It's a 24" mill, and a 28" bar, and an easy 50lbs. Before today, I was wishing I had got the longer rails, but it was a lot of work! It should be able to handle everything I have right now though, if I square off the larger ones. I figure I can get longer rails later if I need them. I'll need to get the HO oiler - I had it maxed out, and it still wasn't enough.
That looks great Shawn, Love the idea of the floor in the kitchen, will make for a great show and tell.
You could make them that thin on the Granberg if you wanted to, but you're taking a 3/8" kerf, so you'd turn a lot of the log into sawdust if you milled it all that way. I plan to resaw most of these slabs into boards on my vertical bandsaw, and that's where I'll take them down to 5/4 or so. I needed to slab the logs down to a more manageable size in order to use that setup though. I've already made a set of 6' long roller tables that match the height of the table on my bandsaw. I'll use a sled jig that rides in the miter slot to establish a straight edge, then I'll ride the remaining cant against the fence to resaw the boards. There will be pics of all that too very soon.
Shawn, Very nice man! A piece of advice since it happened to me. Drying stickers every 2' of the SAME material if possible. I slabbed some maple and stickered it with some oak stickers, I got staining from the oak on the maple. I am sure there are others who know more about that than I but just a heads up to protect your investment. You are going now get the next enjoyment to make it into that finished product. Again, looks great man.
I'm enjoying my Granberg as well! Wish I had a bandsaw to resaw some stock, though! Dead serious, a buddy of mine and I are hashing out a plan to buy a small bandmill. Between the both of us we'd get some use out of it...but the Granberg is great for projects that a regular mill can't do. Also for sawing stuff right at the jobsite. I can see me sawing some crotches and oddball pieces from our tree jobs right on site.....
Chainsaw mills are nice to get things down to moveable sized pieces and then finish them off on a band mill. Two guys can easily pick up a 6" slab and throw it on the trailer...then saw it down to 5 boards later.
I want to see some pictures of your sled and roller tables. I'm in the process of dreaming up something similar. I'm patiently waiting for a good 14" bandsaw to pop up on CL.
I didn't time it but I'd guesstimate around 10 mins. More time was probably spent setting up to make the cuts: setting the jig to the thickness I wanted, refueling because each cut took nearly a full tank to complete (!), and re-sharpening every 2-4 cuts.
Once the lumber is all milled, I'm going to air dry it for a couple years at least. That project will probably take me most of the summer - there's 7 more maple logs to slab, and I haven't even started to resaw the boards yet - and now I have a 4' walnut at my sister's to mill too! I'm in no big hurry to dry it any faster. I still need to figure out if I want to do anything differently with my cabinets, or the floor plan - all I've decided so far is that it's going to have some nice maple hardwood floors!
