White Oak milling project Update 7/1/11

I posted back in March about a tree that had fallen near my house on the side of a little traveled dirt road. http://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/forums/viewthread/53784/ .

I finally got started on it this week. It was a pretty big White Oak. Just over 30" at the stump. I cut all the branches off on Monday and had my wife wife drag them down to the road with the F250. I cut them, quartered them with the Fiskars and hauled it home to be split and stacked. Yesterday, my friend came up with his Husky 3120 and we cut the trunk into three 12'-13' sections and dragged those down to the road. I didn't stop for pictures, because I was in a hurry to clear the road and be ready for my other friend who owns a small tree service to come with his knuckleboom truck to load and haul the logs to my house.

We pushed them off the truck and onto the lawn.

Here's and idea of the size of the biggest one.


My friend should be here in an hour or so and we will get these milled with the 3120 and his Alaskan Mill setup. The plan is to make enough lumber to replace the bed on the old flatbed. Once we have enough for the truck at about 1 1/2" thick, we'll go a little thicker and mill the rest, either for future projects, or maybe to sell.
More later with pictures of the milling.

Flatbed nice work, whats the wood being used for after you mill it?

Zap

I'm going to redo the bed on my truck.

The previous owner covered the original wood decking with steel plate about 40 years ago. After all that time being covered and wet, the wood is just turning to dust. I'll remove the steel plate and use the new lumber. I'm going to leave it rough sawn so I won't feel bad about using the truck. We are not sure what we'll do with the rest. The milling will also make a good amount of waste that will be the finishing touch for my '11-'12 firewood.

Nice logs. It would be nice to have one of those booms on your flatbed.

Nice work flat bed get some pic's of the milling....Should be a great prodject to watch not to metion a cool looking bed...

I cant seem to get any done, but I Got a 880 just setting in my truck box doing nothing! lol

MMAUL has seen it a couple times....Its just so pretty I dont want to get it dirty!

I like those mud flaps and my flat bed needs a set. If you don't mind, where did you get them and about how much did they cost?

Looks like the mother load to me. Nice straight trunk. You're gonna have a ton of it, even after the truck bed and all the waste is accounted for. Damn, I'd be interested in some of those planks if the price was right, but you're 2 1/2 hours away. :-S

I am curious about the milling and how you get it squared off. Hope you post the pictures.

sure you wanna mill all that? looks like you could make yourself one heck of a dugout canoe.

Squaring off or edging can be done a couple ways the easy way is to use a mini mill first to square it. Then the aklakan just set on top the suared edge.

Ok. Here's my report on today's milling adventure.
We started by setting up a 2x12 on top of the log. We shimmed it to make sure it was as flat as possible and nailed it to the the log.


Setting up for the first cut.

The big Husky 3120 at work.

After the first cut.

As we got into the log, we realized that is was a little too wide for the mill. We rolled it 90°, made sure the cut surface was plumb, and set up the 2x12 on top, making sure it was level, assuring that we would make boards with a nice 90° edge that I could send through the table saw later.

Here's the first of 5 wheelbarrow loads of sawdust.

Time to refuel and top off the bar and chain oil. We burned almost 2 gallons of fuel for 7 10' rips.

Making the cut at a right angle to the first.

We didn't get through all of it. Even though the tree fell back in February, it was still very much alive. The heart wood was still so damp that the chain kept on getting loaded up with resin or sap that it just wouldn't cut. We started with a 10° semi chisel ripping chain. It was cutting so poorly after two rips that we tried a standard 30° full chisel skip chain to see if it would get less fouled because the sawdust might clear faster. After a couple passes it was as slow as the first chain. Even after a sharpening. the chain would still get all crapped up. As the chain got more crapped up, the quality of the cut dropped off too. The last cut was getting to be more of a tare than a cut.
After a few hours of this, we decided that the best thing to do was to stop for now and let the logs dry a little. Being Oak, I don't know how long that will take. The problem is that now I have one mostly milled 10' long log and another 13' log on my front yard. I was able to roll the third onto the driveway where I usually keep my to-be-split firewood. I think that I can roll the uncut one to the driveway too with the help of wire rope, snatch blocks and two trucks, but the milled one isn't going to roll very well now that it is squared on two sides. It may be a good place to put potted plants for a while. Its' gonna be hard to resist making the two uncut logs into firewood.
I hope this is a decent introduction to chainsaw milling.
Maybe if my friend had a Stihl this would have gone better. %-P

Flatbed, Nice idea, too bad its so difficult. Its amazing how small that tree looks in the first picture laying down in the woods.

Cool pics flatbed...couldn't believe the amount of sawdust generated....you need to get one of those sawdust burners

Jay doesnt this make you want to get started?

LOL It really does but dont know if you ever had a kidney stone and its only a baby 2mm Holly Crap! (percocets and 880's dont mix well) says so right on the bottle...

If you can jack one end up highier its easier to mill down hill!

Oh and if your ready to run the 880 I will rock and roll Tuesday. (and 460 for the edge) Everything ready to go but my reaction time is very poor at best.

I am fine with Tues. I can be there after work, or I might be sick that day I can tell I am starting to come down with something.