chainsaw milling some beams

[steve easy]

Made a couple of 300 x 150 beams for a farmer who is building a straw bale house, total length 14m, about 10m clear.

 

[Dave Boyt]

Nice work! How much time do you figure you have in each beam?

 

[steve easy]

Nice

Thanks. Maybe 6hrs per beam, not including work to get tree on ground.

 

[john taliaferro]

Looks like a bowel-ling alley . What is the wood ? and see if you can get a picture for us when installed .

 

[JakeG]

Nice work! I imagine it's not easy for a man to find beams of that size. I see the granberg sawmill in the first pic, but have a few questions as well; Which power head did you use? What did you use for milling/guide rails? What is the big black thing mounted on the power head side of the mill's upright (opposite of the auxiliary oiler)?

 

[steve easy]

Wood is Macrocarpa cypress. Clear timber looks real close to our native Kauri often hear the old timers calling it poor mans kauri.
I asked for photo when house is finished, should be interesting hes cladding the outside of house with hemp (he called it hempcrete).
Used an 090 to mill with. Used will malloffs sliding top board set up, the black thing is just a round of wood sticking up behind mill.

 

[firebrick43]

OOoo, one of "THOSE" farmers

 

[steve easy]

Yup one of those farmers, he had to jump through alot of hoops to keep the law happy but good on him for thinking outside the norm. He was talking post and beam frame with straw bale walls. About 10 acres in total.

 

[KiwiBro]

Ridge beams?
Mac rafters too?
What's the roof going to be?

We are so far behind the times when it comes to hemp. Glad to see someone in NZ taking it seriously.

Would love to see some pictures as it goes up. Does the farmer have a blog or online presence we can follow please?

 

[steve easy]

I dont think he knows exactly what hes going to do, his plan was to kick back for a while and see what happens. Milled abit of lawson and gum for him aswell. Lucky i turned up one day they almost cut beam in half to get it on truck, talked them into cutting the ugly 4m off the end to make a 10m solid beam. I have asked for photos when hes done, not sure if hes online.

 

[KiwiBro]

I dont think he knows exactly what hes going to do, his plan was to kick back for a while and see what happens. Milled abit of lawson and gum for him aswell. Lucky i turned up one day they almost cut beam in half to get it on truck, talked them into cutting the ugly 4m off the end to make a 10m solid beam. I have asked for photos when hes done, not sure if hes online.

Ahh, so one of those 'organic' builds then? The type where they build a bonfire, drink questionable and highly alcoholic mead & honey brews, eat a few mushrooms, lay down and ask the universe to tell them what they should build?

I just went searching for Will Mallofs book but it's out of print. However, am downloading an online PDF as I type this. It looks to be packed with helpful tips and tricks.

Thanks.

 

[steve easy]

You forgot the dance around the bonfire bit im sure thats important too. He got me interested in post and beam building, now i want a mafell chain mortiser. Took me a couple of years to find my copy of chainsaw lumbermaking. Learnt alot by reading Bobl's posts on here, maybe he will put a book together some time, i would support him and be a buyer.