Brand new mill, brand new 'sawyers' updated w/ pics!

[Piston]

I like to leave one 1x board on each dimension so that I have a clean up board on the last cut.

I wish I was closer to help you with getting started.

What books, if any, do you have on Timber Framing? I like the Sobon books myself.

Hey Dave,
That is good idea about leaving the 1x board as a clean up board, I never would have thought of that.  That would be nice if you were closer, It would be nice to meet you, after all your partially responsible for me getting into this!   

Piston, there's some millers in your area. Captain, and bandmiller2 should be somewhere near you. There's always plenty of people around the forum to answer your questions too. Just be careful, we might try and talk you into buying a mill and building your own house. We'll have you up in Georgetown at the Jim Rogers Institute for Timber Framing.
Dave

As for the books, I've read:
Timber Frame Construction, All About Post and Beam Building by Jack Sobon....  read this one 3 times front to back.
Build a Classic Timber Framed House by Jack Sobon.... Read through this one twice front to back.
Building the Timber Frame House: The Revival of a Forgotten Art by Tedd Benson...Read this one 3 times front to back as well.
Timber-Frame Home by Tedd Benson  read this one twice front to back.

Also have gone back to all 4 of those multiple times for reference when I was 'curious' about something.  I have them all marked up in highlighter, notes, and post it notes marking certain sections.
I really like the two Sobon books and also really like the first Benson book I listed, a lot of good diagrams and step by step instructions for cutting joints. 

I still need to read:
A Timber Framer's Workshop: Joinery, Design & Construction of Traditional Timber Frames by Steve K. Chappell

Thanks for reminding me, I should order that tonight. 

I really have done a ton of reading on the forum as well, I honestly think I just need to dive in now and start getting actual experience.  I want to take the Heartwood class but it hasn't fit into my work schedule for 2 yrs now.  I almost signed up for the Yestermorrow class in Jan but I'll miss that one by 2 days...Can't seem to make it work! 

Jim thanks for those drawings and explanations, you put a lot of time into teaching others and I'm sure I speak for everyone when I say thanks. 

[Magicman]

Thelittleguy,  Welcome to FF.......   Glad to have both of you now.

[Jim_Rogers]

We'll have you up in Georgetown at the Jim Rogers Institute for Timber Framing. 

Wow.... how'd I miss that post.....Institute for Timber Framing...... sounds like a good name to put on the sign over my door.....
Right below this one:



Like this:



Wouldn't that be a good laugh.....

[sdunston]

Welcome to the FF guys and congrats on the LT15. I am also new to sawing with my LT28 and am learning that every log is a different task. I have to say that woodmizer offers a 6 dvd set that is very helpful and it covers alot from blades to site layout and some good info on stress in a log and quarter sawing and at 59 bucks it beats watching reruns on tv on a raining day
Sam

[Jim_Rogers]

We had a great afternoon yesterday.
I didn't take any pictures but Piston did.
Hopefully he'll post some.

Thelittleguy ain't that little either.....

But they have a nice setup and made some nice lumber......

Was fun and they're off to a good start.....

[bandmiller2]

Spent the afternoon with Piston ,little guy and Jim Rogers.Jim gave the boys a crash course in timber " figgerin" some of it over the head of this old circle sawyer.I was impressed with the diesel LT-15 seemed to have plenty of power,and just the right amount of diesel rattle,you know its a diesel but not noisy.Boath are good guys,smart,and are taking to milling like ducks to water.I'am sure their are pictures to follow.Frank C.

[fishpharmer]

Welcome to FF littleguy.

Great info on this thread too. 

[ljmathias]

So where are the pictures already?  Sounds like a great time, and just what this forum is all about- experienced guys helping out the ones with less or none...

Lj

[Piston]

Just a quick note, I will have pics updated hopefully tomorrow, just waiting for thelittleguy to email them to me.  I will post a good update of what we went over soon.  I am goin under the knife tomorrow for surgery so if I'm coherent tomorrow night I will update then. 
Special thanks to Frank and Jim, a wealth of information. 
Update with pics to follow, sorry for the delay. 

[ljmathias]

Good luck on the surgery- I've had two major operations in the last three years; hate to say it, but you kinda get used to it as long as you wake up in one piece after; problem is, more and more you don't- pieces replaced or just gone missing.  Surgeons are getting pretty good nowadays- they've been practicing on all of us long enough, I'd guess they should be.  Hope you got good insurance, and we'll enjoy the pictures whenever you get them up.  Take care and our prayers go with you.

Lj

[beenthere]

Wish you well and God's speed with the surgery. Look forward to hearing from you soon, and on the mend.

[Piston]

Okay I'm back....I'll try not to be too long winded in my update and just post a bunch of pics. 

