can move to either side, rather than the slabs although they work well. Stability would be better anyway.


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## BIG JAKE (Sep 5, 2010)

Here's a better look at my little trailer with nothing in it. I don't really want to butcher it all up though. Maybe I could make a little drop in frame and use a comealong somehow to get logs on there. I would have to lengthen the tongue for sure


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## Brmorgan (Sep 5, 2010)

Yeah I plan on doing the same as you and making a drop-in winch system somehow. I'd love to have a Lewis winch as I could just attach it to any nearby tree as high as I needed to get a bit more leverage. But at the better part of $1k I don't see one of those in my future for a while yet.

The only downside I see to your trailer setup is having to lift the logs an awful lot higher to load. Having said that, once they're up that high, it does make them nice and convenient to unload at working height like in your one pic.


I went out and took another dead Douglas Fir today, this one a bit bigger than the last. I had to fall it about 135° against a pretty good lean, which was a bit tricky and involved some double-wedging, but it went over within a couple feet of where I wanted it, so I was pretty happy. This tree just died this past spring and was still a bit green, and was considerably heavier. It netted me another 6 logs though, four 10' sections, one 12', and an 8' from the butt, which was HEAVY.







The five logs on top and the bottom-left one are all from this tree. There was another 4' of the butt left over, but it had a heavy pitch streak up the center and a significant flare to one side, so I didn't leave it on the bottom sawlog. I'll use it for a saw testing log or some milling supports or something.

I still need to go bring the top home from the log I cut the 26' 8X12 out of back in the spring. I'm not sure how much is left in that log, but it's nice and straight. Harder to get this trailer in to it though.


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## mtngun (Sep 6, 2010)

Brmorgan said:


> another dead Douglas Fir today, this one a bit bigger than the last.


That's a good size tree. 30" ? ? ?


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## Brmorgan (Sep 6, 2010)

mtngun said:


> That's a good size tree. 30" ? ? ?



Nah, not quite...  The big end of the 8' butt log (second from left on the top row) is about 18" inside the bark. The base of the short butt piece is about 21" inside the bark. For reference, the handle on my big cant hook is 4' long and the prybar leaning up against the far-left log is 5' long.


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## Brmorgan (Sep 10, 2010)

Well, I've milled one log after work for the last three evenings, so I'm a quarter finished this stack now.






Two sides done on a 12' 8X8 I milled today. This log was still quite green and cut really fast; the 084 ended up washboarding a bit on the last two 8" cuts. It's just for a retaining wall though, so I only need one nice face.






Got the next log all loaded up and ready to go. 8' long, 18" diameter. The three beams I've cut so far are on the pallets in the background; the 8X8 from today is in front, then the two 10' 6X6 pieces one atop the other behind that. The 8X8 behind that is the one I cut back in the spring.

I have a pretty decent pile of edge slabs on a couple pallets at rear-center of the photo there; I figure I'll mill all the heart-center timbers first since it's quick and easy work, and then re-set the mills to recover the slabs later on.

I have a 30" .050 small Stihl mount bar that needs a new tip, and then I can run the LP chain on that bar on my 395 with my adapter.


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## BobL (Sep 10, 2010)

Hey I know that shed too - 

Re:Logs
Nice! - care to show a close up of the washboarding?


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## Brmorgan (Sep 10, 2010)

BobL said:


> Hey I know that shed too -
> 
> Re:Logs
> Nice! - care to show a close up of the washboarding?



OK, I'll do that tomorrow if I have time after work. 

It washboarded the worst when I held back on the pressure and allowed the RPMs to stay a bit higher - if I pushed harder and let the torque just lug along a thousand turns or so slower, it would smooth out. And it was only in the 8" wide cuts today; the wider first-slab cuts were nice and smooth. Oddly though, it didn't do it the previous two days when cutting the 6" pieces. I know, an 084 for 6" softwood cuts is ridiculous, but it was already mounted on the mill. 

It's a 24" 3/8 .063 semi-chisel milling chain at about 10°. I've hand-filed it without a guide a couple times, and also took a FOP to the rakers on the "deep" setting, and it's quite aggressive now, so I'm not surprised to see it washboard. Throws some nice big chips though!


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## BIG JAKE (Sep 10, 2010)

Nice setup/layout you have there. Comfortable for milling. Looks like loads of fun! You'll have quite a pile of sawdust when your done. In a similar situation at home, I've thought a time or two about laying out a tarp so I could easily carry away the chips to a more suitable location. What will you treat the timbers with? 1/2" or 5/8" rebar works good to spike successive timbers together if you drill the hole undersize(long auger bit with extension), then use a sledge to drive 'em home. The ridges hold well in the wood too. Possible, cheap option for the retaining wall anyway.


