Learned a bunch more today. What a learning curve !
As advised, blade tension does affect the cut, and could cause the wavy cut I got.
I tightened the blade, by feel, and finished off other set up stuff and fed slower. No wavy cuts today.
My blade is running pretty close to even now after setting up guides etc. There is still a less-than-parallel shaft but it's
not making enough difference for me to frig with. I'm only cutting landscape timbers. Not an exact science.
Other things I learned today;
My great grandparents were tough mofos !!! This milling stuff is hard enough, let alone what it must have been
like back in the homesteading days. From cutting trees with handsaws and axes, pulling stumps with mules, making usable lumber
either by hand or some kind of manual mill. Better men than I.
Sawdust gets EVERYWHERE! If your cooler is wet it clumps on there pretty good.
Takes a lot of room around a sawmill to make a place where you're not tripping over slabs, tools, levers, whatever.
It's messy. Bark falling off all around. Sawdust blowing in the wind.
Shims are handy to keep around although I'm not sure I was using them right.
Trees look a lot bigger than they actually are when you start trying to get them cut up. Thought I was going to get 8x8, but struggling
to get 6x6.
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So today I spent about 5 hours at it. Still hot as hell here so took lots of breaks.
I'm not sure what I was doing wrong, because now I'm learning about setting up the logs to cut, and I had a couple that
should have come out as needed, by my measurements and marking, but ended up being kind of a door wedge. Wider on one
end than the other.
I started looking at measuring the "pith" (is that the term?) and setting both ends at the same height using shims. It was info I
must have seen in a vid somewhere over the last weeks. Anyway, didn't work as planned. I ended up with a couple 6x5 1/2 somehow
I'll use those for stairs within my retaining wall area.
Slow work by yourself, especially moving logs with tongs. They kind of swing and do funny stuff when setting them on the deck. It'd be
much easier if there was someone around to manhandle them as you lower etc.
In the end - the mill is working well enough for me. Any cuts I mess up can be used elsewhere in my project.
I've also decided that I'm concentrating on making a clean top and bottom cut, the sides I can call "rustic look" in my wall. I've only got
so much time to get the first section of wall replaced and I need about 80 boards for that part. And lots more for the rest of the project
that's not time sensitive.
I used common sense to mark my cuts and finally got a full 6"x6" timber.
Then I was over heated and ran out of smokes. Tomorrow is another day.
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