Milling Earl's Fir Part Two

[Bob Smalser]

Continued from Milling Earl’s Fir Part One.

Six by six Bearers cut from the rough tops are laid and leveled in preparation for receiving milled stock…green boards are heavy and you only want to handle them once.



With the mill and log as level as we can get them, we align the mill’s tracks with the top of the log for the first cuts on the 2X9’s. Earl asks me to idle the mill so he can see how it works…a swing blade circle mill can cut on either side of the log with either the vertical or the horizontal cut made on each pass…on this mill, maximum vertical cut is 8 ½ inches and maximum horizontal cut is 8 ½ inches, but reversing the powerhead frame and attacking the log on the same plane from the opposite direction will give a total horizontal cut or 17 inches. It is ideal for quartersawing by the “one square edge” method as seen in the pic.




To better demonstrate, I complete that board and move the mill to the head of the tracks for resharpening, as it’s time…the shaving noodles flying from the mill are getting shorter in length. With the blade guard and water tank removed, you can see the blade, hub and transmission in the vertical position as son Jake moves to the operator position to control the swing mechanism.



Jake moves the swing handle a tad and you can see the sawblade begin to drop toward horizontal.



Jake moves the sawblade back to vertical, I attach the chainsaw sharpener with diamond wheel to the jig built into the mill and touch up the carbide tips…the sawguard is replaced, the water tank that cools the sawblade is filled and we are ready to go again in 5 minutes.



Vertical milling continues using the One Square Edge method until near the pith…



At the pith the technique changes to flatsawing to maximize vertical grain…notice I will make this 8 ½” horizontal cut in two passes instead of one…the tradeoff for a thin-kerf 3/16” blade is that it is flexible, and you can warp it easily with too big a horizontal bite…



And the log is completed using a combination of vertical and flatsawing all the way to the bottom bark. This 2d log had no taper…when we mill the first log above the stump, we’ll have to adjust the mill when we reach the pith to get parallel to the bottom bark, taking the waste produced by the taper out of the pith instead of making a cant like we would to with a band mill.



Continued on Milling Earl’s Fir Part 3...as soon as I finish the logs this week.

Copyright Bob Smalser

[Keith Starosta]

Thanks so much, Bob, for that very informative review of the milling process. As one who has never actually seen a log milled in person, I find this process fascinating. I'd love to find someone with one of those units in my area and just watch for a while.

Looking forward to Part 3!!

Keith

[Bob Lasley]

Bob,

Thanks for posting these. I love watching things like this as I learn alot and............like someone said, "Work facinates me, I could sit and watch it for hours".

Thanks again,
Bob