Introducing the MF30

The new Logosol Joinery machine, the MF30 Vertical Milling Machine is a unique piece of equipment in the woodworking machinery world. This is a new class of machine for the U.S., though this machine has been in production and use in Europe for many years. I know of nothing close to this machine on the market in the U.S. There are plenty of shapers out there, of course, but with the fence system that is standard on this machine, it quickly leaves most standard shapers behind when you consider the precision fences and table system that is a critical part of the MF30.

But, it is more than a shaper - it is a tiltable arbor shaper, and with a quick change of the spindle, it is a router table. And not just a router table, but a tiltable router, and even more, an overhead router. Plus, with some accessories, it can do X, Y, and Z routing work.

So, to be honest, I am just now learning this machine, but it is very impressive to work with. I've done a few projects on it, and so far, it is making life much easier and more precise in the shop!

Below are two pictures of the MF30 in action. One is a picture of the solid walnut handrail I made recently. It is laying against the head and the picture is showing how it would move against the head and fences to make the moulding on the one side. I had actually made the handrail on the PH260, but, I missed on my setup ( a big oops on the part of the operator) and didn't want to scrap this beautiful walnut handrail. So, I put the same head for the handrail that I used on the PH260 onto the MF30, and set the fences so I was taking just a little off the side that had not been fully moulded on the PH260, and was able to clean it up completely. Just this ability alone will make it a good companion for the PH260.

But, that was an easy operation on the MF30. Then I had to make a shoe for the balusters under the handrail, and I used the MF30 to mill out the 1.25" groove for the balusters to fit into. I changed out the shaft to the router spindle in about 3 minutes. It is an extemely easy operation and just doing it makes you marvel at the engineering that is in this machine. Then I rotated the motor to the top vertical position and positioned the fences to the right spot and then lowered the head to where a straight router bit could clean out about 1/4" of material. I had to make three passes since I only had a 1/2" bit. But, it was a precise cut and it cleaned it out quickly. And it was easy to move the head forward to make each new cut.

After that, I had to do some round-overs to finish out the tops of the square newell posts that we had made up and I found that this machine is great for this operation as well. I did another quick change-out back to the shaper spindle and put the TB90 cutterhead in with a roundover knife installed. I positioned the fence and used the clamp to hold down the small block of wood for milling. The clamp holds it extremely firmly and you can do roundovers on cross grain on small stock, which is something that is normally hard (and dangerous) to do.


But, the real use for the MF30 is to do curved mouldings. This is a project I haven't done yet on this machine, but one that I am looking forward to having the capability to do. This involves a jig for this machine. It will extend your range of mouldings, as now all the patterns for the PH260 will be available in a curved format.

Milling Reclaimed Lumber on the PH260

Bob McConnell, our cajun buddy from Louisiana and owner of Norwood Milling, sent me a picture yesterday of a new flooring installation from wood he had milled on the PH260. This was reclaimed pine made into flooring and as you can see it really looks great!

Bob says, "this is definitely a case of chicken crap to chicken salad or even better. This junk was on a ceiling in a warehouse in New Orleans!" Now, it's a beautiful kitchen floor.

Milling this old wood requires some extra care as many times this wood will contain metal fragments and be very hard. So, knife wear will be more than usual when planing this material. Carbide knives in the horizontal heads will help lengthen the time between sharpenings and is almost a requirement when milling reclaimed lumber. Of course, you will have to insure that all the nails are out of the wood with a metal detector, or you will surely be ruining knives. Coming off the ceiling, this wood will be fairly clean of dirt, however, if you get material that has been part of a floor or subfloor, you will find a lot of dirt and such will be embedded into the wood and this will cause wear on your knives.

Sometimes you will want to "center match" tongue and groove this material so the installer can determine which side looks best. Sometimes one side will have a better "patina" or will be more free of defects that the other, so, if the Tongue is in the center of the board, the installer can put the best side of the board up. This is made possible by using straight Tongue and Groove knives and not flooring knives, which will have an offset from the top to the bottom of the knife so the top of the flooring always fits together nicely. You will have to set the knives in the side heads of the PH260 so that the tongue and groove line up precisely with each other no matter which way the board is turned. This takes some patience and the use of test boards to get this set correctly. Spacers are used in the PH260 to set the heads at the right height. Once you determine this setting for a pattern, it is recommended that you note which spacers are used for which side so that you can easily go back to this setup.

Bob says he also supplied the beaded V-Match Cypress Paneling that you can see on the wall in this picture as well. He notes, "I don't charge extra for the knots!" This paneling is a standard seller for him in his business.

It's always nice when customers brag on your work. I suspect Bob will get more calls for this material once the word gets out about how beautiful the floor looks.

Tackling the Big Logs with the M7

I heard recently from an old friend, Bill Stuewe of Texas, who is a long-time M7 sawmill owner. Bill has a lot of experience with the M7 and sawing logs. He introduced me into Water logging, when he rescued some trees uprooted by big rains in Texas and he found them floating in a big Texas lake. He pulled them to shore with his boat and loaded them on his trailer and took them home to his Logosol. But that is another story.

Bill sent me a picture of a little church he made from a big Deodar Cedar Tree that fell recently in his neighborhood after a big rain. Apparently, the trees roots couldn't hold it upright anymore and down it came. It comes under "Wood From Heaven" in Bill's book, I guess, or more "wood from water sources". Anyway, Bill grabbed it and took it home to his M7 sawmill.

Only problem, it was a 36" X 16' log. A little big for the M7 sawmill. Except, Bill used the Inversion method of sawing with the mill to take this log apart. He was kind enough to share his photos of his operation with me. You can see from the photos how he did this. He avoided having to elevate the log to the height of the sawmill with this method and milled the log on the ground.

