Hi Guys - Back in May, I bought a norwood PM14 sawmill. Finally found time to get it assembled, and milled my first two logs of Cherry this past Saturday. The cherry was cut about 3 years ago and unfortunately just sat in the woods, so the outside is a little... punky. I ran my 572 with a 24:1 mix on a homemade ripping chain modeled after the granberg style chain. I was very pleased how well the chain cut (while it was sharp) I'm going to get the MS880 clone for the sawmill as I don't want that kind of wear and tear on my good saw, but I just HAD to try it out. I've got a bead on a 10' stick of oak that's probably 20" in diameter for my next log. I just have to get some type of top cover now (of course it rained last night ) It does make a lot of sawdust. Holy smokes. I made three slabs of about 3" thick. I'm thinking about making benches out of them as starters, the rest of the slabs are two inches thick. I got CBN wheels for my jolly good sharpener and they made short work of sharpening my ripping chain. The sharpener was a good investment. The timberline sharpener works great, and I'll keep in in my field kit for in the woods, but at home, there is no going back. Pictures for your viewing pleasure.
Hey good luck with your mill !! yes you will always have a pile of sawdust from any mill it would be nice if the woodstove could burn it JB
That cherry makes some nice slabs. I see the advantage if milling crooked logs vs a conventional mill. How long did it take to make one pass Joe? Im spoiled...after using buzz-saw's mill i dont think id get a chainsaw mill.
With a newly sharpened chain, each pass was probabl3-4 minutes. Huskihl's ported 572 made short work of it, even with a 24:1 mix What a beast!! When the chain got dull (about 3 passes, the wood was dirty), it was CONSIDERABLY slower and the saw obviously was working a ton more. Total time to cut those two logs was probably not much more than a hour or so and about 4 tanks of gas. I spent a lot of time in setup, fussing with the logs. Lots of trial and error, just trying to figure out how to work the mill. A bandsaw mill would be the cat's hiney, but I just can't justify that kind of expenditure at this point. Some day maybe.... What's really funny, is I got into burning wood to save money.... LOL. Now when I go into my local dealer, they just set up a stool in front of the tractors and new chainsaws so I can drool over them....
Sounds like youve saved enough to buy a new toy...of wait the chainsaw mill is it...for now. Besides benches any more plans for the slabs? Looking forward to seeing more pics of your milling adventures!
The real purpose for the mill was for lumber.... We own about 11 acres, 4 of which are red pine which have to be thinned down for our managed forest plan. We'd burn it but there is going to be so much of it, we probably wouldn't get through it before it went bad. With lumber prices what the are (were) figured we'd turn most of it into 2x4 6's 8's and beams and maybe make a timber frame shed of some sort out there to store the equipment in. The cherry came from a friend's property, so I figured I'd make the benches for his fire pit as a thank-you...
AHH The disease claims another victim !! at least you can build some nice benches to sit on while you droolJust keep telling yourself it is free heat !! JB
Some videos from my channel... https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeCMxqPCOmkSPRIS1meiZXg A note, I am not an employee of GF nor am I sponsored by them. I just REALLY love their system. Its not a tractor, but you can do a ton of work with it.
Hi Guys - Got a hold of a couple of nice sticks of red oak (I think it was red) and started stabbing away. Oak cuts WAY slower than cherry I should have taken a before hand shot of the log before I got started. It was more than his tractor could pick up. We ended up dragging it with my truck to the mill and managed to roll it up some ramps to the bunks. A freshly sharpened ripping chain... 32" bar for size comparison. This was after my first cut Ran out of time to keep slabbing. Will have to finish up next weekend. I've got a 10' stick about the that is bigger diameter than this one to tackle next.
Some nice stock to come from that log. Any plans for it Joe? One of the dilemmas of milling is getting a big log to the mill. As for now im limited to what i can lift into the truck and get to buzz-saw s as he has a nice tractor with forks. I had a couple 4 x 12" slabs of black locust from out recent milling. They were checked so couldnt get any more decent stock out of them. Turning one into a bench. Couple BL stump cutoffs for the base. Needs fine tuning yet.
I'm slabbing the oak at 2". I was thinking about making a kitchen table out of them. Not sure how I'm gonna do that yet, since I have very little woodworking experience, but it would be neat to have a thick-slabbed table. what I was amazed at is how wet the wood was in the center. This particular tree was dead standing at least 2 years before it was cut, then it sat on the ground for 3 more before I got a hold of it. My last cut, there were a couple of pin holes in the wood where the moisture was actually seeping out from the center of the log. It was pretty neat.
I believe it. buzz-saw and i milled some old red oak and more or less the same. He made some 4x4 table legs and even those were heavy.
Yes sir it is amazing how wet it can be even after a long time dead on the ground. The Oak BRAD mentioned that we milled last week was also dead and laying on the ground for years like you had and it was wet and very heavy. Fun work though !
Joe, it would make an awesome table. I made our table a couple years ago, wanted to use thick oak but needed the table before I had time to do planning. Father in law had some rough sawn red cedar that had come off the farm, so made a base of stock lumber and the top out of the cedar. It turned out nice, especially for me having the want to do woodworking, but not having any experience and limited tools. The real point of me commenting though is the logistics of a decent sized oak slab table. It is somewhat difficult to move the cedar topped one I made (boards around 1 inch thick). I cannot imagine how heavy and difficult it would be to move a slab oak (1-2 inch) table, unless you assemble it in place. Just something to think about.
