Short Log Milling on the M7 - Continued

Here is the last picture of Bill's writeup on Short Log Milling. In case you missed it be sure and read the previous post on this blog.

Thanks Bill for the excellent writeup. Just an additional note - one way we dealt with short logs when we were on the woodworking show circuit was to have a 3" wide slab for a bed, and then place the short log up on the bed and screw the ends of the log to the bed. But Bill's solution is much better for more accurate milling.

Short Log Milling on the M7

A recent forum message was a question about milling short logs on the M7. He asked on the forum if anyone has done this and Bill Stuewe tried to reply to him but was unsuccessful in his attempt to put it on the forum. I am posting it here until we can get it on the forums because I wanted to get the information out. Bill spent a lot of time working on this response and I wanted to be sure it could be shared quickly.


Here is the question by dlopeman on the forum:

I would like to do some short logs that don't span the length across the log holders. Has anyone created a successfull jig or something that can assist me with this? Maybe there's some logosol product that I haven't found that already accomodates this?
Thanks in advance."




Here is Bill Stuewe's response:





I have an 8" jointer so I flattened and jointed two 9 quarter cedar boards that were 4" longer than the outside distance of the log beds, one all the way up and the other all the way down. I then planed them to exactly 2" thick and glued them together to form a 2"x16" plank . I attached a cleat to each end so that it could not slide off the log beds. I attached a ½"x 3" piece of aluminum to the side of the plank nearest the guide rail so that it stuck up 1" to act as a fence to keep the log/cant from being pulled into the guide rail (this aluminum fence is in line with the upright log rests).





I attached a 2"x 2"x 1/4" piece of angle iron to the bottom to stiffen it up a bit and fashioned two ½" pieces of rebar so they could be attached to the bottom, protruding out away from the guide rail. I welded up an adjustable plate that would hold a ½" allthread to use in clamping the log/cant against the fence. It works because the hole in the bottom of the plate that the rebar sticks into is just big enough to allow the mechanism to slide but when force is exerted on the allthread it binds on the rebar and does not allow slipping.





When using:





* Lock the plank in place with your edge supports





* Always make sure there is no bark or sawdust under the log/cant to throw off your cut thickness. (this is the main drawback to my plank. Ideally I would use a 1"thick piece of aluminum grate—but it is very expensive)





* Always remember to allow for the thickness of the plank when reading your inch scales (that is why I made it exactly 2" thick)

• I try to always use the far end log rest upright to support one end of my log/cant


• The allthread/rebar clamping mechanism is not real strong but it is still beneficial and very adjustable.

Note: There is one more picture from Bill. It will be another blog entry.

PH260 Maintenance Tip - Feed Roller Bushing Seats

Here's a quick maintenance tip for the PH260. Check occasionally for sawdust buildup under the feed roller bushing seats. These are located at the end of each feed roller, and have a little flap at the bottom that is designed to keep sawdust out. These flaps work pretty well, but over time, sawdust will creep in and find itself a home underneath these blocks. The feed rollers rise when material is moving through the machine and this is when the sawdust will settle in. Over time, this will begin to raise the level of the feed rollers and will eventually begin to effect how well the feed rollers grip the wood. The sawdust buildup will prevent the feed rollers from going all the way down to their lowest position.

So, occasionally blow these out with compressed air and insure that they are clean. While you are at it, place a drop or two of oil on the top of the feed roller right where it goes into the bushing at the end.

Compressed air is a great way to keep your PH260 clean of sawdust buildup. Be sure and keep the motors clean of dust underneath the machine. Never let sawdust buildup to the point where it is covering the motors. Also, keep sawdust off all the chains in the machine.

A few burst with the compressed air nozzle will keep things running smooth in your machine!

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!