ucoulddoit

As discussed on other threads, the timbers for a house with a structural frame need to be strength graded. Otherwise you might have difficulty getting it signed off by the local authority and possibly end up with something more or less worthless if others in the future cannot use it as security against a loan/mortgage. With perserverance, ingenuity and help, most hurdles can be overcome, but if the frame for a house is not up to spec, the whole job is at risk. Worth working out how to overcome this hurdle before starting to mill lots of timber to avoid ending up with a pile of firewood. I've more of less finished a timber framed 'shed' constructed from timbers I milled with an Alaskan which is on another thread. It is about 15 feet square and single storey. Now I'm working on the drawings for a single storey oak framed building not much bigger and without any hesitation I'll be buying in the milled green oak strength graded beams. Overall, they are a relatively small part of the project and I'm keen to be making quicker progress. But I get great satisfaction from having milled the timbers for the 'shed' and no bought kit or materials could replace that. But once was enough....... Andrew

This might be of interest to others wanting to mill smallish logs such as fruitwoods. I finished milling the main trunk of this plum tree over the weekend on my bandsaw after deciding to cross cut the two halves into 34 inch lengths at the bend. Each half was fixed to a board to run along the bandsaw fence to get a straight cut then each quarter was rotated 90 degrees and the final planks were sawn parallel to the initial breaking cut made by the Alaskan mill which had been surfaced on the planer to get the faces dead flat. Final yield is a dozen boards averaging 5 to 6 inches wide by 34 inches long with two quarter sawn at 2 inches thick and the rest 1 1/2 inches thick. So quite small sections but that should minimise the risk of drying defects and I'm looking forward to using it in a few years. Andrew

The boards would just need to be stood on end until the faces have dried sufficiently to avoid staining at the stickers. I've done this but can't remember how long I left them standing, but it was weeks rather than months, and the boards were still flat when I stacked them with stickers. John Boddy when they were still trading experimented with plastic stickers on sycamore so maybe there is advice somewhere about that approach? Andrew

I was going to mill this trunk next weekend but was desperate to see what it was like inside, so halved it with my Alaskan mill today. Thankfully the rot at the top end has not gone all the way down and there is a 3 foot length which looks to be largely sound. It is about 15 inches across at the bottom. I'll aim to do the rest of the milling next weekend on my bandsaw which has a 12 inch depth of cut and rather than through and through boards which might cup significantly, I'll probably make them 'one square edge'. I don't feel I can justify the cost of going to the local bandmill for such a small log and carrying on with the Alaskan mill would waste too much due to the wide saw kerf. Andrew

Thanks for the replies Alec and Steve. Sounds like the plank thicknesses I have in mind should minimise the risk of drying defects and my thoughts are that once dry, I can resaw them into narrower and/or thinner pieces if necessary. The first tree I had milled about 30 years ago was a cherry about this size, but I hugely underestimated the amount of drying distortion and made the mistake of milling some very thin 1/4 inch planks to use for panels, and also 1/2 inch planks, then set the stickers too far apart and so it all ended up as firewood! The 1 and 2 inch planks from the same tree also distorted a lot, a combination of cupping and twisting. But they were thick enough to be able to get some usable timber by cutting them lengthwise into narrow planks then planed to take out the twist. So although wasteful, it was a way of obtaining some excellent but small pieces of timber and I've used the same approach since then. Hopefully I'll not waste so much with this plum which incidently is a good colour and very narrow sap wood. Unfortunately there is a bit of rot at the top end which seems to have originated where a branch broke off or was cut off. Hopefully the rot doesn't extend too far down. Planning to mill in a couple of weeks so I'll upload some pictures once finished. Andrew

Steve Looking for a bit of advice. I collected this tree today and am thinking about how to mill it to minimise the risk of splits. How have you found plum compares to say apple which also tends to split? Do you think plum is more prone to splitting compared to apple or about the same? I've milled a fair bit of apple and from that experience I'm thinking of thinnish planks, about 1 1/2 inches thick and a thicker one through the centre, but cut in half to remove the heart. It will be for making small stuff, maybe some band sawn veneers, etc. rather than turning. Andrew

Having just had a look at your website, I'd add 'one off designs' to your package as that is possibly a key part that makes it all work? Sounds like a great way to be able to work. Andrew