Who's upside down in this picture? Bill or the sawmill?

Here, Bill has made his first cut and now cranked the rail down and is making a second cut on the log.

He then placed the reduced sized log on his mill in the normal position ( right-side up and slabbed out these three big chunks.

Here you can see where he took the edges off these slabs and made beams out of them. He later milled these down into boards and put them in his solar dry kiln.

The cedar wood finally wound up in his wood shed, and some of it made it into the church shown earlier in this article.

Good job, Bill!

(If any of you have a story to share about milling send me an email at charlie@logosol.com or make a comment directly in this blog.)

Demonstration Day in Wisconsin - April 26, 2008

We are planning to be in Wisconsin in April at Jim Birkmeier's farm! It's going to be a great day there - seeing Jim's operation, and meeting our customers in Wisconsin. We will be taking the PH260 on the road, along with some other equipment, including the Log House Moulder and the new MF30. We will also take a robot along - to keep the chains sharp, of course.

Jim has planned a big day around this event. He will be having Full-Vigor Forestry discussions and Solar Cycle Kiln tours, as well as logging demonstrations and flooring installation information. It's a unique time to see an operation from forest to floor. No where else can you get this much information in one day!

Rivers will be going with me to do the sawing on the M7 and making some log home logs with the log house moulder. That is always a fun thing to watch - taking a raw log and turning it into a finished product right in front of your eyes.

And I'm excited about showing off the MF30 for the first time. I've been working with this machine and it is certainly an excellent piece of equipment. I'm anxious to get Jim's take on this new machine from Logosol.

If you are in the area, please make plans to attend that Saturday. We already know of people coming from out of state, so if you can make the time to travel, it will be an excellent opportunity to see the machine and an operation that is using the machine to make money. That's the bottom line these days, is to make money, right? This event promises to provide you with not only technical information, but also how to make money with this machine.

You can see all the events planned for the day here: http://www.timbergrowers.com/Demonstration%20Days.html

I hope to see you there!

PH260 in Article in TimberWest Magazine

Got a call the other day from Don Jennings, who has been putting the PH260 through its paces in a big way out in Idaho. He mentioned that he had been featured in the current issue of TimberWest Magazine. I found a copy of the article on the web and have included a link to it on this blog. It's a great writeup about his sawmill operation. But, Don told me he couldn't help but brag on his Logosol Planer/Moulder to the reporter, and they included comments about the Ph260 in the article as well.

Don has a great operation going out there. He's found quite a lot of resources are available to him since he takes the stuff the bigger mills don't want. So, he's taking salvage logs and turning them into retail quality finished goods such as paneling and flooring. The PH260 has become a major part of his operation. He estimates he has put 90,000 board feet of material through it since February. "It’s gotten me so much business, and the guy that used to do my planing now sends me business," he says in the article.

It's always great to hear about success with the PH260. Great work Don!

Read the article here: http://www.forestnet.com/TWissues/Jan-Feb08/Small.html

Logosol Forum Down For Technical Reasons

Just a quick note to tell everyone that the Logosol Forum is down because of technical reasons. We are working to get a forum back up as soon as possible. We are hearing from forum users about missing the forum, and concerned that it is gone for good. This is not the case. We very much value the discussions on our forums and hope to have them back up and running soon. We will probably be bringing them back online in a new format, with the hope of being able to restore old posts to the forums eventually.

We appreciate everyone's patience in this and hope to get back to normal with the forums soon.

M7 Sawmill Power User

I heard from a Logosol M7 owner today that I call a power user. He has really put the M7 through it's paces. He had done something I did once, but haven't told anyone, drove down the road with the sawmill in the back and left the log grip on the mill while transporting it. Somehow, when you get to the destination you later realize, that log grip isn't on the mill anymore. So, be sure and take it off, even if it feels snug, as the wind will grab that log grip and take it off during transport.

He's had the mill for over 6 1/2 years and estimates he's cut more than 50,000 b.f with his sawmill. He's still using the original saw that came on the mill. He says his only regret about the mill is that he didn't have it ten years earlier!

He cuts a lot of lumber for himself, and for his neighbors. I asked him what are some projects he's done with the mill and he started listing them out. The first project was a 20 X 24 shop. Then other sheds, an 8X12, and a 12 x 16. Also, he added a 12 X 14 bedroom to his house that he estimates cost him $1000 for the materials other than the wood he put into it. He remodeled his living room area with wood from his sawmill, made siding for his house, and put on a deck or two. He's been busy!

If you do the math on the amount of wood he's cut with the mill, you can see that at .50/b.f he's paid for the mill about 10 times over. If you use a more realistic figure of $1/b.f, it's a much bigger payback. Plus, he says he's had a lot of fun with the mill.

I have not had much in this blog about the sawmill, but I will try to start adding some sawmill entries. I've encouraged our power user to send some pictures, and if I get them, I'll share some of them on here. I love to hear about how sawmill owners are using the mill. Don't forget that you can make a comment here on this blog, if you have something to share.

I wanted to include a summary of the conversation I had with this power user of the M7 in this support blog because sometimes people considering the Logosol M7 sawmill worry about how it will hold up, how the saw will hold up under heavy use, if it will cut good lumber, what all you can make with it, etc. Well, this guy's experience with the mill answers all those questions better than I can. It will produce quality lumber, and it will continue to produce quality lumber. I'm sure there are a lot of Logosol M7 power users out there who will tell similar stories.

But, remember, the log grip will fly off if you leave it on during transport.