first play with new mill

[muttley9050]

So i received my new 24" alaskan + bar and chain from rob d yesterday. Assembled it and found an hour to play this afternoon. Put it on one of my 051av and milled a 30" length of yew id rescued from the neighbours wood pile. They had a yew cut down and didnt say anything, gutted to see it in 30" butts but better than logs,

Beautiful colouring and with a few minor pockets of rot.

Need to work on my technique i think as a few scuff marks but first time milling alone so very happy.

Sorry about photo quality, damaged my camera lens.

James:thumbup:

[harvey b davison]

Nice colouring, what will you make from them.

[muttley9050]

To be honest there's day fair few of them I could mill, but not sure how they will dry being so short? Probably make a small side table out of this one if good enough when dry.

[TGB]

... gutted to see it in 30" butts but better than logs...

Could have been worse. Someone I know recently had a yew felled in her garden. She'd recently gained her CS30+31 and wanted to practice. I was in a group, which included two turners and three carvers, when she blithely & proudly announced she'd processed it into firewood. It was a bit like a pack of ravenous wolves and the last lamb in the field.

[Rob D]

Mill a few of them up - don't go too mad as there will always be more wood out there to mill

 

 

Try and keep your stored drying timber neat and tidy so it doesn't start over whelming you. Mine did for a while but I have beaten in back under control again now!

 

 

 

 

[dervishcarving]

did you paint the end grain to help reduce splitting? we milled a load of elm last year and forgot to paint it. a lot of it has split badly

[Big J]

did you paint the end grain to help reduce splitting? we milled a load of elm last year and forgot to paint it. a lot of it has split badly

 

Painting the ends isn't necessary. End checking is usually as a result of any of the following factors:

 

* Timber milled at wrong time of year - if you mill oak in the middle of summer it's going to split quite a bit.

 

* Timber stacked in wrong location - if it is getting too much sun, too much air flow. Ideally timber wants to be stacked in an open sided barn, with absolutely no direct sunlight.

 

* Timber is low grade - small diameter, low grade timber will have a lot of inherent tension, which will release when sawn and the drying process starts. Elm is quite resistant to end checking, and will only really do so if there is an inherent fault, or the log is small and low quality.

 

Jonathan