Hey thanks very much. I did not know about the flipping it thing once it is in a cant. I had some bowing and wondered as to why. That makes a lot of sense.townlineterry wrote: ↑Fri Oct 12, 2018 12:07 pmI am with you Cuttingedge. Saw from the small end, with my mill I can raise the log to compensate for taper. You want to end up sawing parallel to the heart because the center of the log has poorest quality wood, you want to keep that low grade lumber in as few boards as possible. By turning 180 after the first cut you eliminate 50% of the edging you would do if you only turn the log 90 degrees. Also once you have your cant squared up do not just saw from the top down. You need to flip it 180 a few times so you are working towards the center of the cant gradually from each side. This releases the stress of cant evenly to eliminate bowing.
Another mistake people make is to keep sawing with a dull blade. That slows down production, produces wavy lumber and trashes the blade. When the blade starts to show signs of dulling put on a sharp blade, don't push it. A sawmill blade is like a chainsaw, when you sharpen it you want to really just polish it not grind it.
And pay attention to blade tension (on band mills). Tension is critical to saw accurate lumber and blade life, too much or too little will destroy the blade.
Terry
One thing I noticed when my friend saws lumber is, with so many random widths on his lumber, then re-piling the wood onto the mill, he is not really getting the best widths on his boards, he is averaging out the widths. He might leave a lot of bark on some boards, then others cut some pretty good clear wood out all because he is trying to edge all at once. I tried to explain to him that you will only get x amount of clear lumber from a log by measuring a log on the small end, inside the bark. I am not a scaler, but cut enough logs to know that. That is why the log buyers buy logs that way!
By the way, on my homemade mill, I too have an adjuster to compensate for the taper of the log. I used a sissoe jack used for cars that is welded to the frame of the saw. It is nowhere near as good as your all hydraulic one, bu a few cranks of a handle and it lifts the small end of the log up enough so I can saw just the bark and not cut just bark on one end, then deeply into wood on the other.