Stinny. Great pics! Parbuckling is a method of moving logs I never even knew existed. Very cool. I'll let you know how it works for me when I get my hands on a snatch block (or two) and a winch or ATV. Gasifier. Come one, come all!! Just give me the heads up so I have the chance to go into town, pick up a bunch of racks of ribs and fire up the smoker!
Well, didn't get any logs down off the hill yesterday. Spent the afternoon just futzing around and cleaning up around the place a little bit. I have some big ponderosa pine trees in front of my porch that are a blessing and a curse. The shade is nice in the summer, but the amount of needles and cones they throw off is a minor pain. Raked up a bunch of needles and cones and threw a pitch fork full into the weber kettle every half hour or so. Now I'm ready for some more milling. Just waiting on my neighbor now. He's gonna use his 4wheeler to make the skidding a little easier.
It wasn't easy, but the logs are off the hill. I'm pretty beat, mostly from all the slash piling I did this afternoon. The beer is tasting good, that's for sure. After dropping the tree, decided to measure it out to a 9" top (which will give me some options for some boards out of the top log). Bucked it at 41'. Looking back at the stump. Was hoping it would slide a little further down the hill but she dug in a bit coming off the stump and just sort of settled. Oh well. Here's looking from the butt down towards where I gunned it. Where I've been milling is just on the other side of my truck, so as you can see, it's about as easy a skid as you could hope for. Thar she be. Yanked it off the slope with my truck, then cut 'er in half and used the neighbors 4wheeler to get em to their final resting spot. Worked great and I'm hoping to get two 6x6 beams and a bunch of boards out of the two logs. Looking back up the slope. You can't see it in the pic but trust me, I've got a cold beer in my hand. Still about 5 more trees to get off of there but this will do for today.
That looks slick mastermech. I don't have any pavement so moving the log around might be sort of tough but it looks perfect for your set-up. I'm thinking about just building a gantry crane type thingamajig with a chain hoist. I'd still need to bring the logs to it, but the lifting into position part would be a snap. Spent yesterday feeling like I had a cold coming on, but it seems like the 24 hour variety thankfully. Might try to get some milling done this afternoon while the weather is still nice. Low 70s and not a cloud in the sky.
That will save some back aches there. I've got me a 60" cannon located for the 088. Hopefully there's a tree that isn't hollow that I can use it on.
damm! You want a one piece table-top, that should do the trick. Another day with no milling for me. The neighbor called up and needed a hand moving heavy items so that was my afternoon.
Funny you should say that. I thought the same. When I saw the log was being held with a pc of 6" beam, it brought back a few memories. With it held like that, it's very easy to get the center of lift out ahead of those front two wheels, isn't it? And, any potentially swinging weight can get exciting fast on a set of roller skates. Bet you were glad to get that secured after you moved it.
I already have a 48". I hope this log is solid. If not I'll have plenty of big bars waiting for a good one.
Finally got around to milling yesterday. Nothing real special. Made some boards. Been making boards for siding my tool shed. They're all just under 1" thick. Here's my low-tech set-up. I just snap a line down one edge and buzz it off with the 'ol worm drive. Then I measure to figure out how much width I can get and repeat the process on the other side. Seems to work pretty good. Here's the finished batch. The shorter one was the result of a milling screw-up. As far as screw-ups go, though, that's not even a blip on my radar screen. Hope you are all having a great weekend. Cheers!
That's exactly how I've done it for 20+ years! Either a chalk line for longer pieces,straight 2 x 2 or aluminum straightedge with a sharpie or carpenters pencil for stuff under 4 feet & worm drive Skil 77 saw....Short lighter pieces up to 30 pounds get roughed out on the big bandsaw in the shop,bigger pieces are trimmed outside with skil saw. I cut things just like the big commercial hardwood mills do - everything random width & length to get the maximum yield ,in several thicknesses from 1" to 6" +,depending on what I want in the future.Depending on the species,scraps/trimmings etc are either kindling or used in the Weber kettle & little Brinkmann smoker. I don't worry about being 'off'' my line a little when trimming cause the wood will need cleaned up again once its dried
Great post thistle! I should have asked you early on in my milling process how to get my boards into useable shape. Believe it or not, it took some pondering on my part. It seems sort of simple and obvious now, but a few months ago it was anything but...of course, I'm a little slow on the uptake.
Ok, I promise I'll quit posting redundant pics, but today was my best and most consistent day of milling boards so I've got to show you guys. Milled up the second log from the doug fir I put down earlier this week. Got 6 really nice boards out of it. This first pic is the "before" pic... Pic of the finished product. I'm pretty happy. Finally got through a whole log without any serious errors. I'm pretty close to having enough boards to side my tool shed. At this rate, I might get enough done to actually mill enough material to get a wood shed put up this year...I probably just jinxed myself.
One last thing. The pics make everything look like it slopes from left to right. It must be parallax error or something. The old woodstove that I pulled out of here when I bought the place, if anything, leans slightly from right to left. Weird. I plan to either put it in a shop at some point or a sauna at some point.
I did some yesterday ,doug fir ,i make a 5 1/2 inch kant then stand it up ,then slice the boards off one at a time ,i made them 1 1/8 thick and planed one edge down to 1 inch thick ,took all the chainsaw marks out with the planer ,have 30 boards to plane still
