Water cooled chainsaw milling

[ucoulddoit]

Just watched the latest Tally Ho boat building video and it includes a brief section about chainsaw milling purpleheart timber for the rudder. That's a really hard dense timber and they have a hose running, presumably for water cooling? Just wondered if others have seen this before and any thoughts about doing it. Skip to about 2 minutes 30 seconds in the video.

 

Andrew

 

[Woodworks]

Would imagine as well as cooling it would suppress the nasty dust. Not going to nice chips off something that hard 

[ucoulddoit]

19 minutes ago, Woodworks said:

Would imagine as well as cooling it would suppress the nasty dust. Not going to nice chips off something that hard 

 

Good point as they are re-sawing a dried piece of timber.

Andrew

[Macpherson]

14 minutes ago, ucoulddoit said:

Just watched the latest Tally Ho boat building video and it includes a brief section about chainsaw milling purpleheart timber for the rudder. That's a really hard dense timber and they have a hose running, presumably for water cooling? Just wondered if others have seen this before and any thoughts about doing it. Skip to about 2 minutes 30 seconds in the video.

 

Andrew

 

 

Hi, yes I've done this successfully with the intent of keeping the chain at a steady temperature and therefore maintaining the optimum tension throughout the cut specially on bigger logs where a long chain can get quite warm and sloppy.

 

I'd say it works and reduces the gouging that can occur when stopping and starting in the cut which eventually leads to less planing.

The max I can mill is 42" [ and that's rare ] so nowhere near as much as many on here and I've no experience of how slack a real long chain gets when it expands due to temp.

 

I also think that the water acts with the chain oil as extra lube leading to less sharpening, particularly if the wood is hard or dry... anyway it's easy enough to try but you do need waterproofs😄

 

Also I've watched the whole of the rebuild of Tally Ho since someone on here mentioned it years ago.. what an undertaking and what great craftsmanship, cheers.

 

 

[ucoulddoit]

1 hour ago, Macpherson said:

 

Hi, yes I've done this successfully with the intent of keeping the chain at a steady temperature and therefore maintaining the optimum tension throughout the cut specially on bigger logs where a long chain can get quite warm and sloppy.

 

I'd say it works and reduces the gouging that can occur when stopping and starting in the cut which eventually leads to less planing.

The max I can mill is 42" [ and that's rare ] so nowhere near as much as many on here and I've no experience of how slack a real long chain gets when it expands due to temp.

 

I also think that the water acts with the chain oil as extra lube leading to less sharpening, particularly if the wood is hard or dry... anyway it's easy enough to try but you do need waterproofs😄

 

Also I've watched the whole of the rebuild of Tally Ho since someone on here mentioned it years ago.. what an undertaking and what great craftsmanship, cheers.

 

 

Thanks for all that. Surprised I've never heard of it being done, so I guess others might be interested too.

 

I've been watching the Tally Ho project for years as well almost from the start. A real inspiration and great workmanship. Takes me back almost half a century to when I built a boat which led onto some great sailing adventures. Recently started to binge re-watching the videos from the start. Also following the Acorn to Arabella and Restoring Rosalind projects. All a bit different but all have used chainsaw mills at some point as a 'workshop tool' which is how mine gets used nowadays, re-sawing lumps of wood that are too big for the bandsaw.

 

Andrew

[Macpherson]

30 minutes ago, ucoulddoit said:

Thanks for all that. Surprised I've never heard of it being done, so I guess others might be interested too.

 

I don't think it's a common practice but I come from an engineering background and bring with me perhaps a slightly different mindset when it comes to how tools cut... you too I guess as I've seen your work and I've also had a go at taking carpenters tools to the nth degree of sharp 👍

 

I had to force myself not to watch any other of the amazing boat builds just for the amount of time it takes... but I did get drawn in to Mathew Cremona's huge bandsaw build a few years ago, cheers.