My 84 year old mother looks after the common garden for the set of apartments she lives in and wanted me to get rid of a small (8 ft long x 8 - 10" diameter) dead paperbark tree.(Melaleuca raphiophylla). Although this tree had been dead for several years I though it would be worth a go at milling it.The wood is quite attractive but drying it and getting anything useful out of it with checking is a bit of lottery. Normally I would put something this small straight on the bandsaw but the ratty paper bark, slightly sticky gum and the fact that it is very dense (even though it's dead it's still water logged) doesn't make it a good candidate for a conventional bandsaw. So I cut it into 2 x ~4ft lengths, got out my baby milling rig, and hitched up the 441 to my small Alaskan - and here we go.
Heres the small log in the mill cradle.
Milling setup. I'm using lo-pro 3/8 chain.
The boards are being milled at between 1 and 1 1/4" thick - if they survive I plan to make some natural edge picture frames.
This little rig really works well at hold small logs like this. It's a bit hard to see how they work but there are two cranks which drive an all-thread rod to a single tooth dog which drives the log into a fixed dog on the other side. The system really bites hard into the log and holds it very firmly.
Heres the small log in the mill cradle.
Milling setup. I'm using lo-pro 3/8 chain.
The boards are being milled at between 1 and 1 1/4" thick - if they survive I plan to make some natural edge picture frames.
This little rig really works well at hold small logs like this. It's a bit hard to see how they work but there are two cranks which drive an all-thread rod to a single tooth dog which drives the log into a fixed dog on the other side. The system really bites hard into the log and holds it very firmly.
Last edited:
at the bottom of your sig.
