See tree-visualize mast part 2

[Ken Hutchins]

Well this weekend is mast milling time, so this morning the first thing I had to do was relevel the rails of the mill because the frost heaves have been working their nasty effects on the mill, after that was done I had to level the log to get it's centerline parrallel to the mill guide rails.
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid162/pb2b436789756f7f742939c5beb771fda/f4b61deb.jpg
Finally it was time to start cutting. Notice this log is just a tad too big for the mill the flat on top of the log I had to cut with the other chainsaw so the frame of the mill would clear, I have riser blocks for the mill carriage which I could have used instead of trimming the log.
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid162/pcfc597079732a351d04e156986fdeed4/f4b382d5.jpg
This is my setup for rotating the log using the tractor, all the rotations had to be done very carefully to prevent rolling the log off the other side of the mill, and/or crashing the log onto the mill.
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid162/pffc5029ab116dd6f718a7ef682f2d1cd/f4b382d7.jpg
This shows the log with 2 sides cut getting ready for the 3rd side this shows the material I had to remove with the other saw so the frame would clear, I really should have put the riser blocks under the carriage.
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid162/pa1f9b1da5eda31adcbe751811a3d888f/f4b382d6.jpg
This shows the third side cut ready to flip it over for the 4th side.
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid162/peb2a7d2bcdeaf2b87d88186cac6bd61b/f4b382d8.jpg
Here it is with the 4th side cut, right now it is square 1 inch over size, and as they say it's Miller time.
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid162/p210f8aac33007d7eef940b4f0e0d0a17/f4b382d9.jpg

[StevenBauer]

Very nice! How long does it take for each pass?

Steven

[ssor]

The slabs will heat the shop for the rest of the season. that is a big stick! :D

[Donn]

What's the scoop on the old black car in the background?

[PeterSibley]

Come on Ken smile.gif smile.gif smile.gif Don't stop!

What kind of saw is that ? I haven't seen one like it over here.Could you include a couple of close ups please ? Very interesting,especially as I don't own my big band mill anymore . .

Will you do the 45 degree cuts using the same jig ?

Great to see things happening ...mine is having a rest for a few months unfortunately,work rears its ugly head. :(

[Ken Hutchins]

Steve, each pass is about 10 minutes and a tank full of fuel. The cutting time is minimal compared to the handling and setup time, the size really impacts handling time.
Donn, the car is a 50 Chevy 4 door, just another on my to do list although this one should really find another home. The chassis in front of it is a 31 AA ford truck.

[Ken Hutchins]

The saw is Jonsered, the same mfg. as the mill made in Sweden. It is the biggest saw they make 95cc. I will cut the octagon for the partners area and the rest I will cut to 16 sided right on the mill using angled blocks to support it. I will also taper the ends. I will post more info as I do it.

[ 03-26-2005, 07:20 PM: Message edited by: Ken Hutchins ]

[Donn]

This is excellent, Ken. Give us stats, length, diameter, etc.. Do you use a special chain? How is the saw supported? Is this an application for one of the hi-powered snowmobile engined speed-saws? What do you do with all the sawdust...you must be making piles of it?

[PeterSibley]

Well Ken, I've just done a trawl through the retailers sites looking for a decent photo of your mill to no avail ,hint hint smile.gif

Evening Donn, nice to se you up here smile.gif

[Ken Hutchins]

Donn, the log is 45 feet long about 3 feet more than I need, the finish dia. to be 10 inches but I will cut it to 10-1/2 and let shrinkage do it's thing should end up close to 10 when dry. The saw is supported on the nuts that hold the bar on the saw, the nuts are 1-1/2 inch long coupling nuts. I use a low profile chain so the kerf is only 1/4 inch, rip chains are sharpened diferently most notable is that alternating pairs of teeth are narrow in width so they only score the outer edge of the cut, the remaining teeth are filed 90 degrees to the bar and take material out of the middle of the cut. A higher HP engine would rapidly destroy the chain because the lo profile chain is really made for small saws not even really recomended for a saw this big. I'll post a photo of the saw teeth and a close up of the saw mount tomorrow. The sawdust really piles up so I spread it around with the tractor sorta pave the wood road with it and the area around the mill is probably a foot and a half deep mostly pretty well turned into topsoil it's real muddy right now.

