Alaskan style slabbing mill

[Ed.]

Alaskan style slabbing mill.

Hi Guys, got a couple of Silky Oak logs a little while ago which I wanted to slice and dice into lumber to make a table. This timber will form a frame and will hold a 20mm slab of granite
for the top. Didn't have any way of slicing up the logs so made an Alaskan style slabbing mill to hold my chainsaw.

Pic 1. Rectangular sliding top frame out of 40mm x 2.5mm Galvanized SHS This will slide on top of the rails.
Pic 2. Corner joint
Pic 3. Adjustable chain bar arm.
Pic 4. Bottom of the chain bar clamp to give clearance for the cutting teeth on the chain.
Pic 5. Bar clamp. These will be drilled and a M10 bolt screwed to clamp on both sides of the chainsaw bar to hold it place.
Pic 6. 16mm steel rod bent into shape and welded to top of the liding frame, this will help me push the frame with the chainsaw as the other hand is on the chainsaw throttle.
Pic 7. Chainsaw Tip clamped to arm which slides up and down the tube to adjust height and is screwed tight to lock it,
Pic 8. The arm is connected to a movable cross piece which is able to move forward and backward inside the top sliding frame to adjust for the various different
sizes of chain bars, Minimum of 20" and max of 30" chain bar.
Pic 9. Slabbing mill is setup to make the first slice of the top to remove the bark for the first slab. I mounted the mill on a temporary frame of 100mm x 50mm
x 4mm RHS, which sat on logs and leveled, cross beams were attached by clamps to hold them in place. This was a temporary solution as I didn't have any suitable
and light RHS. eventually I will make a proper dedicated frame so that the mill can slide along it, and will be adjustable in height as well, in the mean time this will do.
Pic 10. The log has had the bark removed on the top of the log and now ready to start slabbing.
Pic 11. My first slab of Silky Oak
Pic 12. Close up of the grain, The vertical marks are just from the chainsaw, I made these slabs about 45mm thick so that I can trim and thickness them down when the wood has dried out.

I started on the second log but the pull start on the chainsaw packed it in so will now have to wait for my other chainsaw I bought to arrive from Canada in about 12 days.

Cheers

Ed.

 

[Ed.]

Very nice work, the size of the mill is great. I have used a few smaller alaskan mills but you can do some real work with that one.

Shawn

Edit: With that setup are you able to use the dogs to drive the saw or are you just pulling it through the wood? Any plans to add rollers?

Thanks Shawn, I couldn't put too much pressure pushing on it as it would bog down the chainsaw to a stop. It's only a cheap Chinese 62cc saw so not much grunt. The dogs actually don't touch the wood itself as the first adjustable height tube pushes against the rails so I keep that pressed lightly against the rails. Originally I thought about putting rollers on it but decided against it as the 40mm SHS slides easily over the rails. The only resistance is the chain taking a slow 8mm cut through the wood. My next chainsaw is a Husqvarna 372XPG so that should have a bit more grunt even with a 28" bar.

Eventually I will probably make a mobile band saw mill, but that is going to take a lot more work, time and cash, as it is considerably more complex to make. Although I have already started thinking about the process on how to do it. I will have to find a 13-16HP motor and make it using 20-24" wheels. The wheels will probably be out of Fiberglass encased ply with poly tyres. Or else fab up some out of steel and machine them on my lathe. The bandsaw should make the slabbing job quicker ie; 13-16HP pushing a 1mm blade vs a 5HP pulling a 8mm chain. This mill only took about 5-6 hours and I built it out of scrap metal I had lying around the shed. The steel for the new rails ($70) I will have to get new so all up that will be my total cost by the time I finish it.

Making a band saw won't happen for quite a while as my missus has got a heap of other jobs for me to do around the house.

Cheers

Ed.

 

[melsdad]

Great job on this project Ed! Those welds are beautiful!!

 

[xalky]

Husqvarnas are fantastic chain saws. Lots of power! You're gonna love that saw.)

 

[Ed.]

Thanks Guys, Almost ready to slab up 6 more Eucalyptus logs, they have been lying around on my front lawn for the past 6 weeks and the missus would like them gone. I made an external oiler for the 28" bar which will help with the long bar. Been a bit too busy to do them when I got them, as I have been working on making a table saw, needed one to slice up the first lot of slabs to see how much usable timber I ended up with. They are almost dry so almost time to start building that table. Silky Oak frame and a granite top, so long as I don't make a stuff up it should look good. :bitingnails:

The Husqvarna 372XPG arrived and it does have a lot more power than the 76CC Chinese one I bought while I was waiting for it, which incidentally I sent back at it was a bit of a lemon. Replaced it with a 75CC in a different brand and that one seems OK so far, starts easy, better than the Husky, but It doesn't scream like the Husky which I put it down to it not revving as high. Cutting wise the Husky is stronger so that will be mainly used on the mill now.

