Some more Douglas Fir milling.

I need a lot of trim and molding for around the house, so I figured I'd do my best to cut a bunch of 1" Douglas Fir stock so I can work on it over the coming winter. I also decided to try to get enough cut to do my kitchen floor, which needs about 350-400 sq. feet as best as I can figure. I'm going to do it in 6" wide boards, countersunk and screwed down, with buttons to plug the holes and then sanded smooth. I saw this done with D. Fir out at a demo home that a local timber-framing company has, and I love the look. Also the floor isn't 100% flat and straight, so I think screws will hold and prevent squeaks a lot better than nails and/or glue. I also want to try my hand at timberframing next year to build a garden/tool shed beside the new deck at the back of the house, so I need to cut a bunch of 6X6 beams for that.

So I've really started going great guns on the stand of dead douglas fir out behind the house. Two whole trees brought down already, probably about 40-50 good feet with few knots in each. I'm trying to get a mix of pieces out of each log as much as possible.


8' long 13-14" log, poker straight and no big knots.


Top off, pith center chalk line snapped to split log in two.


Splitting the log with my homemade mini-mill.


Pretty much a perfect pith split.



The cant wasn't wide enough to get a 6X6 yet, so I took one 1" board off the top. Pretty much got rid of that split too.

Width is good now. Lowered the mill to 6", and cut the 3rd side of the beam. That 660 with the 20" .325 bar and 9-pin sprocket works really fast for these 4-12" cuts. At 4" I can almost walk it down the cant.


Turned the resulting cant 90 degrees and cut the fourth side.


Nice and square, though the wide-angle lens has distorted it a bit.


Out of one half of that log I got a really nice 8' 6X6 and five 1" pieces between 3-6" wide, so some for trim and some for flooring. The 2" flitches underneath the 1" boards will be squared to 2X12 and 2X10 for a new set of stairs my brother is building. They're really nice too.



Closer view of the 6X6. It's almost clear.

You can see here about 1/3 from the left edge where I hit some crap in the bark and dulled the chain up bad. Before that it was cutting like a dream, one of the smoothest cuts I've ever done with the 3/8 chain.


Closer view of the smooth cut.


Now it does this if I let the saw bog down in the slightest. If I push just a bit too hard, it leaves a crap cut like this. I sharpened it the same as always, rakers are good, etc. I don't get it. Any ideas? Did I bend a tooth out a bit?


Had a hard time keeping the chain from binding and bogging the saw here. ugly cut. It's almost a bit better now that the chain is a bit duller. I can't push the rig much at all though.

I started a thread on making beams so thank you for the pics!! Will those beams stay pretty straight being cut like you did , I thought that you had to totally box the heart. I am hoping the answer is yes because that means you can get quite a few beams out of a larger tree. Thanks for the pics and info great job!

irishcountry said:

I started a thread on making beams so thank you for the pics!! Will those beams stay pretty straight being cut like you did , I thought that you had to totally box the heart. I am hoping the answer is yes because that means you can get quite a few beams out of a larger tree. Thanks for the pics and info great job!

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Glad I could help - I saw your thread and was going to post a reference there to this one, but I was running late to work when I posted earlier. As for these staying straight, I really don't know. The wood is from a tree that's been dead for some time, so it's already dried out quite a bit. Also the grain is very straight so there should be little to no impact from grain deviation or compression wood creating uneven stresses in the piece. If you cut a beam like this from a crooked log, you can almost count on warping. I really haven't spent any time cutting square beams before, and have never looked into the theory behind it. I have heard that cutting a box-heart can reduce the amount of warping, however it's common knowledge that pith wood is by far the most unstable and will cause above-average warp in boards - so there's some conflicting theory here. What I can tell you is that I spent some time touring a local timber-frame builder, and they mill their own beams on-site with a bandmill. I assure you they were getting much more than just one beam from each log, and their buildings were staying square just fine.

