Sometimes I ask Santa for strange things for Christmas. Last year when prompted for ideas, I wanted a mini mill which is an attachment for a chainsaw and a long track to guide the saw to rip logs (as opposed to crosscut) into usable lumber. Santa delivered but after all this time even I was starting to think it may have been a wasteful ask.
However with the fall fest not far away and having experimented briefly on the balance beam two weeks ago, I figured maybe I would try this thing out after all. I had to clear a tall stump anyways, so here we go.
First the track was attached to a long piece of 5/4 decking I had leftover from the tree house. I’m supposed to use a 2×6, but I gots what I got. The 5/4 will be a little flexy but this is just an experiment… I don’t expect I’ll be building furniture with the proceeds of this work.
The log was placed on a make shift stand. Thank god for the tractor. There’s no way I could lift the log without it, but the impossible task was effortless as I gently picked up one end at a time to rest it on the cradle.
Finally, the attachment was adjusted and fitted to my saw in order to ride on the track the length of the log. The bar is barely long enough to cut through the trunk so unfortunately I can’t go much bigger than this one. The 5/4 was definitely flexible so the cut was not perfect as the saw followed the slightly twisted track.
Once everything was up and running, I just needed to be patient and let the saw do it’s thing for the 12 foot run from end to end. It was really pretty simple albeit, a little awkward with the saw facing the direction it was.
