DIY Stump Tables. Easy Rustic Furniture for Your Homestead.

Plumbing has never been my thing.  And after getting shot with a taser during a training exercise I stay away from electrical work too.  But chainsaws are my thing, and building stuff with them- particularly rustic furniture.  When I have plumbing or electrical work that needs to be done I call someone that knows what they are doing and when they walk into my living room they always stop and ask “dude, where did you get that?”  I then explain to them the following story:

When I was a boy we had this huge tree in the backyard; it was three large red oak trees that grew out of one stump.  The stump was massive… about five feet wide by three feet deep.  A couple of years ago the trees died and we had to take them down.  I remember my friends and I used to play in and around that tree and I decided that I didn’t want those memories to die with it.  So I grabbed my trusty 660 that I usually use for lumber milling and I cut horizontal slabs out of the stump, each about three to four inches thick and I decided to make coffee tables out of them.  Each slab ended up being about five feet by three feet by three inches thick and weighed approximately 150 pounds.  One of the “coffee tables” that I made ended up instead as a TV stand in my living room!

These “stump” tables are a great DIY project if you own a chainsaw.  Even if you don’t own a chainsaw or know how to use one you could probably find a guy like me who would be more than happy to cut or sell you a slab of wood for your project.  Tables made out of stumps can be used for pretty much anything from coffee tables to end tables, night stands and sofa table.  Believe it or not they are actually really easy to build.

Start by cutting the stump, or have someone cut it, in three inch sections.  Then store the wood in an are where it can completely dry; this process may take a couple of months.  As the wood dries, particularly if it is a red oak, it may “check” or split.  So far I haven’t found an effective way to prevent cut stumps from checking but to me it just adds to the character.  You will notice that as the wood dries it will also become much lighter, making it a lot easier to work with.

Next, using a belt sander with coarse grit paper, begin sanding the stump.  As you are sanding you will need to change the paper from coarse to medium and then to fine.  Depending on how much of the saw marks and grooves you want left in the wood will determine how much sanding you will have to do.  I like to finish sanding with an orbital sander with fine sand paper; it seems to produce a better product.  After the sanding is complete make sure to blow or wipe off all of the wood dust.  Then, after the wood is clean you can begin the staining process.

There are a variety of methods of staining.  For our higher-end products we use a hand-stained finish using a two-wipe method.  Stain is wiped on with a rag and then immediately wiped off with a dry rag.  However, for stump tables I recommend just using a brush.  You will most likely need to apply two to three coats of stain depending on the type of the wood and how dry it is.  I’m not going to get too much into selecting stains but remember that oil based stains take longer to dry than water based one’s do but I do tend to prefer oil based stains.

After the staining is complete you can polyurethane the table if you like for a glossy finish.  The polyurethane will also take several coats.  After each coat is dry you will need to lightly sand it using a very fine sand paper to remove any small bubbles in the finish.

The last step is to add the legs.  When I built my first table I put the legs on before I sanded it but depending on what type of legs you decide to use you may want to wait until after you are done with the stain and poly.  I made the legs on mine out of a small diameter oak tree I cut down.  Using my chainsaw I cut the logs approximately seventeen inches long and I let them dry with the stump.  After they were completely dry I attached them using wood dowels and wood glue; I then sprayed the bark on them with a coat of poly.  However, on the stump table that I am currently building for sale I am going to be using hairpin legs instead.  The hairpin legs will cut down on weight and will add a vintage look to the piece.  But there are a lot of things you can use for legs on one of these tables; you can go to an antique store and find some old rusty looking rod-iron legs that would look great on you rustic table.  I’ve even seen legs from an old Singer sewing machine used for legs on a stump table.  So if you are going to be using metal legs instead of log legs I would recommend attaching the legs after you have finished working on the stump.

And that’s it.  Now you have a great table to enjoy drinking your coffee on while reading our blog posts!  As always, thanks for reading!

The BEST pancakes and waffles EVER!