Thanks Archie. Sounds like it is 'just down the road' and small enough to remove pretty quickly. Andrew

Archie. I'd be really interested in milling the main trunk if it is sound. How soon would it need to be removed from the site after felling? Would there be time for you to photograph the ends to see the colour and check it isn't rotten. Been looking for a reasonable sized plum tree for a few years....... Andrew

I suspect there is a differerence between timber dried in a steam kiln and timber dried in a dehumidification kiln which works at a much lower temperature? So maybe the smaller scale operators using dehumidifiers might be producing better quality timber? I read years ago but can't remember where, that although the moisture content of timber rises when stored outside after being 'kiln' dired, many species don't behave elastically. So the width of a board dried down to say 8% mc, then left outside until the moisture content rises to say 16%, will still be narrower than the board width when it was originally dried down to 16%. So I suppose you could say that some of the drying shrinkage is 'locked in' which reduces the risk of movement in service which corresponds to a note for some species in timber data tables 'low movement in service'. Andrew

Thats' really impressive! Andrew

Sheppach 2600 CI. Very accurate, but limited to 10 inches wide. I'm by no means an expert on this, but my view is the choice depends on the intended use (pretty obvious!). My priority was to be able to flatten and straighten a piece of milled and dried timber which might be quite distorted, in addition to planing to a uniform thickness. I looked at bench top planers but was concerned that it would be difficult to straighten and flatten longish boards before thicknessing them, as the bed is very short, so a banana shaped and twisted boarded would come out still slightly banana shaped and twisted, but flat across the width and uniform thickness. Probably less of an issue for short timbers or constructional timbers? Andrew

I see what you mean. Could also increase the gap to 20 or 25mm and run the horizontal battens over the inner boards. Another thought. The overlapping boards will make it much darker inside compared to Yorkshire cladding. I've put a fibreglass roof sheet at the opposite end to the open wall and the other roof sheets are white inside which may help a bit. Andrew

Looks a useful sized drying shed. If you can, it's best to keep direct sun off stacks of drying timber to minimise the risk of exposed bits drying too quickly and splitting. I'm also building a drying shed and am leaving the northwest side open but this side is against a low retaining wall, so no good for access. On the southwest side, I'd planned to leave half of it open for access, but seeing how the prevailing wind blows the rain in and on dry days too much direct sun gets in, I'll put on hinged double doors, clad to match the walls. I was going to use Yorkshire cladding, but saw from a farming forum, concerns about the amount of rain that gets through the gaps, soaking the bedding straw. Probably less of a problem for a timber drying shed. I'm going to use overlapped vertical boarding, with a 10mm gap between the inner and outer boards to get plenty of air through but hopefully keep the rain out. Also leaving a gap round the bottom rather than building a low dado wall which was the original intention, again to get as much airflow as possible. Andrew

If there are cross walls inside, an option for a low pitch roof might be to use these to support oak purlins running along the length which could be left exposed. But I can see that trusses might be the style you're after. Andrew

I have one of these Lie Neilson plates but find the step of 2mm between holes too big and small diameter dowels are easily snapped when being driven through with a hammer. If I need really precise dowels, I use my homemade mild steel plate to form the dowel to within a millimetre or so, then finish off with the Lie Neilson plate. Looking back to the start of this thread, I'd assumed it is smallish diameter dowels for furniture rather than a building frame? But if it is a frame, larger dowels can be made with a single hole in a plate as Alec suggested as they are much less likely to snap when driven hard with a hammer through the hole. Or you can hammer them through a steel tube. For a small frame I made, I found several places selling 'dowels' for green oak frames, and most were selling octagonal rather than round dowels. So I made my own 20mm octagonal dowels from dry straight grained oak on the table saw and router table. About 75 in a short afternoon which worked out well. Andrew

G&S Specialist Timber at Penrith make and sell a range of dowel sizes in a variety of timbers including oak Hardwood Timber Merchant and Hand Tool Supplier in Cumbria. I've not bought any from them, but they will be round whereas dowels from elsewhere are usually fluted which might be an issue if the ends are left visible. I use the method suggested by Alec, except I've drilled a line of holes in a steel plate, reducing in diameter by 0.5mm so the dowel is steadily trimmed to the required diameter after starting with the larger holes. Andrew

