Vertical Bandsaw Lumber Mill

[ShawnE Curry]

About a year ago, I saw some youtube videos of a guy making lumber on his band saw. It's been a dream of mine ever since. I built my own system, and I've been thrilled with the results.

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I break the logs down with an Alaskan chainsaw mill. That part is really fun too. The only part that isn't fun, is wrestling the 8.5' cants down into my basement workshop.

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[ShawnE Curry]

And here are some results. 5/4 black walnut, from a 4' diameter monster I'm working on over at my sister's house:
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Here is some 5/4 soft maple. I want to do my kitchen floors with it, but I'm saving these pieces for a special project.

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Here's some 8/4 red pine. This is from a (standing dead) tree that my grandfather planted when he was a young man working for my great-grandparent's orchard. There is a couple acre grove of them on the far end of my property. The trees are way too close together now for their size, and many of them are dying. But they ended up with some really tight "old-growth" looking rings.

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[Myk Rian]

Your attachments don't work.

[ShawnE Curry]

Strange - if I click on Edit, then save my changes, I see the pictures again. Refresh the page and they're gone. Is there a mod who can assist, or should I delete this thread and try to start over?

[Peter Kelly]

Try uploading them to Imgur. You'll see the BB Code image links on the right side of the page once everything is ready.

imgur.com

[Allan Speers]

Or to Dropbox.


Sounds like fun. Now that I finally have a larger band saw, I'd like to try this myself. However, the thought of wrestling even a smallish length of green wood seems quite difficult. I just recently passed on a free 30' bole of old growth hard Maple, that was lying less than 100' from my yard ! I looked at that beast and decided it just wasn't worth it. (Not to mention the stickering, and storage issues ....

But maybe a short run from smaller pieces would be worth doing.

[ShawnE Curry]

Here's a link to the album I just created on Imgur: http://imgur.com/a/jl5wF#azr57Qs

And here's a video:

[Matthew Hills]

Are you using a sled to keep the log from rolling, or just holding up against the fence?

I've done some minor miling with a maple trunk that we'd cut down. I used some wedges to split it first so that I could have something non-round to start with and to make the weights more manageable. I had anchor sealed the ends and let it sit for ~1year before cutting and then removed the bark before cutting. I cut the planks thick in anticipation of some warping, but it hasn't been too bad. This was one of the first things I did with my new MM16. Took a few days back in the office to wipe the smile off my face. But milling any large boards on a vertical bandsaw definitely goes into the "some work required" category.

Matt

[Jim Andrew]

ANY kind of milling turns into that hard work category. Using my bandsaw mill is the most fun, hardest work I do.

[ShawnE Curry]

In the video, I had already squared 2 sides of that log using my sled jig. That one was small enough for me to deal with the whole thing on the band saw. I was actually sawing that one into stickers for the rest of my walnut. For bigger logs, I break them down using my chainsaw mill first. Hopefully these pics will actually appear this time.

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[Matt Day]

Pretty cool stuff! I'd like to see some more pictures for sure. Sure would be fun to do this someday. I can understand the smile for days comment!

Did you try uploading to SMC? The pics will stay here in the future then if you ever cancel your photo hosting account.