I am a sucker for a big plate of fluffy pancakes dripping with maple syrup...thinking about getting up from typing this to go make some right now. But I will contain myself and share with you my 'go-to' recipe that can be used for either pancakes or waffles.

Every time I make these for company they leave with a recipe, they are that good.

It's something I started doing about a year ago, when we decided to simplify our life and our diet. If I can make something from scratch easily, I do. I won't lie, it's not as simple as adding water and shaking, but I do guarantee that you will be satisfied by knowing all of the ingredients in the recipe and that there are no preservatives!!

This morning the Lumberjack requested waffles instead of our usual Sunday morning pancakes, YUM!

This recipe is doubled so that we can have left overs to re-heat for tomorrow morning.

3 cups all purpose flour (I use unbleached, un-enriched)
7 teaspoons Baking powder
2 teaspoons sugar
1/8 teaspoon of salt
3 cups milk
2 eggs
6 teaspoons of melted butter
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Mix all dry ingredients together.
Add wet ingredients to dry, just make sure not to add the hot butter directly on the eggs (it could slightly cook them.)

This makes about 10-16 pancakes, depending on size and 7-10 waffles.  ENJOY!

Liz

A little about files.

Files.  Wow, what an interesting topic to write about.  You’re probably wondering if I have run out of material to write about already right?  Well if you are like me and you own, maintain and sharpen your own forestry tools (axes, hatchets and saw chains) then you probably know the value of a proper set of files.  Thus I have decided to write a real short post about them and a couple of things that I have learned along the way.

First- files only cut in one direction…sorry folks.  For those of us that have been running the file back and forth for years have been doing twice the work and cutting the life of the file in half.  Remember, files only cut in one direction and that’s forward.  So now when your sharpening or working metal, slide the file away from you and not back and forth.  Perhaps I will write a post about sharpening hatchets and axes but for know I am just writing about the files themselves.  Now once you have properly used that file a few times look at it.  See those metal shavings in between the cutting teeth on the file?  Those metal shavings that you are looking at are causing your file to slide across your work rather than sharpen it.  Do yourself a favor and buy a file card; you can purchase them cheaply at most of your common hardware stores in the file section.  A file card is a small rectangular wire brush that is used to clean the metal shavings from in between the teeth of the file.  You will notice that your file will cut much better after cleaning it with the file card.

Before you sharpen that saw chain or hatchet make sure you have the right file for the job.  Obviously if you are sharpening the cutters on a chain then you are probably going to be using a round file.  But you may not know that size of the chain pitch (distance between the drive links divided by two) determines the size of the file needed.  If you have purchased a new saw the chain pitch and required file size should be stated in the manual.  Similarly, the package that a new chain comes in will tell you the pitch and file size for the chain.  Also, the bar on the saw (under or near the clutch cover) will tell you what pitch, gauge and how many links the chain should have.  If you are going to be sharpening an axe or hatchet then you will need a flat bastard file.  No, it’s not called a “bastard” file because it doesn’t have a dad!  It’s called a bastard file because it’s a middle of the road file; the file is not coarse and it’s not fine- it is in between.  I think you get the point on knowing which file to use though.  I don’t want to get too far into the world of sharpening in this post.

Last, buy American.  Well… buy American, German, Swedish or Swiss!  Avoid buying garbage made elsewhere and your files should last you a lifetime.  That’s it.  Hope I didn’t bore you too bad.  But I believe that if you are cutting firewood for your homestead you will appreciate both having a good file set to sharpen your equipment and knowing how to use them efficiently.  A poorly maintained tool is an inefficient tool.  Again, thanks for reading.

Lumberjack.

Preparing to keep bees.

          

        Getting into beekeeping and deciding what you need to buy and what you don’t can make you dizzy.  There are so many different products for beginners and different opinions on how to start off that it is hard to know what is best for you and for the bees.  Originally I had planned to build my own top-bar hive as our first hive but I decided to save that project for another day and start off with a beginner’s bee kit.

