My ripping chain will not come until the end of May, :'( and I need my space back, so I'll be stowing the log holder until then, but I wanted to give the whole set up a test run before I do put it away, so.....
..... I threw one of the dry Doug Fir logs on the log holder.
I'm worried that the bolts would not dig into the log, so I strapped the log down first.....
and then tightened the bolts down....
.... they dug in just fine ;D
I made a deflector out of cardboard and duct taped it to the saw, it worked well.
I sliced the top off the log.
This cut took less than six minutes, not fast, but not as slow as I'd feared. The saw body was only warm to the touch, and the cord was not warm at all. The deflector worked well and a box kicked along got a lot of the sawdust, maybe 60%.
I went ahead and did a second cut, this went even better, took maybe 8 minutes and with a modified box I got more of the sawdust, maybe 80% not bad at all.
I think that is a fairly nice slab of wood.
The bottom remaining part I'll cut into two square pieces something near 4x4s on my resaw bandsaw.
The saw seemed to work just fine, like I said, it's no speed demon, but it did not over heat, and I could keep oil on the chain as you can see.....
The tip did not overheat either....
.... I'm about 90% satisfied, and I'm sure that will get towards 100% with the ripping chain. I hope to also make a better box/dust collector of some kind, but all it all it worked great. The log was very securely held in place and the mill worked just fine, I'm calling this a win!
Cheers!