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## mrlynx (Sep 10, 2010)

When we are talking about using atvs for hauling timber.
Is there anyone using atv-trailers with hydralic crane?
exampel www.avestavagnen.se or www.kranman.com or xyztrading.se
They are pricey but looks like a lot of fun.


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## Brmorgan (Sep 10, 2010)

Bob, it's pouring rain this evening after work so I don't feel like hiking up to grab a pic of that beam just now! Will do if it quits before sunset though.



BIG JAKE said:


> Nice setup/layout you have there. Comfortable for milling. Looks like loads of fun! You'll have quite a pile of sawdust when your done. In a similar situation at home, I've thought a time or two about laying out a tarp so I could easily carry away the chips to a more suitable location. What will you treat the timbers with? 1/2" or 5/8" rebar works good to spike successive timbers together if you drill the hole undersize(long auger bit with extension), then use a sledge to drive 'em home. The ridges hold well in the wood too. Possible, cheap option for the retaining wall anyway.



It was quite a mess of random boards and logs etc. up there until just a week ago when I spent a couple hours reorganizing stuff onto pallets and reclaiming the land from the weeds that had grown up around everything. It's tough to keep the weeds back because I usually can't get in between everything with the weedwacker. Wish I could dump about a half ton of salt up there to semi-permanently kill everything. Though, where I've left a good heavy layer of sawdust, it's slowed the big weeds down pretty good, so after these logs are all done I might have enough to really choke them off. I do have a sawdust/shavings/chip pile over near the property line, but I generally just spread the fine milling sawdust out on the ground with a rake or the plow on the ATV.

Rebar is exactly what I'm going to use - I've used it on jobs for two yard care / landscaping companies I've worked for and it works great. I'm going to put one layer of Allen blocks or some such in the ground for the base of the wall and then stack the 8X8s on top of this row. This way I don't have to half-bury one of the 8X8s because no matter what I treat it with, it won't hold up long like that. I'll send a few lengths of rebar through the two bottom timbers and the blocks and about 2' into the ground; this should give it some real stability. Not that I think it'll move much since it'll be behind the corner of the foundation of the house at one end, and deadmanned into the hill via a set of steps etc. at the other end. Following rows will also be barred down through the ones below. 

As for treating the wood, all non-visible faces will be treated with green Copper II preservative. The backside of the wall will be lined with black plastic; behind this will be a foot of rocks and heavy crushed gravel, and surrounding that will be landscape fabric to prevent dirt from washing in and filling the loose crush up. I'll drill some holes through the base timbers to allow water out the face of the wall, which should keep the backside of the wall well-drained and fairly dry. Or at least that's the idea. 

Mrlynx, I've looked at the similar ones that Baileys sells here in North America; they look pretty sweet but I think they start at around $10,000 for a powered hydraulic one. I can't remember anyone using one on this forum, but I could very well have missed something.


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## Brmorgan (Sep 11, 2010)

OK Bob, I got some pics of the washboard cut and the chain finally:






The top face here is the initial first slab cut off the top of the log with the 084 and regular .050 milling chain. It's not the smoothest in the world but is much better than what is to come. The side face here is cut with the 3/8" LP chain on the 066 in the vertical mill. That stuff seems to cut butter smooth no matter what I do to the cutters or rakers; it just cuts faster or slower.






This is the worst section of washboarding. The saw was just sailing through the wood, probably almost 2"/sec, so I'm pretty sure it's just an issue of not enough chain speed for the feed speed. It was throwing some pretty big chips. I have a big length of brand-new LP chain I got at a yardsale in a bucket of random chains, so I think I'm going to make up an LP chain to fit this bar just to see how it does. Either way I'd really like to throw a 9-pin sprocket on it just to see how that does.






Here I was pushing harder and bogging the saw down a bit (which is relative because that 121cc just kept chugging along); cut speed didn't seem to suffer a whole lot though, but it did cut smoother.










Side view of the same chain. The rakers were FOP'd but not since the last filing, I only took a couple passes off the cutters though, so they should be within tolerance still too. I'm too lazy to figure out the cutting angle and everything, but fly at 'er if you like, Bob!


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## BobL (Sep 11, 2010)

Thanks for the pictures Brad.

