Today's milling

[AJStrees]

1 hour ago, Squaredy said:

I rarely mill  pine but when I do it is always difficult.  That might be because they are large knotty logs, but we always find the band mill blades wander badly. Give me nice easy oak any day.

Well that’s interesting to note. Really would have thought it would be easy being a softwood. Maybe it’s a bit like a crumbly fruit cake. Can’t ever cut it without it falling apart. Despite a sharp knife. 
 

If you mill pine with a chainsaw. What chain do you use? Or do you only do it in the bandsaw? 👍

 

[Squaredy]

8 hours ago, AJStrees said:

Well that’s interesting to note. Really would have thought it would be easy being a softwood. Maybe it’s a bit like a crumbly fruit cake. Can’t ever cut it without it falling apart. Despite a sharp knife. 
 

If you mill pine with a chainsaw. What chain do you use? Or do you only do it in the bandsaw? 👍

 

Generally only use the bandsaw, except if we have monster logs and then we use chainsaw.  We always use the same chain on the chainsaw mill, I forget what it is off the top of my head - I will check later.

[AJStrees]

15 hours ago, Squaredy said:

Generally only use the bandsaw, except if we have monster logs and then we use chainsaw.  We always use the same chain on the chainsaw mill, I forget what it is off the top of my head - I will check later.

Well interestingly I managed to get through a lot better with my Chinese 92cc jobby. 
 

it’s a lot slower, but gets through the pine a lot smoother and no snapped chains. Lo pro bar and chain. 👍

 

 

[Rough Hewn]

On 30/11/2022 at 20:19, AJStrees said:

To be fair milling this pine has been a bit of a headache. I had started out using the 881 with full skip Oregon ripping chain .404, this was very jumpy in the wood. Brand new chain. Sharpened it, was okay but still very jumpy. Went back to the old lo pro ripping chain today, went well for a while until the chain snapped. Repaired the chain and tried again. Chain snapped again, no metal in the wood. Very odd, never had any trouble like that before in milling. 

 

It does seem like the chains are getting much hotter in the pine with it being quite fibrous. Have milled other pine and softwoods before with absolutely no trouble. 

 

Milled beech, oak, ash and a bunch of other woods and never snapped a chain, apart from on an oak that had an old metal fence piece in the middle of it. 

 

I am wondering if I need to use a less powerful saw, I've got the old 92cc, which may be different than the 881 in the wood. 

 

Any thoughts welcome. 

 

What diameter is the pine?

what size mill?

the internalised branches can be incredibly hard and a bit catchy.

I use a narrow 36” mill, 3/8 standard, and full comp full chisel with 90cc,

flys through softwood.

👍

[AJStrees]

10 minutes ago, Rough Hewn said:

What diameter is the pine?

what size mill?

the internalised branches can be incredibly hard and a bit catchy.

I use a narrow 36” mill, 3/8 standard, and full comp full chisel with 90cc,

flys through softwood.

👍

Interesting. The bigger sections were probably 22-24" 

 

I managed to get through a fair bit in the end with the 92cc saw 48" 3/8 Lo Pro Stihl Ripping full comp. Then went back to the 881 with Oregon full skip ripping .404 and 41" mill and just did less revs, was still a little jumpy in parts but got through most of it.

 

Got another section left to do so maybe I will try the same spec as you have given. That would make sense though as yes the hard internalised branches seem to give the most trouble. 

 

Thanks for the tip mate, much appreciated 👍

[AJStrees]

Got through another 2 sections of the pine. 👍

[topchippyles]

14 minutes ago, AJStrees said:

Got through another 2 sections of the pine. 👍

Are you managing to sell a lot of the stuff you mill now ?

[AJStrees]

1 hour ago, topchippyles said:

Are you managing to sell a lot of the stuff you mill now ?

Yeah mate. 
 

sold a fair bit this last year. Could do more to sell it, but always busy on the estate. Do milling on the side. 
 

get people wanting slabs from all over UK 👍a guy up in Scotland wanted a bit of beech. A guy drove 100 miles to me this past week for two bits of beech. Had a couple of return customers. Prices are pretty good too. 👍

[AJStrees]

What are people selling milled pine for at the moment? Scots pine per board foot or cube?

 

Cheers. 👍

[topchippyles]

9 hours ago, AJStrees said:

What are people selling milled pine for at the moment? Scots pine per board foot or cube?

 

Cheers. 👍

Give gavin ( Squaredy) a shout maybe a private message be best he is fab and always up to date on prices. I know he will see this hope the family and the boys are doing well Gav cheers Les