# Man I wish I had a Band Mill



## djg (Dec 24, 2009)

I found free black locust firewood on CL and I have been cutting the last couple of days. Oh my poor little trailer.
This is what's left. Most is 12-14" at the small end, but the one on the right is 20-22". That's my 066 with a 28" bar in the foreground for comparison. No just kidding, that's just my trim saw:laughing:. Anyway, I thought I'd take the time and cut some play lumber out of it. Not the straightest trees, but I can cut 5-6' sections out before milling. I've wrestled a couple of 5' long 12" dia. logs onto my trailer to play with at home. I didn't want to spend too much time messing with it now because all has to be out of there by next Thursday. And all this has to be done in between the rain showers we've been/suppose to have. A large soaker will make the area a mud hole and make it impossible for me to get down the hill at home to dump it off. Not to mention the St. Louis heat! Why do people wait till summer to have trees taken down? I've gotten off track again.
To mill this stuff, all I have is one of those cheap HF "Lumber Maker" attachments and my 038. It handles 12-14" cuts well, and I've done an occasional 20-24" cut. I let the saw cool and sharpen in between each cut. Very slow process. My hat's off to slabmaster for cutting all the lumber with your Alaskan setup.
To make it easy, if that's possible, I'll set the 2x4 were I want it, rip down one side, and then the other. The resulting slab will be approx. 5 to 5-1/2" thick. I then can mill 1x6s on my band saw at home-after wrestling the beasts onto my trailer. This way it should only take 4 passes on each small log that I want to mill. The lager one I'll have to rethink. The remainder of the logs-firewood.
I know this really doesn't qualify as milling to you guys with band mills - I envy you - but I thought someone else with a CSM might enjoy seeing someone else go through all the trouble to save a little lumber.


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## JohnK007 (Nov 14, 2009)

You know what? Milling is milling, so I for one would like to see your CSM operation as you turn that Locust into usable lumber!


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## slabmaster (Mar 30, 2008)

*slabbing lumber*

Glad to see someone else milling with a csm. I have 5 barns full of great lumber that i milled with my csm. I do use bigger saws though, which make it alot easier. I do own a 038 that i use for falling. Most of the time i use a 066 or 395 when milling. It still is hard work but well worth the effort.I have already built many acoustic guitars from the wood i have milled with my csm and it is very rewarding to hear them sing.:yes:


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## djg (Dec 24, 2009)

Well, there's been a change of plans. While cutting some up into firewood, my saw died and refused to start. I did everything I could, spark plug and air filter, to get it started, but a Stihl should fire up at the most on the third pull. Took it into the shop yesterday. He did a quick check to try to get it running again. Good spark (measured amps?) and good compression. He took off the muffler and saw no cylinder scoring. I run the gas a little rich and it was fresh anyway. Since they work on lawmowers too, I had to leave the saw. Be about 3 weeks. I really don't need my saw during the summer; too hot to cut wood, so the time is not a problem. Just hope it's not something major. Tomorrow, I'll pick up a loaner saw from them so I can fishish up on the logs. The landowner wants it out this week.
So what I've been doing is loading small logs onto my trailer. I found a sawmill, thanks to all who replied in my other thread. I'll take a couple of loads there and have him saw the bigger ones up. The loaner saw is only a 028 so I won't be doing any CSMing with it. Just to get the wood out of there, I cut it in lengths short enough to winch onto my trailer and then dump off at home. When I get my saw back, I'll CSM some of the smaller ones up to get the material I need for the trellises and a lot of bowl blanks.
To those of you will real sawmills, I've provided, for laughs, a few pics of how much trouble a silly old fool would go to to try and say logs you probalbly wouldn't have even mess with.


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