That washboard looks like the type caused by the synchronization of the "width of the cut" with the cutting speed. Next time you get this maybe try changing the cutting width by angling the mill in the cut and see if that reduces the washboard. You will have to do it by a significant amount, ie angle the mill to about 60º from the log compared to the usual 90º. If this works then a quick adjust fix could be adding a temporary stop to one of the mill rails to hold the mill at a specific angle during the cuts.

I notice you are using cross cutting top plate filing angles. but I found I can still make serious washboard with 10º ripping chain.

As far as the cutting angles go, my analysis is the left had side cutter is 3.01º and the right is 3.96º. Because an FOP generates an ~4.7º cutting angle I was surprised why they were so low, but seeing as the LP cutter is lower than cutters on regular chain this will explain the lower than usual angle. I assume you were using an FOP for a standard 3/8 chain?

This is an interesting trap for LP users but I can't see how using a standard FOP on LP chain will make a decent cutting angle. Maybe there an FOP for LP chain does exist, but direct measurement with a digital angle finder still seems like the only way to set the cutting angle for all cutter sizes.

You probably don't need any more cutting speed but you could certainly afford to increase the angle substantially especially given the size and softness of the wood you are cutting and the power of the saw you are using.


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## mtngun (Sep 11, 2010)

Great pictures, Brad. That's some weird vibes going on in the cut. The chain must have hit some kind of resonant frequency in the narrow cut.

BobL will be along to analyze your chain and give us the official verdict  , in the meantime, I'm going to say your top angle is about 15 degrees, not that there is anything wrong with that, and your rakers are not aggressive enough, according to my calibrated eyeball. 

Edit: just read BobL's comment and realized the pic is LP, not the 3/8 that was used on the 084. Yes, there is an FOP for LP. I find the LP FOP is a little aggressive for my 066, so I only FOP it about every 3 or 4 sharpenings. Your mileage may vary.


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## BobL (Sep 11, 2010)

mtngun said:


> BobL will be along to analyze your chain and give us the official verdict  , in the meantime, I'm going to say your top angle is about 15 degrees, not that there is anything wrong with that, and your rakers are not aggressive enough, according to my calibrated eyeball.


The top cutter is 22º the other two are 20º



> Edit: just read BobL's comment and realized the pic is LP, not the 3/8 that was used on the 084. Yes, there is an FOP for LP. I find the LP FOP is a little aggressive for my 066, so I only FOP it about every 3 or 4 sharpenings. Your mileage may vary.



Interesting - it would be interesting to see what that LP FOP generated cutting angle is.


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## mtngun (Sep 11, 2010)

BobL said:


> Interesting - it would be interesting to see what that LP FOP generated cutting angle is.


Hopefully, I'll have time to look into that this winter. Right now I'm busy building and cutting. 

Then there is the .325 FOP, which is not nearly aggressive enough.

I've started to use my grinder to dress rakers, but the FOP may still be handy to set the first one. I guess once I figure out the ideal raker angle for the job at hand, I could use a caliper to dial in the first raker, then grind the rest ?


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## Brmorgan (Sep 12, 2010)

OK you guys are both a bit confused, sorry if I was unclear somewhere. The pic is of the standard 3/8" .050 semichisel Oregon ripping chain I picked up at my local dealer and which is currently on the 084; I have pics of a couple LP chains elsewhere here but I can't remember what thread right now. Don't ask me what the chain's "model" code (lgx, rsc, wtf...) is either, because I can't keep all those numbers and letters straight in my head! I just define chains by their characteristics. Anyway for some reason I was thinking before that this chain was .063", but I had forgotten that this 25" Cannon roller-nose bar was in fact .050".

This chain started out at 10° and in two filings I took it back a little bit from that. It cut butter-smooth when I milled the big 24' beam for the shop back in the spring, so I took a few degrees off to try to make it a little more aggressive. Just by hand without any sort of guide, mind you, which explains the slight inconsistencies you measured. I was aiming for about 15° as mtngun guessed, but maybe I did take it a bit far. Still, I've milled with a full-chisel firewood chain at 30° before and gotten a much much smoother result than this nonsense.

As far as the difference in the rakers go from one side to the other, I did notice when taking the picture that when I held the ruler on cutters on the near side, the rakers on the far side appeared higher, but when I held the ruler across the far side cutters they looked the same. So I'm inclined to think it's largely just a matter of camera optics and depth perception, but as I said before, I did file the cutters freehand once since doing the rakers, and I'm not all that exacting about counting my strokes and everything, so I wouldn't be surprised if some cutters were different than others, regardless of the side.