There are basically two types of hives utilized by beekeepers from what I have read, and a third type that is much less common but simple to construct.  The most common hive, the one that most people think of when they think about keeping bees and the one I decided to purchase, is called a Langstroth Hive.  The Langstroth Hive consists of several wooden boxes or “supers” stacked on top of one another.  Each super contains wooden or plastic frames on which the queen lays her eggs called “brood” and the lower two supers are called brood boxes.  A queen excluder rests on top of the two brood boxes and separates them from the next super which is the honey super.  The queen excluder, as it’s name implies, allows the worker bees to pass into the honey super to store honey but it prevents the queen (who is larger than the worker bees) from entering, thus preventing her from laying eggs in the honey super.  This hive format allows for easy inspection of the hive and it makes it easier to harvest the honey.  The next type of hive is the top-bar hive; rather than utilizing stacked supers to hold the frames a top-bar design holds all of the frames along a single horizontal plane and the bees construct their hive horizontally rather than vertically.  Anyone with even basic carpentry skills and a table saw can construct a top bar hive relatively easy and cheaply.  The only drawback it seems is that it is not as easy to harvest the honey from this particular set up.  A “gum hive” is what I would call a mountain man’s hive or a pioneer hive.  A hollow section of a tree, about three feet long, is cut; a simple bottom board and top cover are attached to the hollow log and tree holes are drilled into it which serve as the entrances/exits to the hive.  This is probably the least convenient hive set up for harvesting honey but it would make a great hive for pollination purposes.

After a lot of research we decided to purchase a complete beginners kit produced by Dadant, rather than building a top-bar hive.  I’m not here to advertise any brand or say that one brand is better than another but I felt that the kit by Dadant was a better choice for us.  Unlike a lot of the other kits manufactured by other companies, the Dadant kit came with a completely assembled and painted Langstroth style hive.  I don’t mind putting things together myself or building them from scratch but I felt that my time reserved for beekeeping would be better spent initially on research rather than on building hives.  Eventually I will build a top-bar hive and possibly a “gum” hive made out of a hollow tree but that will be more of a project for me to do with my son rather than a project out of necessity. 

Dadant’s assembled starter kit came complete with two brood boxes with frames and foundation, one medium super or honey super with frames, a bottom board with an entrance reducer, inner and outer covers, a hive tool and brush, a queen excluder, an entrance reducer, gloves and veil, a smoker with fuel and a bee book.  I thought it was a pretty good deal for the money and I was satisfied with the quality when I received it.  

There are still a few more items that we need to purchase, including the bees, but the kit came with most everything for starting off.  We aren’t going to start beekeeping until the 2015 season but I wanted to order the kit ahead of time so I could start setting up our bee yard and build a custom table to support the hives.  If you are getting into beekeeping I would recommend this product or one similar to it from another company.  Thanks for reading and we plan to write more on beekeeping next year!

Lumberjack.

Why homestead?

So why homestead?  That’s the question we often hear when we talk about how we have chosen to live our lives.  In 2006 I got out of the Marine Corps and I set out to start a new life for myself- a simple one.  I had planned on purchasing a few acres or so, about five, and building a simple house on the property.  I also planned on growing crops and generating my own energy; at that time in my life I did’t know what the term homesteading meant- it wasn’t even in my vocabulary.  But things didn’t work out that way for me and things quickly became complicated as life often does.  Jobs, moving, bills and obligations quickly clouded my vision of the simple life. 

In 2007 I met my wife and, with both of us loving the outdoors, we hit it off and got married in 2009.  My homestead vision all but disappeared and we settled for the “American Dream” in suburbia.  We purchased a large house with an HOA that we really had no business buying even though our credit said we could and in 2012 our son Liam was born.  As our bills became more and more our fun outdoor trips became less and less.  My wife and I worked opposite shifts to make ends meet and we hardly got to see each other, much less enjoy life with each other.  To no fault of her own, my wife’s career came to an abrupt end and we came to the question “why are we doing this?”  “Why are we working so hard to live in a house that we can’t afford in an area that restricts us from doing what we really want to do?”  Plan A was to follow my wife’s career to wherever it took her but we were now looking at plan B or what we now call “plan bee.”