The two main problems I have with cutting box-heart are that 1.) It greatly reduces the yield of the log - if not for total board footage, at least the size of additional pieces you can get out of it. And 2.) A pith-center beam will ALWAYS (well, like 98% of the time) develop a large crack along at least one side that pretty much goes all the way from the pith out to the surface of the beam. Aside from being unsightly, this split can (depending on severity) throw the dimensions of the beam out of whack, especially squareness. I guess I'll find out in a while if beams cut as above (flat-grained? or vertical?) will also exhibit this symptom, but from what I learned when I got my lumber grading ticket, such cracks in a box-heart are a result of the springwood and summerwood rings shrinking at different rates, and the moisture being unable to escape from between them very easily. With a flat-grained piece, each ring has been opened up on two surfaces, allowing moisture to escape more easily.

Like I said, time will tell. As a safeguard against warp though, I plan on stacking and stripping the beams, then banding them together with some ratchet tie straps, and then topping the whole stack off with two 8-foot sections of train rail that I have. They're a few hundred pounds each - it's all I can do to get one end off the ground at a time. Hopefully that will help mitigate any tendency to warp. I was wondering though about the best way to stack them. For instance, does anyone know if there would be more tendency to warp flatwise with the grain, or sideways across the grain? Translated to stacking, should I lay them with the grain flat or on edge? My logic is tending towards flat. Oh, and these will most likely end up stacked in the truck shop out back all winter long. It's never heated and is about as airtight as your average sieve, but will keep the snow off them. And you'd be amazed at how much just a good, cold winter can dry out a piece of wood. The frost just pulls it out, especially during the -30C and below stretches considering that we have near-zero humidity here in the dead of winter. If you go walking in the woods on those really cold, dry days you can hear the trees snapping and popping as the frost cracks them. I've cut near-green trees in the late fall and some are good to burn by spring.

Brmorgan said:

... As a safeguard against warp though, I plan on stacking and stripping the beams, then banding them together with some ratchet tie straps, and then topping the whole stack off with two 8-foot sections of train rail that I have. They're a few hundred pounds each - it's all I can do to get one end off the ground at a time. Hopefully that will help mitigate any tendency to warp. I was wondering though about the best way to stack them. For instance, does anyone know if there would be more tendency to warp flatwise with the grain, or sideways across the grain? Translated to stacking, should I lay them with the grain flat or on edge? My logic is tending towards flat.

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If I understand you correctly... I agree with your logic. Stack them flat and put some weight on top as you are planning. Not sure you need to use the ratchet tie straps, but if you do, you will find that you will have to crank them tight as it dries. You will be surprised at how they don't stay tight very long as that wood dries.

As for your chain marks in the boards... my theory on why you get those marks from a csm when you stop and then start, or even when you shift position, is because you are then pushing on that csm slightly different angle, and thus tweaking it to one side or another every so slightly, but enough for that chain to dig in to the log at that point and mark up your board. Do you have a planer or access to one? If you're going to use these for flooring, you are going to need one.



THIS is impressive... getting that much precision from a csm is not easy, good job. Thanks for all your pics and writeup.

looking at the last pic if its going to bow it will most likely go up in the middle of the length like a rainbow. I have split hardwood logs on the mill sawing dunnage and have had the kerf be open over an inch and a half before I reach the end of the cut. My experience is beams sawn like this dont stay straight. Seems like the worst are sycamore, chestnut oak and hickory. The pines i have sawn and split usually dont move as much as the hardwoods. Most mills saw grade lumber off the edges and put the low grade center into beams or ties. I have never sawn doug fir so I dont know how much it moves

woodshop said:

If I understand you correctly... I agree with your logic. Stack them flat and put some weight on top as you are planning. Not sure you need to use the ratchet tie straps, but if you do, you will find that you will have to crank them tight as it dries. You will be surprised at how they don't stay tight very long as that wood dries.

As for your chain marks in the boards... my theory on why you get those marks from a csm when you stop and then start, or even when you shift position, is because you are then pushing on that csm slightly different angle, and thus tweaking it to one side or another every so slightly, but enough for that chain to dig in to the log at that point and mark up your board. Do you have a planer or access to one? If you're going to use these for flooring, you are going to need one.

THIS is impressive... getting that much precision from a csm is not easy, good job. Thanks for all your pics and writeup.