[NormMessinger]

Wait a minute! Isn't the mast supposed to be round? It was round, now lookee at what you've done.

[Ken Hutchins]

Pete: here is the info, note they also made a band saw version, a bit more pricey. The mill comes with a 20 foot bed length easily extended, and the stated maximum diameter is 20 inches with a few of my modifications 50 foot bed length and 32 inch diameter. :D
Jonsered (http://www.usa.jonsered.com/files/documents/english_us/minisawmill.pdf)

[ 03-26-2005, 08:00 PM: Message edited by: Ken Hutchins ]

[Concordia..41]

Good job - says the gal in Florida with penny ante learning curve ;)

[Joe ( Cold Spring on Hudson )]

Norm :D :D :D :D

[Donn]

Originally posted by Ken Hutchins:
The sawdust really piles up so I spread it around with the tractor sorta pave the wood road with it and the area around the mill is probably a foot and a half deep mostly pretty well turned into topsoil it's real muddy right now.Gotta be some ultra-rich dirt. I'd scoop it up and pile it somehwere to grow sumpin in.

[Ken Hutchins]

Yup, that's my big compost pile. :D

[Bob Perkins]

That is too cool for words!!

I can't even find the right smilely thingy for this one!

Very nice job Ken -
Thanks,
Bob

[PeterSibley]

Thanks Ken! Much appreciated smile.gif
Donn, I pretty well built my garden with sawdust when I had an operating band mill .Good stuff, fill the paths for a year then onto the beds.

[Ken Hutchins]

Well today I cut the square down to the final size of 10-1/2, then set it up on angled blocks to cut the octagon, once everything was set up it was a simple matter of cut, rotate, cut, rotate until the 4 cuts were done.
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid162/p322ea1f55fcf48ad6955e2fd38627a0b/f4b05eee.jpg
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid162/pd3f966ffbd0b7a0110aeea99acc2f19d/f4b05eeb.jpg
Then I set it up on similar blocks but with different angles to cut it into 16 sided, I left it an octagon from where the partners will be down to the bottom end. http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid162/p3d0c0ed8095cbcde44ff4cb795cd6bc6/f4b05eef.jpg
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid162/p80f70204b8962a048e74550bd6c9f16c/f4b05ef2.jpg
The tapers on the ends and tennon I won't cut until the wood has dried, I am going to put some thinned varnish on it to slow the drying and build a rack for it with rollers so I can occasionally rotate it to prevent it from drying too much on one side and not the other.
This is the boards I cut off the log I should be able to at least get the booms, and bow sprit, out of what is there.
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid162/p3635be8eff27ad0a36da37079586e899/f4b05ef4.jpg
Here is a photo of the carriage without the saw, The 2 mounting holes for the saw can be seen in the black sliding plate which is spring mounted to help prevent the saw jamming while cutting.
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid162/p815d7dc5fb21379c2e9aa283c9c1e50a/f4b05ee9.jpg

[carioca1232001]

A truly formidable piece of work. Congratulations !

Have you filmed it in video, aside from the photos on line ? Would be very instructive, at least for my level of woodworkmanship.

No wonder there is little sign of you venturing out on "Misc. Non-boat Related" ;)

[Donn]

Excellent show, Ken.

Peter, my paths are made with sawdust and shavings from holzbt's shop. Great stuff.

[Ken Hutchins]

Have you filmed it in video, aside from the photos on line ? Actually I had originally planned to video the entire boat project, but working mostly alone and wanting to concentrate on building the boat the video sorta got neglected. Doing a video especially the editing afterwards is very time consuming, been there, done that.

