Thought I would put up some photos of a little project that has helped keep me busy for the past few weeks.
I have a row of 12 cypress trees behind the house that have outgrown their welcome, at about 50' tall they're too big for where they are so I've started removing them. I dropped 3 of them a few months ago and after getting rid of all the foliage I was left with a fair few straight logs up to about 15" diameter. I've been wondering how I could put the logs to good use.
My wife asked if I could make her some raised garden beds for her veggie garden, her arthritis is getting bad and she can't kneel at all and can't bend for long, so we decided a set of garden boxes at bench height would be just the ticket. The space where her veggie garden used to be will fit 4 beds about 6' x 5' with enough space to move around and between them.
I decided the most difficult and time-consuming way to go about this would be to make a chainsaw mill and use the cypress logs.
The chainsaw mill was thrown together in 'proof-of-concept' fashion in a couple of hours one afternoon. It mounts the chainsaw in a frame that is adjustable in height and runs on a ladder for rails. The rungs of the ladder are used to mount brackets to hold the logs. I can mill a log up to about 6'6" long (limited by the length of my old ladder) and 12" thick. With a second set of brackets I can mount the first cut face at 90 degrees. It's worked fairly well to split a log down the middle, then turn the halves on their side and split them again or just take the edges off for the thinner logs.
Pics show the basic setup and the first finished garden box.
It's been a fun experiment but it is very hard on the chainsaw. It cost me almost zero dollars to throw together, I thought if this worked well I would put some more effort into making a longer frame, a jig with a better height adjustment system etc but I think a bandsaw mill would be a much better system.
I have a row of 12 cypress trees behind the house that have outgrown their welcome, at about 50' tall they're too big for where they are so I've started removing them. I dropped 3 of them a few months ago and after getting rid of all the foliage I was left with a fair few straight logs up to about 15" diameter. I've been wondering how I could put the logs to good use.
My wife asked if I could make her some raised garden beds for her veggie garden, her arthritis is getting bad and she can't kneel at all and can't bend for long, so we decided a set of garden boxes at bench height would be just the ticket. The space where her veggie garden used to be will fit 4 beds about 6' x 5' with enough space to move around and between them.
I decided the most difficult and time-consuming way to go about this would be to make a chainsaw mill and use the cypress logs.
The chainsaw mill was thrown together in 'proof-of-concept' fashion in a couple of hours one afternoon. It mounts the chainsaw in a frame that is adjustable in height and runs on a ladder for rails. The rungs of the ladder are used to mount brackets to hold the logs. I can mill a log up to about 6'6" long (limited by the length of my old ladder) and 12" thick. With a second set of brackets I can mount the first cut face at 90 degrees. It's worked fairly well to split a log down the middle, then turn the halves on their side and split them again or just take the edges off for the thinner logs.
Pics show the basic setup and the first finished garden box.
It's been a fun experiment but it is very hard on the chainsaw. It cost me almost zero dollars to throw together, I thought if this worked well I would put some more effort into making a longer frame, a jig with a better height adjustment system etc but I think a bandsaw mill would be a much better system.
Lathe (n); a machine tool used in the production of milling machine components.
Milling Machine (n); a machine tool used in the production of lathe components.
Milling Machine (n); a machine tool used in the production of lathe components.