Most of the logs were raised off the ground which had helped to delay detrioration but where short sections were in contact with the ground, e.g. the flared section at the base of a tree, the timber was starting to decay, especially the sapwood. Another issue is staining of the timber which is more likely if left in the round. But I'm not sure of the limiting timescales. Fingers crossed the cladding is looking OK. Maybe someone else could comment on this? Andrew

Planning to be finished by the Autumn but don't be surprised if it is later than that! Would be good to see some pictures of milling, fabrication and erection of your frame. Andrew

I’ve just completed milling the larch cladding for this project using an Alaskan mill, a mini mill and a band mill, and thought the pictures below might be of interest to others who have freely available timber, but located at inaccessible places. I used a few more of the larch logs which had been felled some years ago in the neighbour’s wood behind the house. They were further into the wood than those used for the frame, about 100 feet up a steep hill and although there is a narrow track a bit further up, it was just not possible to extract the round logs economically. As the cladding will be fairly narrow, 100mm wide vertical boards, I used the Alaskan and mini mills to cut 100mm thick slabs by 3.1m length from each log which could then be manhandled to the track from where I transported them to the sawmill which is less than 2 miles away. I cut off one side of each log using the mini mill so that the two or three slabs from each log could be placed together vertically on the bed of the Woodmiser, i.e. two or three slabs at a time were then milled into thin cladding boards, instead of one at a time. The larch trees, some of which were 100+ years old, yielded some really good timber and much of the cladding is ‘boatskin quality’. The photos below give some idea of how inaccessible the trees were, the first cut revealing almost knot free timber, the stack of almost 2 tons of 100mm thick slabs, milling the slabs into thin planks and the cladding planks stacked for drying. About 75m2 total area which has worked out to be very economical, as it is for my own use. I bought an MS661 after milling the first couple of small logs with my MS391 (which has more than paid for itself milling timber over the past few years), but with a bit of creative accounting, I’ve discounted the cost of that as I felt this was a large enough job to justify buying the bigger saw with a view to milling more in the longer term. It worked well having two saws, the larger one set up in the Alaskan and the smaller MS391 being used for cross cutting the logs and in the mini mill. Andrew

I also use PVA applied either before or after milling. But now cut off the sealed end after seasoning and before further machining with a planer, bandsaw or table saw. This approach follows blunting/nicking a set of planer knives on planks with grit embedded in the PVA. The grit had 'contaminated' the boards after milling, while temporarily laid aside on the ground. I now pressure wash all timber after seasoning including removing the sealed end and it's pretty much standard practice to pressure wash logs before milling if possible, keep the planks clean and temporarily stack freshly milled planks off the ground! Andrew

I only mill on an occasional basis for my own use but over the years have needed various spare parts. Last weekend at the start of a day's milling, a bolt in the frame sheared off after being adjusted just once too often and being 80 miles from the nearest hardware shop was pretty relived I had a bag of spares bought from Rob ...... Andrew

Thanks for the compliment Corco 2000. I'm sure you could build this in some places without planning permission but there are local restrictions around here which was annoying. The slab is 100mm thick with a layer of A142 steel mesh. The location is not accessible from the road so I mixed the concrete in a Belle half bag mixer and cast it in three panels. I used an MS391 which is on the small side for milling but it is for my own use rather than trying to make money so I just took my time. At the start of milling the timber for this project I already had an Alaskan Small Log Mill and bought an Alaskan Mini Mill to make it easier to cut the sides of the beams. About half way through milling all the beams, following advice from Alec (Agg221) I bought a 25" bar and a Granberg rip chain and also some extra bits for the mill so that I could convert it into an Alaskan 24" mill. The max bar length recommennded for the MS391 is 20", but as you lose 5 to 6" off the length once the mill is fitted I decided to try with a longer bar so that I could go up to almost 20" with the Alaskan 24 mill and this worked fine although a bit slow on a full width cut. Just starting to mill some more inaccessible larch logs this weekend into thick slabs which I'll be able to manhandle out of the wood and take to a bandsaw mill for milling into cladding to be fitted this summer.