[Ken Hutchins]

Donn, As I recall not too long ago you posted in another thread something about wanting rocks. Well look at the second photo in this thread, there is a stone wall beyond the end of the log. The wall in that area is over 4 feet high and 10 feet wide. tongue.gif

[Donn]

If you see a black & bondo van alongside the wall, don't be concerned. ;)

[carioca1232001]

Ken Hutchins wrote:


Actually I had originally planned to video the entire boat project, but working mostly alone and wanting to concentrate on building the boat the video sorta got neglected. Doing a video especially the editing afterwards is very time consuming, been there, done that. There are so many rather unusual aspects of your boat project, like the initial research concerning the hull shape and lines (from old photos!), the subsequent scale modelling and testing of the latter, the identification of desirable lumber species in the plot of land adjoining yours, etc. etc.etc. that a magnificent video would have ensued.

But I understand that it must be exhausting running a major project like this all on your own and that the video objective fell by the way side.

A pity, though.

[StevenBauer]

Well the pictures are still great! That is so cool Ken. I made a mast this weekend, too, but it's only 2 1/2" in diameter and 12 1/2' long. :D

Steven

[PeterSibley]

Thanks for the second lot of photos Ken...very informative.I do just happen to have a suitable tree or 10 in my wood lot.I had been planning to cut a tree that was close to dimension and round it up on a VERY big pole lathe....might still do that but this is another possibility,especially as it would be possible to use one of the larger but not perfectly straight ones. Now all I have to do is build a 40' lathe or a new chainsaw mill and a 45' runway !!

A possible tip if you are interested.I have cut and barked a small collection of poles to use as spars.Before I racked them I ran a 3" deep powersaw cut straight down one length.As they dried they opened up along this cut instead of randomly splitting ( to about 1/2" on a 6" pole)I'll clean the muck out of this cut when I need it and glue in a matching section.The result should be good. It would work well on this job too I would imagine.

[PeterSibley]

Ken, have you done all your milling on this rig ?

[carioca1232001]

Well the pictures are still great! No doubt ! Should make for great material when he eventually gets down to writing a book on the subject.

[Bob Smalser]

Them new "tin" pants there, Ken?

[Thad]

What chain?

[essaunders]

Got to thinking "What was part 1 -- I didn't see any sawmill pictures just now in another thread" Then I found the first thread..

[Stephen Hutchins]

Jeez Ken- you must be the most self sufficient boat builder I've ever known of. I'm talking notes.. Well done.

[Ken Hutchins]

Carioca, a book instead of the video is in my long range plans, been making notes and saving all my forum posts for reference later. Other things with the video as I mentioned "been there done that", home use non professional video equipment leaves a lot to be desired for making edits. I have made several videos, the most recent of my barn project and it was a major effort. The recorders will only record video and sound at the same time, and there is a 3 to 4 second delay in recording, so after many hours of deciding what 2 hours of the 2 dozen hours of camera time views to show, what commentary, what original sound and what background music to use in what scene, then putting it all together hmmmm. Well picture me sitting down with 2 remotes for vcr players, a remote for the TV, the stereo on the left for the music, a mic in front for commentary a 6 channel video/ audio mixer on the right, TV in front, notes of what to comment about, etc, etc. As I said been there done that, the video came out fairly good but what an effort. When recording the video degrades from copy to copy so it is best to make the master tape directly from the original and not do a copy of a copy. I think my next attempt with such a project will be on the computer, but as we all know computer video images for home use are poor, but the editing capabilities are much better. So whats me to do? Well I can write a book while sitting aboard TALLY HO II in a nice quiet anchorage somewhere. smile.gif Oh! book editing, yup done that also, Editor of my high school year book many moons ago. :rolleyes:
Peter, yes all of the wood for the boat was milled on the mini-mill, also all of the wood in the barn and a some of the wood in the house.
Steven, you mast is just a practice piece, someday you will make a bigger one. :cool:
Bob, they are Carhartt's smile.gif .
Now for the chain:
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid162/p72da0da2ec8f99c0c0d384ed6c9500e7/f4ac0ef0.jpg
Notice the tooth between the S&P and also the opposite side tooth below the second E, these scoring teeth are modified so most of the top is removed leaving not much more than the side of the blade, the face is filed at about 15 degrees, the next pair of teeth are for chiseling out what the scoring teeth don't cut and are full width these are filed square to the bar. This pattern repeats around the chain. The faces are filed with a 5/32 dia file. To make a 45 foot long cut without the saw drifting everything about the sharpening and the saw mounting has to be right on, a missed tooth when sharpening or a speck of crap on the mounting surfaces will affect the cut.