My wife and I are both mountain people at heart and so began the search for a simple life in the mountains.  We looked at property all across north Georgia for months until we found a house that was built in 1968 on seven acres which is where we are living now and it is where we are starting our homestead.  But I still haven’t answered your question- “so why homestead?”  I mean, I told you why we decided to move pretty much but not why we wanted to homestead.

Well let me first tell you some of the truths that I have come to find out about homesteading.  It isn’t so simple… at least not to start with.  Time is the biggest challenge for me- I work one hour away from where we live so a ten our work day is really a twelve hour day and if I work on weekends then I really don’t have much time at all.  Finances are also tricky.  Let’s face it- to homestead you need a lot of stuff which will talk about some other time in “10 things every homesteader needs.”  But you do need stuff.  Maybe not right away but you will need equipment  and supplies to work the land with.  Here are some of the things we have purchased so far: a trailer for my truck, a riding mower, pressure treated lumber and hardware, a complete beekeeping kit, fish to keep our pond clean, gutters for a rain water capturing system, and other miscellaneous items.  We already had chainsaws, lumber milling equipment and all of my tools from the years I spent in the high-rise construction industry which are all invaluable around here.        But if we didn’t have all of that stuff already it would have to be on the purchase list.  There is also the challenge of learning how to do everything; I’m not a farmer and my wife isn’t either.  Luckily my wife’s father knows a lot about the subject but there is still a lot to be learned.  The topic of beekeeping alone is exciting yet overwhelming and I don’t want to be a bee owner I want to be a beekeeper- there is a big difference between the two and a lot of research goes into it and every aspect of homesteading.

So it’s not so simple.  But that’s kind of the point; well part of it.  In todays society we have lost touch with the old ways of life and how we used to do things.  I really like Miranda Lambert’s new song “Automatic” because it just says it all.  But we really have lost touch with real life.  Smart phones, big screen TVs, microwave dinners… I could go on but I won’t.  A fun thing I like to do when I’m out is just watch people who are on their smart phones- texting, on the internet or just playing games with birds that have anger issues.  Whatever they are doing on their phones… just watch them.  Watch how oblivious they are to their surroundings.  How they ignore their children who are growing up right in front of them just so that they can update their status.  Seriously, what is wrong with us?  I don’t want to miss out on life like that and I find that the old way of doing things brings me back to being alive.  I love milling lumber and making furniture out of it.  It is raw and unique and it’s me.  It’s not someone else's product but it is mine and it costs me nothing but time and maybe some gas money for my saw.  And what’s more is I can’t wait to teach my son those things and spend time with him doing it.  I even plan to build a pioneer cabin with him in about five years from scratch.  I don’t care what he grows up to be so long as he is happy and healthy.  But while he is young I want to teach help him how to develop these skills; not only does it instill work ethic and pride in your work but it also builds character and background knowledge about how things are made, where they come from and just how many hours goes into a product.  Whenever I buy something, whether it be a product or a service, I think about how many hours of work it would take me to earn the money to pay for it.  A lot of times I then end up building it myself or doing the work myself because it saves me money and I know it was done right.  On a side note, if you enjoy doing things the old way check out the Fox Fire books.  I will blog about them later, but they are awesome books!