Taking it back a few weeks, to when Thelittleguy first bought the mill, no one was expecting him to buy one and he kept it quiet, just pulled into my driveway with this on the back of his truck.....
 



We didn't waste anytime getting it unloaded and set up, it took about 2 hours from the beginning to the time we were sawing. 
 




Then we were sawing for our very first time....with the mill set up right in my front yard....
 



More to follow.....

[fishpharmer]

Glad you made it thru the surgery. 

Nice setup.   

[Piston]

So fast forwarding a few weeks to this past Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.  We made Monday our set up day, so we could be sure the mill was set up right, level, had logs staged and ready to go, and were ready for our 'class' on Tuesday afternoon.
Here is our setup...
 



and with some of our logs staged on our brand new milled runners (okay what do you call the the logs that you set up for the other logs to roll on??)


Before I forget, you can see in this pic that we milled some timbers to set the mill up on, it wasn't perfectly level ground but it worked out well, the slight hill slopes the logs towards the mill, letting gravity help us out when loading the logs.  We also milled the runners so that they were level with the mill, this way the logs don't crash down onto the mill when we are rolling them on, and in the process kicking the setup out of level.



For all you Husky vs. Stihl folks, they both worked equally well 
 







Here is one of the logs we brought to the mill, this is actually the only one we skidded out of the woods on the ground, only because we couldn't get the tractor into the woods and setup our little 'log trailer', the rest of the logs were carried on a homemade trailer on the top end, and chained the butt end to the forks on the 3pt hitch, this way we could skid the logs without touching the ground, keeping them nice and clean for the mill. 
 






We finished up the day Monday after dark, with the truck lights aiming at the mill finishing up the runners (or whatever they are called)  We knew we had to be ready for Jim and Frank, we didn't want to look like fools to the experienced guys by not even being ready to saw when they got there.

[Tom]

Those rails you put the logs on are commonly called a Log Deck.  A "live Deck" would have a motor that would move the logs forward toward the mill.  Some call them a Ramp, and I've heard other terms as well.

Looks like you have a cool operation and not unlike most, experienced or not. 

That's one good looking little mill.

[Piston]

This brings us to Tuesday.  Jim and Frank (JimRodgers and Bandmiller2 respectively) showed up at just about the same time.  We started out just talking about the mill, some different parts, settings, what to look for in a log, how to stack the logs, and all sorts of setup type information.  We probably spent a good hour or so just learning about setup and basics of milling, before we even started up Thelittleguys new LT-15 diesel.  After some basics on rolling the log onto the mill, eyeing it up to see which face should be face 1, reading the log ends to determine which way to orient any cracks, and leveling the log the proper way-we finally cut into our first log, here it is.....a short ugly log to start with.

From left to right is Frank, Jim, and Bobby (Thelittleguy-mill owner) ....oh ya, and Caymen, the golden retriever.



And here is our first few boards, edged and stacked, with some 3x5's in the background.
 



What was really great about the whole day, is we would make one cut, shut off the mill, and get another lesson from Jim and Frank.  This way it wasn't too much information at one time.  Jim really is an excellent teacher, you can tell from all his posts both in this forum and the timberframing section, but in person, it is even more noticeable.  We really learned an incredible amount that day, the biggest advantage was learning all the small tips of the trade that would have taken YEARS to learn.  We never realized there were so many things involved with getting the most out of a log, and the right way to do it.  Frank is used to his circle mill, and brought a lot of great info from 'another point of view' it really was great to have both of them bounce tips and tricks our way. 
Alright back to business....Since we didn't have any stickers, we made them as we went.  My father showed up to help out and learn as well, this was the first time he has seen a mill in action, and defintely impressed.
 



Here is one of Thelittleguy edging his first board, for the most part, Thelittleguy ran his mill, and the rest of us offloaded, taking turns turning the logs, stacking the lumber, and handling the slabs.
 



I can't leave out a pic of my two children roughhousing around Thelittleguys nice new truck....
 





We had premeasured the logs and wrote out the lengths on the ends.  Most of these logs were cut from the last time Thelittleguy was up, when we literally just cut down some trees to try out the mill, with no idea of what lengths to cut them at, so they were mostly random legths as you can see....
 






The 'professors' pointed out that it was nice to build up a nice bed of sawdust for walking on, however it would quickly become a large pile that we would get sick of.  Jim gave us his trick of the trade which was to hang a 5 gallon bucket on a hook right at the shoot, and simply dump it at the end of the mill when you see that its full.  This way we could mill until the bucket is full, stop at the end of the cut, dump the bucket at the end in a pile, and come pick up the pile with the backhoe after it became large enough to fill the bucket.  Although this leads to a lot of bucket dumping, it is so rediculously easy and simple, that it made us forget about wanting to rig up some sort of sawdust shoot or anything like that.
So of course we had a bucket laying around, but no hook to hang it on, so Jim was nice enough to offer his bucket holding services for the rest of our milling carreer
 

Thanks Jim!




