Melaleuca raphiophylla : small stuff

[BobL]

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.

 

[BobL]

paperbark part II

The nice thing about this rig is you can mill these small logs right down to the last 3/4" thick board.

What I do is flip the log over so the log is laying down on a flat face and mill the top off the bottom of the log. To get that last 3/4" cut I lift the log up buy placing a packer underneath so the dogs still grab the log but chain just clears the dogs. The fact that the mill has no inboard bar clamp also helps

Oh yeah, and here's a close up of the slabs.

I took a couple of vids of the lop-pro inaction - Youtube link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4j-Zc6gIRYM

Even though it only took a minute to mill 4 ft you can see I was taking it really easy in the video and I was hardly pushing at all.

One thing that surprised me was that it took less than half a tank of mix to cut all those slabs. Given the wood is fairly hard - at least as hard as dry Jarrah (Janka 2000 lb) I think that says as much as about the economy of the 441 as much as it says about the lo-pro chain. I set the raker cutter wood angle to about 4.5º but you can see the saw hardly bogs at all so either I could push harder but first I will try a higher cutting angle. I have a 25 ft roll of that chain to play with so I will do a few experiments with it - I need a more constant supply of small logs. I think I have some coming up.

 

[WV Wildman]

Thanks for the pics, gives me some ideas for the smaller sections I have!

 

[Beefie]

Bob what length bsr were you running on that setup. I have a 044 with a 20" and a 28" bar . I think that right now this might be the quickest way to get my self milling , until we can figure out something for the 090G. Is the mini mill extenable for different length bars , kind of looks like it in the pics. looks like the rails nest inside one another. How to you keep them tight to keep from flexing.
I guess maybe I could just read your post about it tooat the bottom of your sig.

Beefie

 

[BobL]

Bob what length bsr were you running on that setup. I have a 044 with a 20" and a 28" bar .

The 044 should work fine as a small milling saw. I'm using a 25" 050" gauge bar.

I think that right now this might be the quickest way to get my self milling , until we can figure out something for the 090G. Is the mini mill extenable for different length bars , kind of looks like it in the pics. looks like the rails nest inside one another. How to you keep them tight to keep from flexing.
I guess maybe I could just read your post about it tooat the bottom of your sig.

Yep - that would be one way.

The first version of the milling rig had the long rails made out of the sameto 1.5" SHS and work fine. The mill is designed to accommodate bars from 16 to 28" bars but the 3/4" sliding into 1" SHS is an over complex design and awkward to make and adjust and leaves the rails uneven in thickness. A far simpler design is to use T-Track or similar mill rails - them one can go to any length as long as one can find material for.

 

[mtngun]

Thanks for the pic, BobL. Glad the lo-pro is working well for you so far.

Is the melaleuca wood fragrant ?

I used to work for the Melaleuca company. They import melaleuca oil from Oz and make soaps, creams, lotions, etc., with it. Properties are similar to pine oil except it smells much better.

I was told the tree is something of a pest in Oz ?

 

[BobL]

Thanks for the pic, BobL. Glad the lo-pro is working well for you so far.

So far so Good. One thing I forgot to add was that I did not have to adjust the chain tension during all those cuts although I did run the Aux oiler so it probably did not get that hot. The eear on the sprocket does not seem to be too back - about what I would expect given the amount of uses it has had. I have been using the low pro to cut up a bit of firewood and bucking up some fallen trees after we had a big storm here a while back.

Is the melaleuca wood fragrant ?

A little

I used to work for the Melaleuca company. They import melaleuca oil from Oz and make soaps, creams, lotions, etc., with it. Properties are similar to pine oil except it smells much better.

There are a couple of companies here in the west distilling the oil, it's fairly low yield compared to other native plants but there are so many of these trees around I guess it works money wise for them.

I was told the tree is something of a pest in Oz ?

Not really a pest - as large areas of swamps have been drained by many farmers and and natural rainfall levels have dropped there has been large losses of these trees from their habitat. I have heard that they have become a pest in Florida?

 

[BlueRider]

It is malalueca Quinquniveria that is a problem in florida. I have a friend who has milled a small amount of it and used it in a chair and it is attractive enough but not nearly as nice as the pics you posted.

 

[TraditionalTool]

Nice video, and a good reminder to wear hearing protection when your operating a chainsaw!

I'd be curious if others wear hearing protection when operating a chainsaw? I have some foam plugs, but usually wear ear muff style.

Looks like your wearing a face mask with muffs possibly, hard to tell.

 

[mtngun]

I'd be curious if others wear hearing protection when operating a chainsaw? I have some foam plugs, but usually wear ear muff style.

Huh ? What did you say ?

I wear muffs.

 

[TraditionalTool]

Huh ? What did you say ?

Indeed!

 

[BobL]

Nice video, and a good reminder to wear hearing protection when your operating a chainsaw!

I'd be curious if others wear hearing protection when operating a chainsaw? I have some foam plugs, but usually wear ear muff style.

Looks like your wearing a face mask with muffs possibly, hard to tell.

CHeers TT.

Yeah , I watched my dad become effectively deaf from using chainsaws and I'm already legally deaf (too much exposure to loud 70's rock music) so I have to look after what hearing I have left! So its the best muffs I can get [Peltor 10HA or B] and earplugs as well when operating the muffler modded 880. The face mask is not attached to the muffs.