Granberg G555B Mini Mill

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Fredericksburg, VA
Does anybody have any experience using this small chainsaw mill? I've started giving some serious thought to picking up a light-duty, hobbiest-type chainsaw mill to start using at my in-laws place in the Pocono Mountains. I know that there are size limitations with this type of mill, but I'm not too worried about that for right now. The reviews I've read seem to indicate that this is a decent little piece of equipment, but I'm looking for more feedback. Also, any thoughts on like-type equipment would be appreciated!
 

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Chainsaws, for the most part, are not designed to cut along the grain. I have tried with dismal results. I have heard that chains can be specially ground to handle this chore. Or, maybe, special chains can be purchased. Without those, I'm sure you will not be happy with the mini-mill concept.
 
Yep, they do make special "rip" chains for chain saws. Not something you are likely to find at the big box stores though.

Chains saws waste a bunch of wood because of the humongous kerf. I think that for most stuff you could handle well with one of those type contraptions, you could do better on a band saw with less waste and a whole lot less hazard.
 
Don't waste your money...

My father had this very idea as well, then looked online and finally purchased plans for a chainsaw mill.

Even with a big saw...
Even with a store bought ripping chain (you can make your own very easily though....
Even with a big bar and small logs....

We ended up cutting one board today, and got the next board the next day. That is a long way of saying the thing was slow. VERY SLOW!

We fabricated the sawmill ourselves saving us a pile of money, but even going right by the plans, the saw just did not pan out. The saw kerf alone was terrible, and this is from a family that has a 1/4 inch rotary sawmill, so we know what sawdust waste is.

lose one out of 4 boards to sawdust on a rotary mill
lose one out of 3 boards on the chainsaw mill
lose one out of 16 boards on a bandsaw mill

In the end we ended up scraping the chainsaw mill. I even think I have a picture of it. My honest to goodness opinion...don't waste your money. save up and buy a smaller bandsaw mill.You will be better off in the long run.

Chainsaw_Mill-215x138.jpg
 
My humble opinion;

Like many tools, a chainsaw mill will have limitations and will require that the user learn how to use it so as to lessen as far as possible those limitations. My experience with chainsaws and saw chains tell me that just about everything posted so far is true.....

but ....

If your goal is to produce a cant (beam / block of wood) that you can haul home to put on a bandsaw to resaw into usable boards, and if the logs you are sawing into cants are big enough that you can't handle them easily as logs, then I think a chainsaw mill is a good way to get from logs to lumber with minimal expense.

I own a band sawmill that will handle a 30" dia. log, and I am currently running into logs that I will need to make smaller so that they'll fit on my mill. My choices are to truck the logs to a circle mill to be cut into cants, or to set up a chainsaw mill and make them smaller myself. I'll be doing the chainsaw mill.

cheers
 
Don't listen to these guys, :D

I built one and cut a TON of wood with my chainsaw mill, it worked well, yeah it was hard work, but once I got my chain reground to a rip chain, and had it sharp, pushing downhill the saw just about pulled itself through the log.

Don't believe it, look at this..........

>> Logging in Tokyo << (about 4 pages worth there, that is just the first page)

bib_log_haul1.jpg

2nd_bunch1.jpg


poor_little_truck.jpg

That is a 4 hour or so day, I would start around 8 AM and have to knock off when the other crew took their lunch break, around noon. A little more than one board a day :D

Here is how I built the mill........

>> Tokyo Log Hog <<

You are not doing this for money, to make a living etc, so I don't see why you should not do it, get a mill and have at it. An older saw is better, IMHO, as you can find a good one cheaper, and if it has the longer stroke motor, it has more torque, and will work better in this situation.

I know others will say I'm wrong etc, but I did not just talk about it, I did this, I have a bunch of VERY good pieces of lumber now, that are just about ready to use (air dried) and I'd do this all again.

Sure the kerf is wider on a chainsaw, compared to a bandmill, but it is all too common in bandmills for the boards to come out a bit wavy, and even just a bit, like a 1/4" on an 8' long board is just as much waste as a chainsaw kerf, so I really think that is a false argument, others will not, that is fine, I'm just offering up my point of view.

Good luck! :wave:
 
Ah, the good old days :D :rofl::rofl:

Just so you know, that video of the Tokyo Log Hog in action was BEFORE I figured out the ripping chain, once I did that, and had it sharpened the correctly, the saw went a LOT faster. I also figured out to make sure the starting end of the log was elevated above the finishing point, that way I was cutting downhill.

Here are the "Notes" I made for anyone else wanting to do this.........

