Granberg G555B Mini Mill

Less than 5'???

Now Dave, I would hazard to guess that you wouldn't have turned down what I picked up this week. A friend of mine needed help sawing up 20 yards of butts delivered from a local sawmill. He uses the wood to heat his furniture/moulding/rosette factory. I just charged him a wood tax of 3 butt pieces. The curly maple butt was a double trunk tree that was split in 2 pieces. (can you see flame and curl?) We had to load them in my truck with a fork lift truck because there was no way we could lift them by hand. I also found another curly maple butt and a cherry crotch which I cut a 20" square bowl blank from. NOT A ONE over 2 ft. long. Of course I didn't use the chainsaw mill to cut them up, I used the chain saw and band saw.

I almost stole another butt from him even after he split it with a maul. Really nice curly cherry. There was plenty of walnut in the load. I plan on ordering a load myself sometime this summer. I just haven't figured out where to store all the bowl blanks. I built a 4' x 18' loft for bowl blanks in my shop over the lathe and it's already maxed out. The other loft in the main barn is close to carrying capacity with walnut, oak, hemlock, elm, cherry and maple lumber.(4'x30') I've got walnut & white oak lumber stacked outside. I guess I better get busy and attempt to depleat the supply side of things. All this from the benefits of useing a mill.

Down the road I want to get a Peterson swing mill. Have been also thinking about building a bandsaw mill. I'm retiring from my regular job this spring and looking into another career wasteing time in the wood shop.

Paul, let me know if you need help storing those new bowl blanks. Can't guarantee they'll come back in the same condition (or come back at all, for that matter), but I hate to see you risk overloading your loft.

Just trying to help.

Paul Downes said:

Now Dave, I would hazard to guess that you wouldn't have turned down what I picked up this week... The curly maple butt was a double trunk tree that was split in 2 pieces. (can you see flame and curl?)...

Click to expand...

Paul you need venture no hazard at all, you guessed correctly. Sounds like you scored big with those bowl blanks (yes all under 2 ft). You've discovered in my post my bias towards flatwork. While I HAVE squirreled away chunks of cherry, basswood, walnut and such that I hope to use one day when and if I get better on my lathe, when I mill wood I'm usually not thinking stuff for turning, because I'm not a real turner (yet). My 4-5ft self imposed minimum (speaking VERY generally of course was for logs I'm turning (no pun intended) into boards like this stack of maple and osage orange against the back of my garage.

When you air dry wood, there is often an inch or so of checking on each end so a 3 ft long board turns into a 32 inch long board after it's done drying right from the start. More important though, I find putzing around with lots of small logs/boards less efficient throughout the whole process from milling to stickering to dead stacking ready for the woodshop. Takes (almost) just as much time to handle a 3ft log/board as it does a 5-6ft log/board, so at the end of the day that means it takes twice as much time for a given amount of lumber if you're fooling around with small logs. That nasty law of diminishing returns fits in there some where.

But again, you're right Paul, when milling up a tree if I do happen to come across a piece of crotch figured or unusual grain that I think might be a good candidate for turning at a later date, even though it's doesn't meet my minimum for boards, I will indeed set it aside, coat it with wax or latex paint, and add it to my collection of billets.

Dave, One thing I try to get in the habit of doing is endcoating the ends of logs BEFORE I saw them into whatever. I use anchorseal and have seen very litle loss from endchecking. By the way, thats a nice stack of lumber you have there.

It drives me nuts sometimes getting free wood from my brother-in-law. He owns a logging co. and will save butts from birdseye and curl maple for me. I have to get him a sprayer and a few gallons of anchor seal. By the time I get the butts from him they are usually checked pretty good.

Paul Downes said:

Dave, One thing I try to get in the habit of doing is endcoating the ends of logs BEFORE I saw them into whatever. I use anchorseal and have seen very litle loss from endchecking. By the way, thats a nice stack of lumber you have there...

Click to expand...

Yes on occasion I have end coated my logs (usually with latex house paint) right after I dropped them if I'm the one felling the tree. However most of my logs come from tree company take downs and by the time I get to them they've been laying for at least a few days if not weeks. At any rate... some will disagree with my mindset on this one, but this is yet another one of those deals where I question the time taken to paint log ends verses how much gain you will see. In the case of a bowl blank or chunk less than a few ft long, yes definately you need to seal. But with most logs I mill, especially big ones, losing an inch on either end of a big board is no big deal when you're bringing home 3-400 bd ft a pop. The hassle of getting paint to log BEFORE you actually run out to the place and mill them is just that, a hassle if you have to drive a ways or make a special trip before you mill. So it's not the actual time it takes to paint a log end, it's the logistics of it in my case. I'm almost ashamed to admit it, but it's analogous to the grizzley bear swiping a salmon from the river, taking one bite out of the best part of the fish and then dropping it to go swipe another and do the same. When there is plenty, you don't mind a little waste if you have to go through some hassle to avoid it in the first place. Sure when we are talking something REALLY special, maybe a premium cherry sawlog with only a little sapwood... then I take the time to coat ends, take even more extra time planning out how to mill for the best grade etc.

Keith...

There are some interesting ways shown on this thread for milling your own lumber, and a lot of good advice. I have a bandmill. I've had it for awhile, and I think of it as one of my woodworking machines...don't use it for income, and it spends a lot of its time down in the barn waiting for me to need it. And when I do need it, it's what I need...not the 17" bandsaw in my shop. It has provided access to wood that I'd never be able to get any other way. So my recommendation is to start milling. There's a lot to learn about milling and mills...it's much more than just running a blade through a log (or a log through a blade). But most of it doesn't actually become clear until you've been doing it for awhile no matter how much you read or seek advice (which is certainly good to do of course). So get started. If the investment in a chainsaw mill is what you're willing to risk to get in, go that way. You won't be sorry. My guess is you'll probably eventually upgrade, or at least modify the methods that you begin with. But a stash like Stu's, and some of the other ones shown here...you stand back and look at that all nice and stickered and it's all worth it.

Good luck with it.
Cheers