Although I have been milling some small shorts mainly for craft use I haven't done anything big for more than 12 months. Anyway I've started a job to make some stairs and sculptures for a local city council authority at a themed children's playground at a local park. The park has a stream running though it which is a habitat for the endangered Wester Australian Long necked tortoise so the theme is this tortoise.
Here's a picture of the general scene.
My task is to build a set of stairs from a foot path to the top of that stone wall
Here is a close up of the stone wall.
The stone wall is the plinth for a short flying fox.
Where possible the city council has specified the use of local materials so the stairs are going to be made out of solid Lemon Scented Gum.
Here is candidate log 1.
The stairs are going to be made from two large (6ft long, 2 ft wide and 14" thick blocks and these will be stacked on top of each other and then the treads cut out in situ. Precision was not a requirement but I tried to get then reasonably regular in shape.
Here's the reference cut on the first block
The wood is moderately green (and I reckon way too good for these stairs) but even so it is harder than dry hickory.
Additional problems are
- termites had already got their teeth into the cracks so there was clay inside the wood.
- to make things a bit more interesting some biting black ants had also taken up residence and they also got into my pants and shorts - i.e. not pleasant!
Then from the reference cut I had to make the 14" deep cut.
The width of that cut at the other end of the log was 38" which is close to the max width cut of the BIL Mill which is 39.5"
The deepest cut I have ever made before with the BIL mill was 12". When I made this mill I was going to limit the depth to 12" but at the last moment I up that to 20" and then I think it ended up at 18" - well I was glad I had done this because it made things a lot easier.
This block was now ready to put into place
A tread will be cut with a beam bill in the top corner. The front of the bottom step will retain some natural edge.
Block 2 - this was a lot cleaner and a bit smaller so things speeded up a tad
This block had to have there sides cut more or less square to each other
I used the fork lift/loader to steady the block while I was cutting it as it was sitting on a curved edge in sand.
By then I was tired as and decide to call it quits for the day.
More pics tomorrow.
Oh wait - one more, Here's a pic of the guys making the tortoise backs. As you can see the tortoise backs are quite big. The back of the biggest one will be 6 x 9ft. They are using truck tyres covered with crumbled car tyre rubber. My job will be to cut up and sort of carve some legs and the neck/head out of logs.
Here's a picture of the general scene.
My task is to build a set of stairs from a foot path to the top of that stone wall
Here is a close up of the stone wall.
The stone wall is the plinth for a short flying fox.
Where possible the city council has specified the use of local materials so the stairs are going to be made out of solid Lemon Scented Gum.
Here is candidate log 1.
The stairs are going to be made from two large (6ft long, 2 ft wide and 14" thick blocks and these will be stacked on top of each other and then the treads cut out in situ. Precision was not a requirement but I tried to get then reasonably regular in shape.
Here's the reference cut on the first block
The wood is moderately green (and I reckon way too good for these stairs) but even so it is harder than dry hickory.
Additional problems are
- termites had already got their teeth into the cracks so there was clay inside the wood.
- to make things a bit more interesting some biting black ants had also taken up residence and they also got into my pants and shorts - i.e. not pleasant!
Then from the reference cut I had to make the 14" deep cut.
The width of that cut at the other end of the log was 38" which is close to the max width cut of the BIL Mill which is 39.5"
The deepest cut I have ever made before with the BIL mill was 12". When I made this mill I was going to limit the depth to 12" but at the last moment I up that to 20" and then I think it ended up at 18" - well I was glad I had done this because it made things a lot easier.
This block was now ready to put into place
A tread will be cut with a beam bill in the top corner. The front of the bottom step will retain some natural edge.
Block 2 - this was a lot cleaner and a bit smaller so things speeded up a tad
This block had to have there sides cut more or less square to each other
I used the fork lift/loader to steady the block while I was cutting it as it was sitting on a curved edge in sand.
By then I was tired as and decide to call it quits for the day.
More pics tomorrow.
Oh wait - one more, Here's a pic of the guys making the tortoise backs. As you can see the tortoise backs are quite big. The back of the biggest one will be 6 x 9ft. They are using truck tyres covered with crumbled car tyre rubber. My job will be to cut up and sort of carve some legs and the neck/head out of logs.
(different wood...same smoke alarms!)
