What did you do today?


new2woodwrk

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Today my wife gave the green light for a chainsaw mill setup.  @Chestnut have you been happy with your 660 for milling? I don’t recall what setup @Bmac has. 

While it would be fun, I’m not doing a double head 880 setup. I’d buy a bandsaw mill before doing that (which is in the future plans).


It won’t be a 100% dedicated mill saw,  I do have a 20” 271 that I use for most other chainsaw tasks. The bigger saw will be used occasionally, and would have been handy last weekend when I cut up a 26-28” white oak for a neighbor (the mill setup would have also been nice for that!)

880 capacity and power would be nice for milling, but 660 would be more convenient for the other uses.

Thoughts?

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5 hours ago, JohnG said:

Today my wife gave the green light for a chainsaw mill setup.  @Chestnut have you been happy with your 660 for milling? I don’t recall what setup @Bmac has. 

While it would be fun, I’m not doing a double head 880 setup. I’d buy a bandsaw mill before doing that (which is in the future plans).


It won’t be a 100% dedicated mill saw,  I do have a 20” 271 that I use for most other chainsaw tasks. The bigger saw will be used occasionally, and would have been handy last weekend when I cut up a 26-28” white oak for a neighbor (the mill setup would have also been nice for that!)

880 capacity and power would be nice for milling, but 660 would be more convenient for the other uses.

Thoughts?

 I haven't used  mine for milling yet but expect it to work well. I have used it for cutting trees down and will tell you it only gets used if absolutely necessary its just to heavy for all day use unless your a lot more buff then I am LOL

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1 hour ago, pkinneb said:

 I haven't used  mine for milling yet but expect it to work well. I have used it for cutting trees down and will tell you it only gets used if absolutely necessary its just to heavy for all day use unless your a lot more buff then I am LOL

You have a 660? Yeah I’d use my 271 for most felling, and I have a smaller saw for limbing and other small stuff. 

I’ve held an 880 with 59” bar and can’t imagine using that for anything other than milling. 

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@JohnG, I have a couple 660s and upgraded last fall to a Stihl 084. 
The 660 will get it done, esp if you are milling smaller logs. I put a 42” bar on the 660 and it handled it, but it was a slow go on the wider 36” logs. Still, it worked. My 084 is definitely a step up. Logs 20-26” wide are easily handled by the 660. 

I got all my big saws used and have been happy going that way. Once I buy them I take them into the shop that works on my saws and have them go over them. 

I also bought a 460 and a 440 used, love those saws but they would be pushing it to mill with. My 440 is a total gem, my favorite saw for felling, bucking and overall firewood sawing.

PM me if you want to know more about my setups or where I went for used saws. I have a lot to say about them. Not only do I use an Alaskan, but I also use a Logosol attachment that I think offers some big advantages. Using the two systems does require 2 saws, but since I got them used it wasn’t a problem. 

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10 hours ago, wtnhighlander said:

Tom, you ever see cockroaches in the tractor barn? They love to nibble away wire insulation, too. Back when 25" console TVs were top of the line, I worked in a TV repair shop that serviced some of the lower-income neighborhoods in town. Roaches were the cause of many a shorted wire.

Quite possible.  The teeth marks look small for any mouse I've seen.  The tractor was sitting outside when that happened though, and we haven't seen any roaches around here, that I can remember.

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53 minutes ago, Coop said:

I didn’t know there was such a thing? I want to know but then again, I don’t! ;)

Almost everything in my shop is on mobile bases but the wheels for this one are behind the sander. By having the cut out I save almost 5" of room in an area were every inch counts.

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On 11/14/2020 at 8:59 AM, JohnG said:

Today my wife gave the green light for a chainsaw mill setup.  @Chestnut have you been happy with your 660 for milling? I don’t recall what setup @Bmac has. 

While it would be fun, I’m not doing a double head 880 setup. I’d buy a bandsaw mill before doing that (which is in the future plans).


It won’t be a 100% dedicated mill saw,  I do have a 20” 271 that I use for most other chainsaw tasks. The bigger saw will be used occasionally, and would have been handy last weekend when I cut up a 26-28” white oak for a neighbor (the mill setup would have also been nice for that!)

880 capacity and power would be nice for milling, but 660 would be more convenient for the other uses.

Thoughts?

Ahh my 660 is securely mounted in my mill and I've removed it once but probably never again. I tried felling with it once and gave up. I'm not a pro and the weight of that saw even with a 25" bar is a lot to handle. It's just too dang big.