Notes
I just wanted to add a few things here about my process of cutting up these logs.
One of the things that I've heard a lot about is chains. I started with a regular cross cut chain,
this worked just OK, it was a lot of work to cut the hard wood, and left a very rough surface.
Next I re-filed my chain to what is called a ripping chain by some,
this is where the cutters are filed to a 5 degree angle on the cutters, but no cutter are removed.
This was an improvement over the standard cross cut chain, and I think it would work well on softer wood.
I next got directed to the Granberg style of ripping chain (thanks CJ & others),
the Granberg style Ripping chain has a set of teeth that have had every other set (pair) of top plates removed.
(A set meaning a tooth from each side when possible. See the picture below.)
You would take 2 teeth next to each other, one on one side and one on the other,
and grind off the top plates using a bench grinder, Dremel, or belt sander.
You don't shorten the tooth at all but merely remove the top plate that sticks out to the side of the side plate.
What's left on top is nothing wider than the thickness of the side plate.
ripping_chain.GIF

The tooth with the top plate removed now goes through the wood with less resistance than pulling
a top plate along with it and effectively severs the wood fibers.
The next set of teeth to go through with the top plates, clean out all the severed fibers.
This results in less heat buildup, faster chain speed, and smoother cuts with reduced clogging.
This set up was a great improvement, the saw worked so much better using this chain.
I could keep the saw hogging through logs all day long, the saw would run just below the
"four stroking" you get when a saw hits it's rev limit, which is the peak of the saw's power band,
right where you want your saw to be running. I ran the saw on good quality synthetic 2-smoke oil, at 32:1,
and I checked the plug frequently, and I always came back with a nice tan color on the plug.
The saw would smoke a bit on the first run in the morning, but from there, it was not smoky at all,
and there was only a slight build up of splooge on the muffler.

The saw, being an old one (circa 1976) Husky 85 cc was a bit of a handful to start in the morning,
having no decompression valve, but it would only take about 5 pulls to get it going in the morning.
Once it was run, it would always start on the 1st or second pull of the cord.
This was great, when I forgot to fill the saw, and I had to restart the the saw while in the log on a cut.
Some other things about the saw. Like I said, it is an old one, but this saw is good for milling (IMHO)
as it has the old style long stroke motor. It has a bit slower chain speed than more modern saws,
but I think this too is an advantage for milling.
The other thing that is good with this saw is that you can refill the gas and oil while the saw is on the mill,
sideways, but one bad thing is that I have to remove the mill to adjust the chain tension.
As the saw is heavy, it is not a bad choice for milling, the weight is on the log,
you are not carrying it around all day. If I had to lug this into the bush to cut lumber,
I'd be thinking twice about it, as well as my all steel milling attachment,
maybe I'd redo the whole thing in aluminum, but as I doing this off the back of my little van,
this set up is fine. The fact that I bought it used for 28,000 yen ($250 US) also made it a great choice for me.
I started out filing only once or twice a day, I have to admit, filing chain is not exactly my idea of a good time!
Depending on the width of the log I was cutting, I'd sharpen the chain fairly often.
On the super wide boards, 50 cm (20") I found that with the Keyaki,
it was good to sharpen the chain every two or three boards. A lot of this wood was highly figured,
and I cut through a lot of crotches etc, so it was HARD work.
I found that by taking the time to sharpen the chain more often, I got nicer cuts and the saw worked better,
I guess my point is that if you are going to do this, take the time to sharpen you chain.
Something else that really helped was putting an auxiliary oiler on the milling unit,
it takes a bit of tweaking to get it right, but the extra oil on the bar makes a big difference.
If I where to be doing this on an ongoing basis, I'd change a few things,
one is I'd make some stands for holding the logs off the ground...
milling_stand.jpg

(Something like this, they would have to be well built and wide, and stable.)
....

and I'd make a tripod with a chain hoist to lift the logs around, and onto the stands......
tripod.jpg

(I found these pics and a lot of great ideas on Bill's Wood Creations)
Putting the logs on stands would remove a lot of the grunt work, and keep you off the ground.
I was luck on all but the last day of my milling to be blessed with glorious sunshine,
but if you were doing this in the rain, or the snow, well,
standing up compared to kneeling, is obviously a great thing!​

So I just hope to encourage others to have a go, I did all of this work and got a LOT of wood for an investment of maybe $500, and I know I could sell the saw, with the mill attached to it for at least half of that.

Hard work, yeah, you bet, but worth it, at least to me it was :wave:

roof_stacks_sept_06b.jpg

That is about 3/4 of the flat wood I got, not bad for $500 and some sweat :D

OK, a lot of sweat :rolleyes: :rofl:
 
Actually, this is something I have lots of experience with. I mill several thousand bd ft of lumber a year using a combination of two mills. I use an Granberg Mark III chainsaw mill (around $200 w/o saw) to slab off the log and get the log into cants, and then a Ripsaw bandmill (small handheld bandsaw, about $2K total) to slice those cants into lumber. I've developed a system over the years that has worked well, and many folks have emulated it. Many of the points so far in this post are valid, a few I would respectfully disagree with, but then everybodies situation, equipment and milling skills are different (just as with woodworking), and thus results vary a lot. Bottom line, if you want to mill hardwood over 15 inches wide with a chainsaw, you need a BIG one. I use a Husky 395XP. You can get away with only a 60-75cc saw if you stay under 15 inches width and just take it easy. You can (and I have) mill 28 inch wide oak planks using only a 60cc saw, but it's hard on that saw, and if you did that everyday expect to burn up your saw eventually. I've tried many combinations and setups over the years, and kinda have it dialed in at this point. Here are a few pics...

