Through The Looking Glass

[mikeb1079]

overall pics

+ 1 for pics on the overall design. cool idea, btw.

 

[mtngun]

If you round file a full chisel chain is it more durable?

The last time I commented on that subject the square chisel loving crowd (not a very large crowd) jumped all over me.

Suffice it to say, your Baileys ripping chain is highly appropriate for a chainsaw mill.

Thanks for sharing your project. You have some original ideas.

 

[Coalsmoke]

Fired up the 4 stroke CSM today. Wow is right!

Pulled a 5 foot bar full comp with power to spare .

Filled the parking lot with sawdust, too. Blew through some Cherry and then onto a 4 ft Doug Fir. Finish is better than a band mill! PIcs are on the way. Cheers

Nice machine. I think this is a great way to go for chainsaw milling. I have seen one like yours and the gearing was improved through a belt and pulley arrangement. It allowed him to fairly easily change his chain speed until he found the right pulley ratios for his work.

As for the finish being better than a bandmill, as Backwoods said, you're not hanging around the right bandmills or sawyers. My bandmill will consistently produce a finish considerably better than that. I ran a CSM for many years, and even on milling Alder with the CSM, which I found always produced the best finish of all the species native to the PNW, the bandmill will beat it.

 

[mountainlake]

The finish is no big deal, it's going to get planed. The extra lumber you get from a bandmill will about pay for the cost of sawing it. Steve

 

[Backwoods]

I use some pieces that I do not run thru a planner such as out door benches where a natural look is desired. Moreover, when you exceed the width that can be cut on a bandmill a chainsaw mill becomes the next option for me. I would like to see my chainsaw mill cutting as smooth as treecycle has his cutting as that looks to me like a well-tuned setup. I do like the small pile of granular sawdust that results from milling a log with a bandmill over the large bags of curly chainsaw shavings that would come from the same log, but then again I would like to have about a dozen different sawmill configurations so that I can mill anything and everything as efficiently as possible.

 

[mountainlake]

It would be nice to have a CSM with a 6 foot bar to knock the big logs down to size. If you want a real nice finish with a bandsaw put on a new blade and cut as slow as a CSM. Cutting pine the other day with a blade with a bent tooth the band was moving ahead 2-1/2" for every revolution of the blade. Steve

 

[Coalsmoke]

Just need a good mill with a properly sharpened and set blade (and no need to travel slow on a bandmill).

Western Red Cedar is the first picture and Douglas fir is the second; these are the surface finishes I get regularly.

 

[mountainlake]

Yes bandmills give a nice finish with a good blade at high feed rates but the slower you cut the better the finish, with a chainsaw mill the slow feed rate results in a good finish. If for some reason you want a good finish and aren't going to plane just put on a good blade and cut a little slower. Steve

 

[treecycle]

Little, Alder, Cherry,and Pine today

 

[BobL]

Little, Alder, Cherry,and Pine today

Great pics - thanks for posting.

 

[Backwoods]

There are some nice slabs in the bunch, and that is where your mill shines.

This is a stack of 110, 5/8” x 4” boards with a few 6”. This is where the bandmill shines, they all came out of a nice 24” log. The narrow kerf with this many cuts in one log adds to the recovery, rather then the sawdust pile. Like I say I would like to have a whole assortment of sawmills because they each have there strong points.
I have a large Doug fir that is coming up that I am looking for a swing mill in the area that would be interested in milling it up.