Here is a close up...
 






Some more pics of milling, in these next few pics Jim was showing us how to properly measure the log by starting with your last cut, and working backwards to figure your first cut, while taking into account blade thickness as well as planned shrinkage so the final product came out as planned.
 


 


As we were told many times, always double check your measurements!
 


 


 




As we were milling we noticed that the cant had more of a parrallelogram shape than a perfectly square shape.  We weren't sure whether it was the head itself that was misaligned or if it was just the log dogs.  We took a square to the log dogs and under Jim's supervision, used his idea of laying down two square lengths of aluminum tubing along the track, then used these as the base for our square to rest on.  This proved more accurate than using a board since we know that aluminum or steel is going to be perfectly true.  It turned out the dogs were out of square, after a simple adjustment and some pizza in our stomachs, we were back in action, it made all the difference in the world when the dogs were square with the track.
 




Here we are getting another lesson between cuts, me on the left, Jim, and Thelittleguy on the right




At the end of the day, it was clear that the blade needed to be changed out, I couldn't believe how easy it was to tell that it was dull, as every knot in the timber was noticeably a high spot as the dull blade rode up and over the knot.  As a final lesson for the day, Jim showed us how to coil the blades.  We both watched the video's on this forum (I believe Tom posted them?) but still couldn't do it.  After Jim showed us it became pretty simple really, well......at least for my father and I, Thelittleguy...not so much, here are some attempts...















"Okay Bobby....Let me show you one more time, clearly your having troubles....." 
 




The ole' man got it the first try...





After a few more attempts, and removing his sunglasses, Thelittleguy finally got it, I think he is a pro now......This wrapped up our day on Tuesday.....School's out!
 

[customsawyer]

Don't forget to stop and just smile from time to time and enjoy every second. I think that you are doing great with the setup you have, you will learn little tricks as you go don't forget to share them as some might like to use them.

[Piston]

Wednesday was a rather short day, we were trying to get a few more logs milled, by using all the tips, tricks, and lessons that Jim and Frank gave us, just to reinforce what we learned.  I also had a friend from Florida show up who we introduced to milling, as well as a couple others.  All in all, the 3 days of milling introduced 5 people to milling, who had never seen a mill operate before, plus the 2 of us who had limited exerience.
Here is a shot of my pilot friend running the mill for his first time.
 










And a few more shots from that last day....
 






I made this pallet up from 2 4x4 pallets, and just nailed 2 long 2x4's to join them together.  During the milling, we learned just how much lumber you can get from a log, and how to minimize the waste, Jim was right when he told me we would use those 'not so pretty' 2x4's for "something", and yes you were right Jim, they came in handy for my pallets.
 




Here is what we ended up with at the end, granted it is not much lumber for a few days of milling, however we spent Monday setting up and didn't mill that day, then Tuesday was class day, and Wednesday was a short day.  We didn't get nearly as much done as we were thinking, but honestly by taking our time, and learning from Jim and Frank, we steepened our learning curve so much that it will undoubtetly save us an incredible amount of time in the future.  I know we will be so much more efficient now, because we took our time to learn the basics, and didn't rush through everything just to see a final product.
 



The 8x8 on the top of the pile, is going to be my first post in my frame.  I have decided that it will be smarter for me to only mill a few timbers at a time, then cut the joinery and put those aside, and move onto the next ones.  I can see it is going to take me a loooooooong time to build my frame.  We'll have to see how it goes.  I won't be milling anymore for the next couple weeks as I'm healing up, but next time Thelittleguy is around for some milling, I'm confident we will get a lot done and do it correctly and efficiently. 


We really had a great time and learned more than I can remember.  I want to thank JimRogers and Bandmiller2 for all your expertise and willingness to teach some new guys!  We are light years ahead of where we would be if we didn't get the opportunity to learn from someone who knew what they were doing.  Not to mention I got a nice new to me 3 and a half inch slick out of the deal from Jim.    By the way, if you need any timberframing tools, Jim and his friend Tom do an amazing job with reconditioning antique hand tools, I highly recommend checking out his tools for sale thread in the for sale section, you won't be dissapointed with their quallity and price....and no, Jim didn't pay me to say that in this post


Also, I want to thank you guys for the kind words about going into surgery, It wasn't my first and I'm sure it won't be the last! 

Hope you enjoyed the pics.

[fishpharmer]

Piston, those are great pictures and great commentary. Thanks for sharing.  You are very fortunate to live so close to such generous FF members. 

[tomsteve]

as stated awesome commentary. i'm jealous now.