I just had some large oak trees blown down from the hurricane and
would like some info on how to cut the tree using a chainsaw and jig
to cut into planks.

any suggestions...I have minimum experience with a chainsaw. Im
looking into getting a husky 24" with a alaskan saw mill.

I need to know what patteren to cut the wood in

thanks

Mike

To make planks with a chainsaw you need to buy a special chain for ripping.
The standard chains are only for cross cutting. Then there's a special
fixture available that clamps on the bar of the saw that has rollers to
guide the saw so it produces a board of the desired thickness. A former
neighbor of mine had one of these and managed to cut up several trees with
it with mixed success. He then gave up on it and bought a portable sawmill.
He said that the chainsaw method took too long and too much effort to get
what he wanted from it. There was a lot of waste too because it didn't cut
perfectly flat parallel sided boards like a bandsaw mill can.

The US Forest Service publishes information on logging and getting the best
lumber out of the logs. I would suggest that you contact them for this
information. The cut patterns will vary depending on the results that you
want to achieve, widest boards = flat sawn, minimum warpage = quarter sawn,
etc. Quarter sawn red oak makes beautiful cabinets and flooring.

I would suggest that you try to find someone in your area with a portable
sawmill and let them cut it up for you. I've heard that many will work for a
share of the wood and if they've been doing it for a while, they will know
how to cut the logs to get what you want from them.
--
Charley


nothere@northere wrote in message
...
I just had some large oak trees blown down from the hurricane and
would like some info on how to cut the tree using a chainsaw and jig
to cut into planks.

any suggestions...I have minimum experience with a chainsaw. Im
looking into getting a husky 24" with a alaskan saw mill.

I need to know what patteren to cut the wood in

thanks

Mike

No, you don't need a ripping chain, although they can help. You need a
saw with power...a Husky 395, Stihl 066...something along those lines.
These typically swing a 36" bar and if you want to mill wood, you'll
want one of those bars.

As for a mill, use a Grandberg Alaskan chain saw mill. Nothing to break,
just a simple tool, that works well. Get the additional oiler with
it...you'll use a lot. And make sure you have some lenghy straight esged
(10') to do the initial cut.

We milled about 1100 bd ft of silver maple in a day with one of these.
Lots of work, lots of waste but a decent way of getting wood.

If you have access to the trees, you'd be better served to try and find
a mill that will cut them and ask the sawyer if he has transportation
contacts and a kinl contact. We've just finished milling 4800 bd ft this
way and the price is averaging approx. $0.80 per bd ft (including drying
and CDN funds). We have another 1400 bd ft if birch that should be ready
in a couple of weeks.

Charley wrote:
To make planks with a chainsaw you need to buy a special chain for ripping.
The standard chains are only for cross cutting. Then there's a special
fixture available that clamps on the bar of the saw that has rollers to
guide the saw so it produces a board of the desired thickness. A former
neighbor of mine had one of these and managed to cut up several trees with
it with mixed success. He then gave up on it and bought a portable sawmill.
He said that the chainsaw method took too long and too much effort to get
what he wanted from it. There was a lot of waste too because it didn't cut
perfectly flat parallel sided boards like a bandsaw mill can.

The US Forest Service publishes information on logging and getting the best
lumber out of the logs. I would suggest that you contact them for this
information. The cut patterns will vary depending on the results that you
want to achieve, widest boards = flat sawn, minimum warpage = quarter sawn,
etc. Quarter sawn red oak makes beautiful cabinets and flooring.

I would suggest that you try to find someone in your area with a portable
sawmill and let them cut it up for you. I've heard that many will work for a
share of the wood and if they've been doing it for a while, they will know
how to cut the logs to get what you want from them.

--


http://www.robswoodworking.com

nothere@northere writes:

I just had some large oak trees blown down from the hurricane and
would like some info on how to cut the tree using a chainsaw and jig
to cut into planks.

According to literature oak is the best wood for riving, and since the
hurricane didn't wait for the best harvesting season sawing might be
not the very best choice.
Have a look at http://www.greenwoodworking.com/riving/riving.htm
before you take a chainsaw to the tree, and invest in some wegdes,
mauls and froe.

--
Dr. Juergen Hannappel http://lisa2.physik.uni-bonn.de/~hannappe
Phone: +49 228 73 2447 FAX ... 7869
Physikalisches Institut der Uni Bonn Nussallee 12, D-53115 Bonn, Germany
CERN: Phone: +412276 76461 Fax: ..77930 Bat. 892-R-A13 CH-1211 Geneve 23

On 2005-09-28, nothere@northere nothere@northere wrote:
I just had some large oak trees blown down from the hurricane and
would like some info on how to cut the tree using a chainsaw and jig
to cut into planks.

any suggestions...I have minimum experience with a chainsaw. Im
looking into getting a husky 24" with a alaskan saw mill.

You're out of your mind! The alaskan mill we used had TWO 90cc power
heads on it. You also need special "rip" chain to get anywhere. Find
someone with a woodmizer ( call woodmizer for references ) and pay them
to do the work.

We spent a miserable two days cutting up one tree. I will never ever do
that again. This was with a four man tag-team cutting, wacking wedges
into the kerf behind the mill and moving cut lumber out of the way.

--
I can find no modern furniture that is as well designed and emotionally
satisfying as that made by the Arts and Crafts movement in the early years
of the last century.

Ed Clarke wrote:

any suggestions...I have minimum experience with a chainsaw. Im
looking into getting a husky 24" with a alaskan saw mill.

To use the one time. And then to store for 30 or more years while you
grow a few more specimens?

You're out of your mind! The alaskan mill we used had TWO 90cc power
heads on it. You also need special "rip" chain to get anywhere. Find
someone with a woodmizer ( call woodmizer for references ) and pay them
to do the work.

Dig a big pit and buy an antique tree saw. And find a desperately poor
man with 25 kids to feed that has had his brains removed and pay him a
lot of your hard earned to stand in the pit on the other end of the
saw.

Actually you could get hold of a length of blade that has been thrown
out of a saw-mill and use that as a rip saw if you were so inclined.
You'd have to rig up some sort of an offset frame for it and use it as
bow-saw as it is too fexible.

But if you have a saw-mill near by, you might as well arrange for them
to do the job for you.

Remember that cutting it too thin will waste most of the tree when it
has warped in the stack. If you are going to use if for cabinet work,
have it quarter sawn. Paint the end grain.

I've done this. It is a home-made fixture that attaches to a 20 inch
bar on my Stihl 028. Cuts take a while--maybe a minute or two per
foot, depending on the sharpness of the chain. The rip chain has to be
sharpened after every 10-15 feet of cut. I still do it occasionally
for windfalls on my property. I wouldn't call it fun, exactly, except
when you turn over a frehly cut flitch and see the newly exposed grain.



nothere@northere wrote:
I just had some large oak trees blown down from the hurricane and
would like some info on how to cut the tree using a chainsaw and jig
to cut into planks.

any suggestions...I have minimum experience with a chainsaw. Im
looking into getting a husky 24" with a alaskan saw mill.

I need to know what patteren to cut the wood in

thanks

Mike

Get somebody in to mill it up with a portable mill , you are way ahead
to do it this way.

Why ? Chainsaw mills are slow, wasteful , tiring, noisy , dirty and
dangerous


nothere@northere wrote:

I just had some large oak trees blown down from the hurricane and
would like some info on how to cut the tree using a chainsaw and jig
to cut into planks.

any suggestions...I have minimum experience with a chainsaw. Im
looking into getting a husky 24" with a alaskan saw mill.

I need to know what patteren to cut the wood in

thanks

Mike