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Yeah, I think we're on the same page as far as the stacking goes. I'm not really sure about the tie straps yet either, it's just that I've seen others steel band stacks while drying to help avoid warp, and I certainly don't have one of those. And you're right about the shrinkage - about 4% as wood dries past the fiber saturation point.

Regarding the saw marks, I have had them occur from the situations you described. However these ones are happening while I'm pushing at a nice even pace, but occasionally the chain bites a bit too hard and the saw bogs down a bit. It doesn't come anywhere close to stopping, sounds like maybe 1/3-1/2 of max RPM. The marks are quite prominent ridges, which sit up the better part of 1/16" higher than the main surface of the board and seem to be worse on the bottom side of the kerf (top of next board). Like I said, it did not do this before I hit the grit embedded in the bark on the first cut and had to resharpen, and I can't see any visible differences between the current sharpening job compared to the last. I do have a planer, it's just a cheap Delta 12" benchtop, but it's done everything I've asked of it so far. I have a good 6" jointer and a router table too, so i think I should be all set. I was questioning whether to tongue-and-groove them using a dado on the table saw versus the router table, but all signs are pointing to the router right now - a matched bit set will be much more accurate than a dado, and I'm not real stoked about the idea of feeding a 4' long 1X6 vertically over a dado blade if I decide to wrap the joints around the ends of the pieces. Also FWIW, the pieces with the saw marks will be used for stair stringers and treads at my brother's house. The 1X pieces were cut with the 660/.325/20"/9T combination which consistently yields an extremely smooth cut for only using standard 25-degree chisel chain. A couple light passes thru the planer is all that is needed.

And is that degree of squareness really all that out of the ordinary? I would say that it would be out of square by just over 1/32" at its worst. That homemade jig I used to split the log is surprisingly accurate and easy to keep square compared to things like the Beam Machine (from my experience anyway). I can use up to a 12" wide guide with it, and its stability and accuracy improves as the guide gets wider, and a sharp chain is especially important because the unsecured tip of the bar tends to wander more as the chain gets duller. I also have an additional setscrew mechanism just below where it mounts to the bar, and I can use the setscrew to slightly bend the bar in or out to rectify any minor irregularities. This system has proved infinitely better than making a first cut with the Alaskan, turning the log 90 degrees, and making a second cut with the Alaskan. Not to mention I don't have to go through the whole process of squaring the end blocks, driving the leveler lag bolts, attaching the guide board... Just one 2X6 and two 2" #12 screws. The only downside is the resultant shower of sawdust during the entire cut, which can be unbearable if the wind is just right. I am going to try turning the log 90 and pushing the jig horizontally, but I might have to build some sort of auxiliary handle or something for this. There's always room for improvement when it comes to milling.

brisawyer said:

looking at the last pic if its going to bow it will most likely go up in the middle of the length like a rainbow. I have split hardwood logs on the mill sawing dunnage and have had the kerf be open over an inch and a half before I reach the end of the cut. My experience is beams sawn like this don't stay straight. Seems like the worst are sycamore, chestnut oak and hickory. The pines i have sawn and split usually dont move as much as the hardwoods. Most mills saw grade lumber off the edges and put the low grade center into beams or ties. I have never sawn doug fir so I dont know how much it moves

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Hardwoods do seem to be a totally different animal in this respect. Maybe it has something to do with them generally not being as round and straight as most softwoods. Douglas Fir would be much more comparable to Pine than to the very hard hardwoods you listed. However, it is much harder than pine in general though, very similar to Hemlock or Larch with which it is often mixed. From my experience grading lumber, it seems to me that with softwoods straightness of grain in the piece is more of a factor than the overall grain profile of a piece. I will wait rather impatiently over the winter to see what happens. I'm not at all worried about the 1" stock though. The kiln box will take care of them nicely.

I don't think you'll have any problem at all Bruce,

The pix look great and it's a nice write up.
The larch 6x6 I used in my front porch could have "cured" a bit longer but was quite dry off the stump (tree was dead for a several years). I needed it and used it so we'll see but because it's spliced into place and bolted and considering where I used it, I don't for see any problems either. I will say that mine was center of the log boxed though.