I picked up a 6" indexable head jointer with carbide inserts yesterday, so almost have all the gear to start building stuff. :LOL:

Cheers

Ed.

 

[Jim1942]

Looks like your doing a lot of mighty good work. Hope your Husky works out well for you. I've owned several chain saws over the years. None have performed and held up as well as my Husky. I think they are about the best you can buy. With all your ability, it's a shame you couldn't have gotten your self a band mill. Soooo much less waste due to blade thickness. I considered buying one several years ago, but a close neighbor bought one and saved me the need. We've done a lot of work with his.

A word of caution, unless you have a kiln, be sure to give your lumber time to dry down. It's a shame to build a beautiful project and have a board check on you. Been there and done that. Too much work to end up disappointed a couple years later. Always remember, you can't buck Mother Nature.

Jim Dunn

 

[Ed.]

Looks like your doing a lot of mighty good work. Hope your Husky works out well for you. I've owned several chain saws over the years. None have performed and held up as well as my Husky. I think they are about the best you can buy. With all your ability, it's a shame you couldn't have gotten your self a band mill. Soooo much less waste due to blade thickness. I considered buying one several years ago, but a close neighbor bought one and saved me the need. We've done a lot of work with his.

A word of caution, unless you have a kiln, be sure to give your lumber time to dry down. It's a shame to build a beautiful project and have a board check on you. Been there and done that. Too much work to end up disappointed a couple years later. Always remember, you can't buck Mother Nature.

Jim Dunn

Thanks Jim, I also looked at Stihl but for some reason I preferred the Huskies and would have liked to get a 390XP or 395XP but they are much more expensive, not to mention much bigger and heavier. As I won't be doing all that much slabbing per year I couldn't justify the cost of them as a large saw wouldn't get that much use. So in the end, settled for the medium sized Husky 372 as an all rounder, although I have the cheap Chinese made one for my usual cutting which has a 24" bar on it. I did kick myself recently as a fairly good condition Husky 3120 came up locally for $700, but I didn't think that I could have convinced the missus that I needed a third chainsaw, and the fact that would have been 3/4 of the cost of the Band saw. :thinking:

The band saw mill idea is on hold till I find a regular supply of decent trees/logs as that will cost me about $1000-1200 in parts to build and a heap of time to make it, both of which I don't have much of at the moment, so will just have to be happy with the Alaskan for the time being.

I know what you mean about having a piece of furniture check after it is made, very frustrating, the cut Silky Oak has just about dried as it has been sitting in the shed for about 6 weeks now and the temps in my shed have been getting up to 35-40 Degrees Celsius daily even with a breeze going through it. It is a very light timber with fairly large pores and I am surprised at how quickly it is drying, I ripped the slabs recently and it is already about 85% dry, most of it is now about 35mm-50mm thick and 100-115mm wide so they are not very large pieces which is helping them to dry quicker, virtually no twist in them either, they are certainly much lighter now than when I first cut them. Probably will have to wait another month before they will be ready, the Eucalypt logs will be another story, they are very heavy and quite dense timber, I think those ones will take up to a year to dry.

Next couple of weeks I have to get around to slicing, and polishing up a granite slab which is stored under the carport, that will be for the table top. Once that is finished I will then know the final dimensions to cut the timber for the frame. The missus has also put in an order to make her a jewelry box, I made a marbled topped 3 drawer box for my razor collection and she liked it so now she wants a similar box as well.

So many projects to do and so little time to do them in. :thinking:

Cheers

Ed.

 

[Ed.]

Just picked up some more timber, a lemon scented gum tree, a guy not to far from me chopped down a couple of trees on his acreage and had one left, the rest were picked up and cut for firewood, and he wanted this one removed as well, it's about 20m long and I will probably take about half of it, had to slice the logs in half so that I could winch it onto the trailer each half weighs about 200kg so can only take 3 half logs per trip due to the trailers towing capacity, even they it's probably overloaded, all up I will have about 1800Kg of timber. Have two more trips to pick up the rest, it's almost a 100km round trip.

He also has a large Ironbark stump, the core is rotted out and it's a odd shape so don't know if I am going to do anything with it as it's about 1.3m in diameter and my biggest bar is 28", he also has a 1.5m piece of trunk from it left over as well which I have split and will pick up after X'Mas. It had a couple of branches as it curves in about hallway from the bottom so can't get a single large slab.

Starting to have logs lying around everywhere here at home so will have to start slabbing them soon but being close to X'Mas, have to pick my days as I don't want to upset the neighbours with the noise. I will slab them at 110mm and then put them through the table saw to cut them further as it will be quicker and quieter than milling them with the husky.

Cheers

Ed.