First attempt at milling own wood

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sams93

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Bought a 4tpi blade from Ian at tuff-saws for my small-ish hobby bandsaw recently in the hope of trying to have a go at milling some wood from logs. It's all very small scale, but I wanted to see if it would be feasible for small projects. For example, if family member had to have a tree taken down in the garden it might be nice to make something from it i.e a jewelery box or whatever.

To give it a go I used some logs that had been seasoned for fire wood, just to see how I would get on with the process.

I used my Clarke CBS355 bandsaw to make the rough cuts, I am always going to have to do this on a very small scale, but I now realise that even my very short 'trial' pieces were too short really! I can also see that I would be best starting with a square-er log as well (cutting the bark side down square), just to make as much use of the 15cm cutting height that is avalaible on my small saw. It was also good to learn how much wastage there is from the processing, I started off with 25mm thick rough sawn pieces and once they had been flattened etc the pieces I ended up with were 19mm ish.

I used my 'cheapo' Titan Planer Thicknesser from screwfix to face and edge joint, before thicknessing the other edge. I made the mistake of edge jointing first, not realising I should have started with a face, so had to go back to the edge after doing the face, this error didnt cause much extra wood wastage though. Finally trimmed the other edge square with table saw (although forgot to photograph from this point so the ones in the last photo I have still have one rough edge...)

It was really satisfying starting with a dirty old log and ending up with some square and 'useable' pieces (albeit very small and with a lot of voids in!). I'm sure with a bit of practice I will get better at it, but I really enjoyed giving it a go.

Separately, I know the larger pieces are Oak. I'm not sure about the smaller pieces. I have made a separate thread asking if anyone knows what species it is.

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Thank you for detailed and illustrated explanation of your bandsaw milling exercise. If this is a first attempt it is impressive. I was offered some wood cut down by friends recently but turned it down as it needed milling. It was too big for my bandsaw. However I do have some smaller hardwood logs for firewood that look interesting so I might attempt what you have achieved. Good stuff.
 
Good job nicely done. The first time I did it I did it by hand, then decided to buy a bandsaw. An hour of non stop hand sawing may have encouraged this decision…
 
I learned a ton from doing it, and I was pleasantly surprised by the results.

Since then I have had a go at milling some 3/4" Sapele planks for a project from a 7" x 4" slab and it went well too. I need to learn more about the amount of extra I need to leave when I initially rough saw it on the bandsaw to allow for what I will then take off with the planer. I cut 1 1/4 inch thick on the bandsaw, but possibly I could have got away with 1# or just over, and would have meant less wastage.

I also sorted the chip extraction for the planer because it made a right mess of my tiny shop

My bandsaw is only small (Max cutting depth is 14.5cm / 5.5") and it's a 3 wheeled one (CBS355) so I don't think this is the sort of work that it is really intended to do - but I'm pleased to see that if needed it can do it.
 

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Excellent and exactly what I bought my bandsaw to do only I haven't had the courage yet. Possibly using seasoned oak for my first attempt was ill advised.

I highly recommend running the planer thicknesser outside! But away from the washing line!!
 
Honestly I was so pleased with what I learned from doing that. Just going through the process, watching and learning from the errors I was making as I made them.

Gave me the confidence to feel that I can give a go at resawing stuff. I'm sure I still have errors left to make and learn from - but i'll give it a go now.

I actually just finished a project involving some sapele, rather than buying it in the appropriate size, I just got hold of a big 4" x 5" x 15" chunk from a local workshop and then resawed and milled it down into the pieces I needed.



Yes the planer is noisy - I use ear defenders and it makes it manageable!

Dust collection is good since I got an adapter made by Keith (TheWoodElves ebay shop) for my 50mm hose
 

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