All that notwithstanding, I'm more inclined to agree with Bob's assessment of it mostly being a harmonics issue related to the width of cut, number of cutters in the wood at a given time, and chain speed / RPM. I've found Doug Fir to be fairly forgiving when it comes to filing inconsistencies; heck, one of my 33" milling chains is missing two cutters and the top plates off two more (but I'll be damned if I didn't make it all the way through that 3/8" lag bolt!), and was assembled (not by me) with THREE cutters on the same side in a row where it was spliced. It doesn't cut as smooth as the LP chain (what does?) but would match the top cut in the first photo above. I would also agree that the rakers could still be taken down substantially for use with the 084. The rakers on the .404 milling chain for the 090 are down around .050" if I remember right!

As for FOPs, I have a .404, 3/8" standard full-chisel, 3/8" standard semi-chisel, and .325 chisel. I knew I was forgetting something in the order I just placed with Baileys - I had meant to add the LP to the roundup. I keep the FOPs on a paper binding ring (clips like the ones in 3-ring binders, but is just a single ring), which holds FOP collection to the lanyard hole in my wedge/tool pouch, so they go everywhere with me and are easy to keep together.


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## mtngun (Sep 12, 2010)

Thanks for the explanation.

OK, if that is 3/8 chain for the 084, the raker angle sure looks wimpy to me. Not that it has anything to do with the washboard. 

I wasn't even aware that there was a special FOP for semi-chisel. I've been using the 3/8 chisel FOP #37509 for all my 3/8 rakers. Wonder if it makes any difference ?


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## BobL (Sep 12, 2010)

mtngun said:


> OK, if that is 3/8 chain for the 084, the raker angle sure looks wimpy to me. Not that it has anything to do with the washboard.



I m not so sure. If the washboard is a result of a synchronization between cutting speed and cut width, and since raker depths have a fair bit to do with cutting speed, then maybe they are related.


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## Brmorgan (Sep 13, 2010)

*Arggghhhh......*

Well, yesterday I grabbed the remainder of the tree I took the 24' 8X12 out of back in the spring, and today I got 5 more logs from one that was already down in the bush nearby. It looked like it had been down a long time and I didn't think it was any good, but I bucked a couple lengths off and the heartwood is still solid enough to mill. Since the trailer was bearing the weight well so far, I decided to try three logs on it; it was doing just great until about halfway home, and then :censored: - 






This seems to be a trend for me... But in its defense, it was clear the old weld had been half-cracked for quite some time since it was all rusted inside. I left the two larger logs right there and drug the small one home on the trailer on one wheel. Thankfully I only had to go a couple hundred yards; it left a real nice groove in the trail the whole way home. 40-odd minutes later it's all patched up and ready to go:





Not a real purty weld, but I used 6011 since it was so dirty and rusty and to get a bit better penetration. Sometime I'll grind it down and give it a better finish bead.

Here's the pile after today's hauling:






The five I brought back today are to the left of the big one on the bottom (you can just barely see the end of the small one). All in all I've brought home 20 logs counting the three already milled and the one on the supports ready to go. Since I already had the guide board and cut lines all set up on it (got rained out last night), I gave the chain on the 084 a touchup and then took a FOP to it at a more aggressive setting. Probably took .010 off of most of them. Here's what the top cut (~16" wide) looked:






The one possible downside of milling slightly green Douglas Fir; that pitch is just like tar and gums the chain up something terrible. 

And here's the final 8" wide cut:






This time it was nice and smooth as it should be. Mind you, I was making sure to lean into the cut a bit harder than before, but I did let off a couple times to see what happened and it didn't seem to make it rougher. And who says Doug Fir doesn't have nice grain? I feel guilty using something like that for just a retaining wall. That isn't a crack either; it's a big mineral streak, which I think is from a fire the tree survived eons ago. Whether it'll split as it dries remains to be seen, but it sure looks neat right now.


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## mtngun (Sep 14, 2010)

Great pictures, Brad. You'll have a nice pile of logs to play with this winter when the snow is too deep to log in the woods.

The majority of the dougs that I mill have a pitch crack at least in the butt log. After the pitch dries, the pitch crack breaks open easily, so I have to either edge around it, or else contrive to place the crack where it won't be heavily stressed.

There seems to be a lot of greenery in the backgrounds of your pictures. How much precipitation does Williams Lake get in a year ? One source on the web said 45 cm (18") which seems low ?