[Peter Malcolm Jardine]

:cool: thread

[PeterSibley]

Good chain Ken, I've seen similar here on chainsaw mills.Have you ever experimented with running the bar at a 45 degree angle to the cut? Its something I've been thinking of should I build a similar rig.Here the blokes that rip out fence posts ( me ocassionally ) lay the bar in at about 45 degrees,the results are lot faster cut but I don't know about any effects on straightness .You tend to cut long ribbons of wood rather than chips off the end grain as per a normal chainsaw mill.Any ideas?

[Ken Hutchins]

Peter, I have thought about it, do it myself when cutting manually. The disadvantages would the need for a much longer bar and chain right now I'm using a 28 inch so to get to a 45 I would need a 3-1/2 foot bar which would mean more deflection unless going to a thicker bar bigger chain etc. The long stringy chips on a wide cut would be too much for the gullet of the chain. Perhaps it could be made to work.

[PeterSibley]

The long stringy chips on a wide cut would be too much for the gullet of the chain.
Hmmmmm ,thats a thought .I've got a good 36" bar waiting for a use.I had thought that if I do this I'd use a 10 hp Briggs ( I have a surplus one in the shed) instead of my 85cc ProMac 850.Every time I bolt it to a jig I need it elsewere ;) Thought I could mount the Briggs on top of the carriage and run a 3 to 1 step up to 7 or 8000 rpm.Would be quieter than the McCullock ,something of interest after a day of it.

What do you think ?

[Dan Lindberg]

Ken,

Thanks for the posts and pics, very interesting, especially the lumber cutting stuff, as I'm planning to cut a few oak boards with a chain saw mill.(just playing)

I do have a (dumb) question though, not being a large wood boat builder,

why did you start with a round tree, cut it square, and then cut it octagon (assuming) the plan is to make it round again?

Why not just peal the tree and spoke shave it to a finished surface?

Dan

[PeterSibley]

Dan, thats a big tree !!! :D And at worst it would be very difficult to acheive an accurate job.Most trees aren't as straight as a mast so some kind of jig is needed to find that nice straight mast hidden inside.

[carioca1232001]

Ken,
Producing a quality video as you have outlined would require all that attention to detail. I see you shun shoddy work, which is not surprising, so reserve your energies for the forthcoming book ;)

[Ed Harrow]

To those who have not had the priviledge of viewing this man's considerable skill and cleverness first hand, well just know that they (his skills and cleverness) are formidable.

[Dan Lindberg]

Thanks Peter,

I hadn't thought about straightness, not being a sailor.

Still very interesting to watch this happen.

Dan

[Ken Hutchins]

Dan, even if I had a good tree about the right size I still would have used the bigger one, for straightness as Peter mentioned, but also doing it this way gets the mast entirely out of heart wood and I have all the boards sawn off the log for other uses. smile.gif

[sbsbw]

ken for movie editiing i would strongly suggest using a computer.

You CAN seperate audio and vidio tracks with a digital recording, then add comentary.

I have used Imovie, it worked well for what i was doing, though i would use someing slighly more expensive for another production (Final Cut Pro HD).

-SBSBW