Hello from new member

[BobL]

:agree2:I think it is the sap in the pine ,its really gooey and sticks to the chain and bakes on , where the ironbark does not,having said that i don't remove the bark from cypress before cutting up because it just wont release easy,ironbark on the other hand with a few hits with the back of the axe head or drive over it with the rear tyre of my tractor and its all off.
chris

When milling resinous wood I turn the Aux oiler up a notch or two. That's also why I have an aux oiler on my little mill. For extra gooey wood, to reduce resin build up I use a hand pump spray bottle full of diesel and hook the bottle onto the mill and every now and then squirt some diesel onto the chain.

 

[BobL]

820wards
You asked what roo tastes like - I actually can't recall the last time I ate it but my wife who is a food technologist and into meat tells me it tastes like venison- a strong gamey taste.

I've had roo a few times and didn't think it tasted all that gamey. It's supposed to be eaten rare because it has very little fat in it so it toughens up when "well done". What puts me off eating roo rare, is the large number I have seen riddled with tics and parasites on the outside and the inside. However, being a soft footed animal they don't destroy our native environment like hard hoofed animals and I can accept that we should be farming them instead of beef.

I've tried crocodile - it tastes like a cross between chicken and fish.

Yep - very nice it s too. Crumbed or Battered Croc and Chips (fries) is a great takeaway meal.

Anyhow back to milling - I've yet to try out some of the advice I've been getting but today using a brand new 30 degree skip tooth chisel chain I milled a 260mm X 75mm ironbark slab with relative ease but still the fine powder. The log of course is dead dry.

(As usual) there is a trade off between ease of cutting and the top plate filing angle for a cutter. A 30º top plate cutters will dig slightly more sideways into the kerf and create a slightly bigger kerf. While this makes it easier for the cutter to cut through wood fibers , more wood has to be removed so more power is needed. This angle also induces more vibration especially when starting a cut. If you try bringing the top plate angles back to around 10 -15º you should notice smoother cutting and maybe a little faster cutting.
There are a couple of ways of converting to a lower top plate angle over successive sharpenings - it's fairly obvious if you think about it but just in case, Method B is better than Method A because B sharpens the whole cutter.

 

[Ian Rogers]

:agree2:I think it is the sap in the pine ,its really gooey and sticks to the chain and bakes on , where the ironbark does not,having said that i don't remove the bark from cypress before cutting up because it just wont release easy,ironbark on the other hand with a few hits with the back of the axe head or drive over it with the rear tyre of my tractor and its all off.
chris

Chris,

My experience and method exactly although I use the bucket on the front of the tractor to very neatly de-bark iron bark. Old cypress logs do tend to de-bark fairly easily and I'm inclined to do so as the amount of grit in the bark has to be a guaranteed chain killer - I even see sparks occasonally and its not nails or rocks!

Ian

 

[Ian Rogers]

Guys

Some photos attached showing my building projects past and present.

The clap boards are cypress and they are on the walls of an extension to the farm house we live in on weekends and holidays. We had an original separate outside toilet so I made a weather and insect proof walkway. It actually freezes hre in winter and the older I get the more often I have to get up at night.

The bearers photo tries to show how I am replacing every second wooden stump with 75mm RHS steel posts and clapping a iron bark bearer 75mm x 150mm along side the original 100mm x 75mm cypress on about 1600mm centres. This is on another of our farm houses that we are renovating and intending on living in during our retirement which is about November 2011 subject to anothe global financial crisis that messes with my superannuation.

The farm house photos are of the house I just mentioned. After doing the stumping bit underneath I will be building a huge deck about 12m x 3m along the front of the house over the existing lean too garage. I'm also going to build a deck at the other end of the house and have started on this. All of this will be done with chainsaw milled iron bark for posts, bearers and joists and cypress for the flooring.

Ian

 

[Ian Rogers]

When milling resinous wood I turn the Aux oiler up a notch or two. That's also why I have an aux oiler on my little mill. For extra gooey wood, to reduce resin build up I use a hand pump spray bottle full of diesel and hook the bottle onto the mill and every now and then squirt some diesel onto the chain.

Bob,

This whole topic of auxillary oilers interests me now that I see frequent reference to it on this site. But my question is why do I need it or how should I know I need it? Should I be seeing bar damage or premature chain wear? I'm only using a 24 inch mill on cypress and ironbark.

Ian

 

[BobL]

Bob,

This whole topic of auxillary oilers interests me now that I see frequent reference to it on this site. But my question is why do I need it or how should I know I need it? Should I be seeing bar damage or premature chain wear? I'm only using a 24 inch mill on cypress and ironbark.

The cypress is probably not so big a deal but I would use an aux oiler on ironbark even on a 24" mill. It's not just for bars and chains but for reducing engine load. With a temperature gauge on my 880 with 42" bar in ~ 30" diameter hardwood wood I can see all manner of subtleties - for example; the difference in engine temp between running and not running the aux oiler is about 5ºC - it doesn't sound like much but it shows the extra load on the engine involved. If the wood is smaller then the effect would be smaller but it would be more evident on a smaller saw. Even if it ends up increasing engine life by 5% that is ~100 hours more milling.