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## Brmorgan (Sep 14, 2010)

mtngun said:


> There seems to be a lot of greenery in the backgrounds of your pictures. How much precipitation does Williams Lake get in a year ? One source on the web said 45 cm (18") which seems low ?



I don't really know anymore what would be the average. The last few years have been technically "drought" years for us and the trees are really stressed out because of it; pests are taking them out left and right. Last summer we had 11 weeks with no rain whatsoever; this summer was also quite dry up until about 3 weeks ago. Since then we've had well above average precipitation, which was great for getting the fires under control, but now the bush is so wet and muddy we can't bring logs into town. 

Since we sit on the interior plateau between the Coastal and Rocky mountains, it is rather dry around here compared to a lot of the province, but not quite as dry as the south Okanagan. It's wetter as you go east, and drier as you go west until you get into the mountains again. We do have cacti on the dry south and east-facing slopes, especially out west, though they are right in town in certain spots too.

To be honest, your pics mostly look like they could have been taken up here, with the exception that we don't have Ponderosas quite this far north. It isn't quite as ragged right around town here as it appears around you, but just southwest of us there ARE ponderosas with that type of terrain and a near-desert climate in areas:







Natural grasslands out west:











View from the top of a sand dune not far from where the last two pics were taken, about an hour's drive west:





I believe it's the largest dune in British Columbia.

Looking out southwest from another spot out that way, towards the coast mountains and Chilko Lake, about 75 miles away.


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## Brmorgan (Sep 14, 2010)

Oh, and for the record, I'm hoping to have all those logs milled up before snow flies here (which could be six weeks or three months, you never know), so I'll have to haul some more stuff for over the winter. There are lots of 8-12" pine close by that I could haul to mill studs and the like out of. I'm hoping to have some 6X6 left over out of this Fir run to give me a good head start on a small ~10X10' garden tool shed, so I'll need some 2X for that project too. I've pretty much cleaned up the Fir that's really close to the house. There is a really good stand of dead ones, probably a couple dozen in just an acre or two, but they're near a quarter mile from the house and on a steep hillside. Definitely worth going after with the convenience of this new trailer, but a lot more work than what I got here.


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## mtngun (Sep 14, 2010)

Brmorgan said:


> There is a really good stand of dead ones, probably a couple dozen in just an acre or two, but they're near a quarter mile from the house and on a steep hillside.


I take it you have access to some private land, 'cuz I assume the authorities would frown on you hauling logs from crown land ?  

That's why I rarely bring logs home. The Alaskan mill flies under their radar, but if I were caught hauling a load of logs on a public road, I could get in trouble. Otherwise, it would be neat to haul logs home and cut them with a bandmill -- speaking of which, how's your bandmill project coming ?

Thanks for the beautiful pictures. I agree, your area looks and sounds an awful lot like mine, with everything from cactus to grassland to cool shady forests.

Well, a source on the web said 45 cm (18") per year at Williams Lake Airport, so I'll go with that. I average 24" per year, but, you can drive 5 miles in any direction, and be in a completely different climate zone, depending on exposure and elevation.


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## BobL (Sep 14, 2010)

Great Pics Brad. It's hard to reconcile those against the smokey hazy scenery I saw. 

The log pile is starting to look impressive considering you're just using the ATV and simple home made log hauler.


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## Brmorgan (Sep 15, 2010)

Well guys, I'm a bit at a loss. I milled two more 8X8s tonight without sharpening from last night at all, and out of three 8" wide cuts, one washboarded but not as bad as the pic above, one was a little rough but acceptable, and the other was almost as smooth as the low-profile chain.

I was quite impressed with myself tonight though; I got my log-to-square time down to 35 minutes flat on the last one. This counts marking my cut lines on the end, leveling the end blocks and guide board setup, and setting up the aluminum guide rail for the vertical mill, on top of the four cuts to be made. I don't know if you guys remember me adding some aluminum angle to my guide board for added stiffness; it's really helped me out. To shim the center up, I've been using some 3' long 3/4" X 3" picket stock I have lying around - I just tuck one or two between the log and the bottom of the guide, and shim it up with a couple falling wedges to get it leveled out. After six logs with nice and straight results, I'm confident with this system now as long as my guide board manages to keep nice and flat. This way isn't as forgiving for correcting warp in the guide.

