At last - got some milling time in.

BobL · Dec 21, 2011

Well it's been 6 months since I put a mill to the wood and it sure is nice to be back.

The last tree I milled was an Ironbark and as it so happens, so is this one.
This one is supposedly something called, Eucalyptus sideroxylon, mugga ironbark and it is HARD and has a density of ~70 lb/ft^3
Location was in a mate's (Steve) domestic garden in the Perth hills, weather was warm around 87F so we had a sweat up in fairly short order.

log has been down about 2 months. we split it into 3 sections just so we can handle the slabs

There looks like a lot of checking but it is less than 2 inches deep

There appears to be a major branch/ bark occlusion which is somewhat unfortunate but there is still heaps of good timber aside from that

This tree being in a domestic garden has grown fast - real fast.

One of the main reasons I'm bothering with such a hard log is that it is full of fiddle back, it's not real pronounced bit it is there.

BobL · Dec 21, 2011

Mo pics

Milling buddy Steve has a crack at the BIL mill. It performed reasonably well in the SOB timber, and it was cutting nice chips.

No forklift so slabs were manhandled to the stack, it took 4 of us to move each 2" thick slab.
Of course they will be broken up further or moved to a shop with mechanized handling for turning into something useful.

I was great to work with Steve and having such an enthusiastic and keen helper on hand gave me a relatively comfortable return to milling.
We only got half of it milled - depending how I pull up tomorrow I'm going back for more

David (saltas) · Dec 21, 2011

Looks great

RedArrow · Dec 21, 2011

The wood looks great, as does your setup. How do you go about securing the rails for all your cuts? Just screwed into the edges of the log? What is yours made of? I would like to make myself a longer one, mine is only 8'

mtngun · Dec 21, 2011

Glad you are getting your milling fix, BobL. I hope you got to do a little chain sharpening, as well ?

Thanks for the pics.

BobL · Dec 21, 2011

Thanks Guys.

mtngun said:
Glad you are getting your milling fix, BobL. I hope you got to do a little chain sharpening, as well ?

Yep plenty of sharpening in a log like this one.

RedArrow said:
The wood looks great, as does your setup. How do you go about securing the rails for all your cuts? Just screwed into the edges of the log?

Here's a close up of the rail connections to the log.

The cross pieces are 1/8" x 1.5" steel angle with threaded holes into which are screwed pointy ended bolts which are screwed into the log ends just enough to hold the rails steady

What is yours made of? I would like to make myself a longer one, mine is only 8'

The rails are 20 ft length of HD unistrut cut in half and can be adjusted to suit the length of the log or used as a single set.

RedArrow · Dec 21, 2011

I see... do you use your rails for every cut? I haven't, but I'd like to start. I just didn't have a good setup for it like yours.

BobL · Dec 22, 2011

RedArrow said:
I see... do you use your rails for every cut?

Probably 90% of cuts I use the rails.

Today I tried out leaving the rails on and cutting consecutive slabs underneath each other like the bandsaw millers do. Because there is a chance for relatively large amount of random sawdust build up in the kerf made by by a CS which could prevent the slabs from settling evenly on top of each other I used some temporary 1/8" stickers between the slabs. It seemed to work well as it saves the time in removing an replacing the rails. The BIL mill can make a 18" thick cut so I could theoretically cut quite a few slabs before needing to move the rails. Of course one does not get a chance to easily correct for faults that creep into the milled timber

Here are some pics of some lumber I cut up today from that same tree. I had to work on my own today as Steve had to go out, another reason why I left the milled slabs in-situ after milling

The 4 x 4's weight ~100 lbs and the 4 x 12" beam is ~300 lbs, Steve wants to resaw that beam with his Bandsaw as it should produce close to QS boards.
I'm going back tomorrow to finish up the last 3 slabs.

peterrum · Dec 23, 2011

Georgeous stuff and nice set up as per usual. i see in the last pic that you have the stump sitting there with your cant hook in it. Is there any value in milling that?

BobL · Dec 23, 2011

peterrum said:
Georgeous stuff and nice set up as per usual. i see in the last pic that you have the stump sitting there with your cant hook in it. Is there any value in milling that?

Yep, there's another 8 ft log and 2, 18" x 6ft branches that will be worth milling as well. But I will leave that for Steve and his buddies to tackle. Steve just needed a hand tackling the big trunk and making sure he got some straight lumber out of it.

Daninvan · Dec 23, 2011

Bob, great that you are back at it! Thanks for the pictures, I am looking forward to seeing you mill up more of these interesting Aussie woods. Make sure you don't over do it though especially at the start, don't want to read about any setbacks due to overexertion trying to move crazy heavy slabs, etc!

Cheers,

Dan (AKA mom)

820wards · Dec 24, 2011

Bob,

Good to see you out and milling again. The wood is really nice! Would you use that hard of wood for tool handles and maybe tables?

jerry-

BobL · Dec 24, 2011

Cheers Guys. Don't worry I was taking it real easy, I ended up milling it over 3 mornings and there were 3 or 4 bodies around most of the time. I normally prefer milling alone but have come to realize that having help for even simple things has the benefit of not leaving you wrecked the following day.

I think Steve wants to use the wood for flooring a small sitting room. I'm not sure what I will do with my share, I'll wait till it tells me what it wants to be. :smile2:

gemniii · Dec 24, 2011

Glad to read you are back to making little pieces out of big pieces!

zacker · Feb 9, 2012

That is one really sweet set up..and the wood is beautiful... What is it? I bet that stump had some nice grains down by the roots. Good for turning. Would i be able to do this with a 5o HP MS290? I have some wood to cut up and can take it to a mill but this would save me from trying to man handle it into the bed of my truck! lol

BobL · Feb 10, 2012

zacker said:
That is one really sweet set up..and the wood is beautiful... What is it?

Thanks Zac. See the first post in this thread for wood details.

I bet that stump had some nice grains down by the roots. Good for turning.

It sure has, Steve has cut up the stump by himself , sorry I don't have any pics of it.

Would i be able to do this with a 5o HP MS290?

It depends what you mean by "this".
If you mean cut up that type of log with an MS290 then definitely no. That log would kill a 290 in about 5 minutes.

if you mean can you use a 290 in a chainsaw mill then you can but unless you are prepared to risk losing your saw and are prepared to work slowly then you would be restricted to small short logs. Say something like logs that are no more than 16" in diameter and say 8 ft long

zacker · Feb 11, 2012

Thanks! Yeah, i dont wanna lose the saw thats for sure....i just got it...lol :msp_biggrin:

gemniii · Feb 11, 2012

zacker said:
<snip> Would i be able to do this with a 5o HP MS290?<snip>l

If you've tuned a MS290 up to 5HP you might. But Stihl specs the MS290 at 3.8HP, and 56.5CC. MS 290 STIHL

Stihl doesn't start claiming 5hp until you get to the 440 (70cc).

I started with CSM on red maple, a 4.3 hp JD CS 62 and anything above 16" was a fight.

But be careful, once you get started it's addicting. I'v gone from that 4.3hp up to 10hp, on a Woodmizer.

Old Blue · Feb 11, 2012

Good to see you milling again Bob !

I'm happy for you. Take care and well.... mo pics mo pics mo pics.
Please do show us how the ironbark finishes up in a project, we've got some around here and I can't wait to get into one.

Old Blue
Taxed into paying for the energy hogs solar cells in...
Kali-bone-ya

DaltonPaull · Feb 14, 2012

Bob - nice wood and nice job cutting it.

Dalton

At last - got some milling time in.

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