I agree with Bmac above the one thing I'll say is unless you have a lot of 25-28" plus trees on your property you won't be really needing the big mill. My 661 will mill a full 20" cut in a few min. I'd easily do the occasional 36" tree with it but once you get into that size you are in a whole different ball game. Moving the tree is 10x harder so unless you have them on your property or know where you can mill them on site you'll not likely to have to worry about them often.

Also keep in mind you don't need to do slabs. I don't use any live edge slabs everything goes to lumber so you could square up a 36" tree and never need to take a cut wider than 20". This video details what I'm trying to explain better.

Just keep in mind that processing a 36" wide 8' slab that is 10/4 is not as easy. It's going to weigh a lot more than you think. Squaring the tree will remove a lot of waste you are going to remove later and also makes everything easier to handle and makes milling easier.

For the first cut i just use a 2x12. Those systems are nice but a board works good enough. I also use the board on every cut. This stops me from having to adjust the cut depth every pass. For smaller trees it speeds things up considerably. I could mill 3-4 18" trees in a couple hours including setup stacking moving sharpening and fueling. The actual milling part is the shortest time component.

Oh yes i was also going to say a 271 is a pretty good sized saw. I'd easily use that to fell any tree a 661 could mill. with a 20" bar a 40" diameter tree is an easy fell. I can't remember the exact math on it but you can usually fell a tree that is like 2.2x your bar length so that'd be like a 44" diameter tree. It takes some technique but that's not at all a common tree. You could also get a longer bar and semi skip chain for the 271. If Bmac hasn't told you yet browse https://www.arboristsite.com/community/.

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20 hours ago, pkinneb said:

So Question???? Paint it, stain it, seal coat it, or move on Paul its a wood shop?

If I was feeling the OCD I would paint it white like the walls around it.  But in reality I would probably spray a quick coat from a can of something in the shop that was almost empty anyway.

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1 hour ago, Chet said:

If I was feeling the OCD I would paint it white like the walls around it.  But in reality I would probably spray a quick coat from a can of something in the shop that was almost empty anyway.

Thanks Chet! I'm thinking white as well I have a gallon left over from the basement I will probably use.

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On 11/14/2020 at 9:44 PM, pkinneb said:

Almost everything in my shop is on mobile bases but the wheels for this one are behind the sander. By having the cut out I save almost 5" of room in an area were every inch counts.

Not the mobile base but the edge sander? What and when do you use it for? 

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@JohnG, some really good points by Nut. Squaring up your logs and getting rid of the live edge has a lot of advantages. It makes the boards easier to move since they are lighter, makes them easier to stack since they have straight edges, easier to process in the shop, and a real big one is it helps a ton with bugs. If I get any bugs in my wood, it's always where I left bark. 

Now squaring with the Alaskan works, but this is where the Logosol attachment shines. Here are some pics how it works. First cut done with board and Alaskan. Then a jig I made is screwed onto the flat surface;

IMG_1603.jpg.70c11108ce38305fa01ed1a165e08c49.jpg

Then rotate the board and the logosol attachment fits onto the jig and make a 90 degree cut;

IMG_1605.jpg.0afe0a68fd73997ae32f2ab9dc863d87.jpg

The logosol can also slice out boards once you have to square edges, a nice add on to the Alaskan, but it's best if you have 2 saws.

Nut is also right in that it's best when using the Alaskan to put the board on the flat surface for each cut. Once you have it set up for the right depth of cut it's pretty much off to the races with no adjustments. 

Finally, I always mill thick, mainly 9/4 to 10/4. A big complaint with the chainsaw mill is the width of the kerf cut, alot of waste. Cutting thick and resawing with my bandsaw in the shop preserves wood. Cutting thick also means less chainsaw cuts and less wear and tear on the saw for the same amount of lumber. Finally, I think cutting thick means when you air dry the boards warp less, but it does take longer to dry them. 

Show us your setup once you pull the trigger.

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Spent some time over the last few days working on a whiskey cabinet with my dad. Seems to be a comedy of errors going on, but we'll get it done at some point. Good to work with him at the very least. Just fixed a light above our stairs.

Outside of a few hopefully quick house things, I think I'll be able to get back down in the shop more over the next couple of weeks. I really want to start on my Shaker end table but have to plan it out so I can go use my dad's jointer. One of these days I'll find a good used one that doesn't cost more then new ones.

You're all making me very jealous with these bandsaw mills. I don't think it would go over well at my townhouse. Unfortunately unless we move pretty far from where we are now there's no way I could run one more then once.

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