Right now I'm batting around the idea of building a CSM resaw unit, with a horizontally mounted chainsaw and a power feed to send slabs through to recover additional boards. It would be a lot easier than running the Alaskan over a 2" thick slab to get a 1" board, which I find myself doing frequently. It wouldn't be that difficult of a build, I don't think. I have that old 1930s cast-iron tablesaw sitting downstairs taking up space; its table would do the job nicely (even tilts, so I could let gravity help the feed), and it weighs a ton and is nice and stable. All I'd have to do is build an Alaskan-like frame over the top for vertical adjustment, and a mount with a really strong spring to hold the power feed down. I have a number of motors and gear reducers I can play around with to find something that will work for that. If I actually do get around to building this and it works out really well, I'll think about putting the 10HP Briggs on it and making it more of a permanent unit. The only problem I really foresee is keeping the chain from pulling the slab hard into the side of the unit and binding up. Whatever rollers I rig up would have to be on either stiff springs or a preloaded air ram or something to let them follow the irregular surface of the slab.

Geez, the last thing I needed right now is a good brainstorm... Too much on the go already!


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## Brmorgan (Sep 15, 2010)

We had a short day at work again today, ran out of lumber in the planer because the sawmill's been down because we can't haul logs because it won't friggin' stop raining now... So, I ended up getting four timbers milled out today. I made myself some new little helpers today too:






I cut a couple 6" and 8" squares from 3/4" MDF and drilled a hole dead-center in each. So now instead of measuring out from the pith and using the level and square to lay out my cut lines, I just drive the screw into the pith and level the piece, and draw around the perimeter with a Sharpie. Perfect boxed-heart every time and a lot easier to set up. Slowly getting more efficient!

Here's what I've got after today's production:






I milled one 6X6 and three 8X8s today. The one at far-right is pretty much an economy piece; it came from one of the last logs I hauled back that had the punky sapwood. It was barely big enough to fit the 8X8, so all four corners are punky and kinda ugly. I could always take 2" off of two sides to get a 6X6 with two nice faces though.






Forgive the dingy cellphone photo. I've got quite the slab and sawdust piles building up, and I'm only halfway done that stack of logs. The sawdust pile will be really decent after I mill the slabs down! I should get four more 6X6 pieces and six 8X8s out of the remaining logs there.

Once those are gone, if the weather holds up and I have time, I'm going to haul the milling equipment up to the big log I've used in some of my saw videos and quarter it or something to where I can haul it back home. At 28" diameter (plus bark) it's far too big for me to manage with the quad, especially considering the rather significant hill I have to come down on the way home from there.


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## mtngun (Sep 15, 2010)

Nice posts. 

Those 8x8's are heavy, aren't they ?


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## Brmorgan (Sep 15, 2010)

mtngun said:


> Nice posts.
> 
> Those 8x8's are heavy, aren't they ?



Yeah, I can handle an 8' pretty easily; 10' is possible if it's relatively dry, but the 12' pieces are too heavy for me to drag around. I just pushed them onto the trailer I hauled the logs on and pulled it around by hand. They only had to move twenty feet or so, so it wasn't worth hooking the quad up.


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## Fallguy1960 (Sep 17, 2010)

You could use a 2 wheeled log cart similar to what they use on construction sites to move smaller water and steam pies. I wish I had a picture but will try to describe it. Pipe fitters build them using wheels from a standard 2 wheel tank cart. They attach them to an 10" x 10" angle about 24" long. They place there cart close middle of the pipe they want to move. Then they push down on the lite end and push the pipe where you need it to go. A couple of 14" tire would make a better setup for moving after the yard. May be we have a pipe fitter on the site that can post a picture.


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## striperswaper (Sep 21, 2010)

are you trying to discribe a skidding arch?
that could do double duty for logs that are too big for the trailer and moving cants/beams


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## Brmorgan (Sep 21, 2010)

striperswaper said:


> are you trying to discribe a skidding arch?
> that could do double duty for logs that are too big for the trailer and moving cants/beams



I know what he's describing; the idea is similar to a log arch but there's no tongue to hook it to an ATV etc. to haul it with; it's just a set of wheels with an arch between. You hook it up slightly off-center on the load you want to move, so that one end is on the ground and one is up in the air. If it's done right, it takes almost no effort to push down on the light end and level the load out so it can be pushed around the yard. This only works well if the area you're working in is fairly flat and level though, because you're providing all the motive force to move the load.


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## Fallguy1960 (Sep 21, 2010)

The angle forms a cradle that the log or cant lays in. It does not hook the a tractor or four wheeler you push it by hand. It would be used to move the pieces Short distances around the yard from where you mill to where you store them.


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## SPM in King (Sep 23, 2010)

Like either of these?


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