The Milling Process

Here's another one of my non-political sustainable forestry/small scale milling posts for your possible interest. This is really the nickel tour as I don't show many small steps - like the fun of getting the log onto the mill.

Let's just say this post is a time capsule for my future relations to look back on a simpler time. My time traveling kin may see how old Grandpa Bill turned logs into lumber while the future is all busy zooming around planetoids in silver space suits.

In winter, I use a snowmobile and cargo sled to skid logs
out of woods. With the snow melted, I use a slightly more difficult
way to move log.

I lift the log onto the back of the ATV wagon and strap it down.
This is not the best thing to do for my spine, but I prefer it to
using a skid chain. In future I'll use something called a 'log arch'.

Ta-da! I've made it to the log landing at the mill yard.
Then I simply unstrap the log, and roll it onto the pile.
It's important not to get body parts crushed doing this.

Moving right along, I've got a log up on the bandsaw mill and
start to cut bark slabs off the log in order to make a four-sided
piece of lumber called a 'cant'.

It's important to select straight logs for milling.
While this appears to be a straight log, notice the
indent in the middle of the log after the first cut.

Here's the Before photo of a straight-ish log secured on the
mill 'bunks'. Even with the straightest log, it will loose about
four inches from the diameter of the smallest end.

Now the After photo of the same log cut into a cant. That's a big
loss of wood. Only now can I cut one inch planks with little or
no bark. Notice the pile of cut-off slabs thrown from the mill.

Sad for me to look at this. It can be cut up into firewood. I use the
sawdust to help breakdown compost. Nothing is wasted
when wood is my stove fuel. Though I wish it were lumber.

Here's the rough sawn sugar maple lumber.
I set them up in book-matched pairs then will
separate them on levels to air-dry. The drying
and kilning process is another thing altogether.

Milling For Campaign Signs

Yesterday I rolled some poplar logs onto the mill bunks and gave them a saw. You may remember me cutting these dead trees down in Deerwood Forest then skidding them to the mill yard about a month back.

After charging the battery (new battery charger), replacing the start cord
(after it broke), and fixing the throttle cable (broke) the milling went as smooth a silk.

Stack of loose boards fresh from the mill.

View from atop the 'cant' wood passing through the mill blade.

It was nice to smell the fresh cut wood and give it a good air-dry stack.

I like to do things all the way through - not just one part. That's why I find the logging, skidding, milling connection. I see it all come together from start to finish. And when I put the signs up with the paint on? Putting the whole thing together is a satisfaction that money can't buy.

Believe me, no part of the whole is easy. It's all a hard struggle. But that makes the final reward all that much better.