Chainsaw mill with a 75cc saw slabbing off the side of a large oak log.
csm5.jpg



After a few more chainsaw mill cuts to get the log into 9 inch wide cants, the Ripsaw slices into lumber. You can see the stack in the background from the previous cant.

ripbig4.jpg


Here is my van after 6 hours of milling an oak log, about 400 bd ft of custom sawn lumber. I try and saw for either as quartersawn or riftsawn as I can get without too much waste, or as flatsawn as I can get. Bottom line there is sawing for grade or a certain kind of board takes extra time. With crotch wood, it's often worth it to take the extra time, although drying crotch pieces is always a roll of the dice, as they tend to crack and split more than other boards, and even if bark inclusion is not immediately evident, when it dries completely, it can be seen.
oak.jpg


You are not going to get any serious production using a csm (chainsaw mill) but if you use the right combo of saw and mill, you can easily come home with 150-200 bd ft of lumber in a days work just using the csm. Using round ground skip tooth chisle chain like Oregon 75JG (3/8, .063 gauge) you can move down 12 inch wide log about 3 seconds per inch, or about 2 ft per minute in hardwood. Faster in softwood. If you want smoother boards, you can use milling chain, of which there are many kinds. I find that although it does mill a smoother board, it is a bit slower, and a few passes through the planer and it's all history anyway.

With my little handheld Ripsaw bandmill, I usually come home with between 3 and 400bd ft in a days milling depending on how far I have to drive to the tree, and whether I have to fell the tree, limb it and buck into logs first. Here is the lumber from that oak in the first pic... about a day and a half total milling.
375bdft.jpg


Keep in mind though, that Ripsaw was not designed for production sawing. If you want to do that, get yourself a full blown bandmill.
 
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Anyone who wants more information on the way I mill lumber using a chainsaw mill along with the Ripsaw bandmill, jump on www.ripsaw.com and click on the link under the pic labeled...

"Ripsaw owner mills lumber using the Ripsaw portable sawmill. Read the story."

That is me in the pic, and it’s my story. but don't want to get in hot water violating the Coc so I need to state up front that I have NO AFILLIATION WHATSOEVER with the folks who make the Ripsaw. I just like their product so much that a few years ago I sent them a little write-up of how I use their mill, along with a disc full of pics and told them they could use any of it free of charge if they wanted to. They never contacted me but a few months later I did see my blurb and some of my pics on their site. I was thrilled.
 
Dave, that is great, wow, you boards looks fantastic! :thumb:

I've never seen or heard about this "RipSaw" before, I gather it is a chainsaw powered hand held band mill?

COOL :D :thumb:

I found www.ripsaw.com :wave:

EDIT: I guess we were typing at the same time!

Cheers!
 
Dave, I just read the entire write up, very well done, I like your methods :clap:

Thanks stu... I read yours also, you seem to have a knack for doing "a lot with a little", seems like we are in the same ballpark when it comes to milling lumber to feed our shops. I've done enough of it over the years to get pretty accurate numbers as per actual cost of the wood if you mill it yourself using the equipment I do. Depreciating the cost of the saws and mills over 10 years, and using todays gas and transportation costs, my wood costs me about 50 cents a bd ft if I don't charge myself for my time. If I charge myself $25/hr then the cost goes up to about a buck and a half per bd ft. That's the total cost and time soup to nuts though... from standing tree or log laying in somebodies yard all the way to air dried dead stacked pile of lumber ready for my woodshop. My biggest problem these days is finding room to not only sticker and dry lumber, but then find storage for it that keeps it bug and rot free. I'm starting to max out my space, but I keep milling lumber... I'm addicted and can't turn down a free cherry log even if I have to stack it in my living room. Naaaah... wife would draw the line there for sure :(
 
Ditto on what Dave says. I have used a grandberg style homebuilt (actually toolroom built) mill that a friend has. I milled a 38" white oak log 9' long into slabs. It took one day messing around to get it done. (around 8-13 min. per pass) I also milled 18' cedar poles into 6x6 and 8x8 beams last summer for a lean-to going on my barn this year and also for a friend's landscape project. It's just work and if the woods free it's all money in the bank.....err wood in the shop.
 
You will find milling your own wood VERY addicting. Once you open up a log and take home a stack of rough boards, you're hooked, and from then on, you can't pass a log laying in a yard without thinking of lumber from it to feed your shop. Yes there is a little learning curve like most things we do in the woodshop, and it can be a little pricey in the beginning if you don't already have at least a 60cc saw, but there are good used saws out there like Stu found with that Husky. All my chainsaws and mills have paid for themselves several times over though milling wood. Bottom line is, with a few exceptions, I rarely buy wood for my shop. You will find also, that as word spreads among friends and neighbors that you turn logs that would either end up in a landfill or burned and turn them into wood that will be used in a shop, after a while you will be turning down logs. I used to take almost anything bigger than 8" dia of any species... but I've gotten to the point where unless it's a good quality cherry or walnut log or something kinda rare here in PA, I won't take the time to mill anything less than 14 inches dia. and at least 5 ft long.
 
Nothing succeeds like success eh Dave! :D

I have to agree, it is a really cool thing to mill your own, from the log to the finished project, is very cool! :thumb:
 
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