I like a challenge and that is half the reason why we choose to live this way, but there is the other half of knowing where your food is coming from.  Let’s do an experiment.  I want you to take a break from reading this and go to your pantry, fridge or kitchen.  Take something out of your pantry or fridge and read the ingredients.  Do you know what all that stuff is?  How many words are in the ingredients that you cannot pronounce?  Would you have to Google some of the words to know what they are?  Do any of them say GMO?  Well I can tell you what they are.  The are BAD they are POISON.  Everyday it seems like I hear about another person I know having cancer or some sort of extreme health problem.  I’m not saying that homesteading is going to prevent you from getting cancer or keep you from getting sick.  I do however 100% believe that it will significantly reduce your risk of those things.  You will know where your food came from, how it was grown, who grew it and that it was pesticide free because you grew it.  Plus once you get going you will spend a lot less at the grocery store.  We plan on growing most or all of our own fruits and veggies, producing our own honey (the bees will also pollinate the crops substantially increasing yield) and raise our own chickens for meat and eggs.  My wife enjoys canning so she will can up our winter stores and any excess that is not needed can be sold or given to family/friends or people in need.

So those are just a couple of the bigger reasons why we chose to homestead.  Of course there are a lot of other perks like living in the mountains, slowing life down a little and just enjoying the beauty of nature but for me the challenge of it and knowing where our food comes from are the biggest reasons.  We have just started this chapter in our lives so we are by no means experts on homesteading, farming or beekeeping but we would like to share with you some of our challenges, successes, failures and discoveries a long the way in hopes that it helps you out or at least provides entertainment.  I hope in some way this helps you decide to homestead or answer some of the questions you have about why people choose to live this way.  In a day of unpredictable economic times, government corruption and genetically modified food I am convinced that homesteading is they way to live.  If you do get into homesteading, I don’t want you to get caught up in what to buy or how much stuff you are going to need.  Those things will come with time.  If you are like me you will be in a hurry to get everything done in the first year but that is just not realistic and you will stress yourself out.  Just let things fall into place as time moves on.  Thanks for reading!

Lumberjack.

A few things about Chainsaws.

Hey, it's the LumberJack here.  I am passionate about chainsaws and tree work.  I wanted to share a little bit about them with all of you.

A single tool that has multiple uses is the smartest thing a person can buy and nothing could be truer when it comes to chainsaws.  Chainsaws are definitely not just limited to tree work and cross cutting applications.  Carving, lumber milling, log cabin building and timber faming are just a few more examples of what could be done with a chainsaw.  They even make kits that convert your chainsaw into a wench!

This is not a “how to guide” for chainsaws, nor it is a product review or about how to use a saw safely.  Safe chainsaw operation and how to choose a chainsaw that fits your particular needs are things that you are responsible for researching yourself.  I am simply writing about things that I have learned that may benefit you.  I am not claiming to be an expert on chainsaws and I often have to ask my good friend, who owns his own tree service company, for advice or input.

Like I said this is not about safe chainsaw operation but I would like to mention a couple of items that could save your life.  Working with a chainsaw can be dangerous, especially if you are not paying attention to what you are doing or if you loose focus even for a moment.  I never operate my saws without wearing steel-toe boots— trust me on this one.  Get yourself a descent pair of steel-toe boots.  They don’t have to be top dollar but I wouldn’t cheap out on them either.  Remember that you will be working in them, for many hours probably, day in and day out.  Not only will they protect you from the saw chain but they can also protect your feet from falling logs and tree equipment.  Another good purchase is a pair of chainsaw chaps.  The fabric strands inside of the materiel are designed to get caught up in the chain and jam the sprocket should the bar come in contact with your leg.  If you think you will just take your chances and not invest in a set then just do an internet search for injuries involving chainsaws and you will change your mind.  Last but not least is a helmet with a screen visor; most tree work helmets that come with the screen visors also have hearing protection attached to the helmet and it is another great investment.  I don’t always wear mine but I do always wear it when I’m felling a tree or when I’m milling logs into lumber (more about this later).  Another item that I keep with me is a military grade tourniquet (CAT tourniquet) that can be applied with one person for when I am by myself.  God forbid I have to use it but it is there in case the worst happens.  These accidents will happen fast and often when you least expect them to so protect yourself!

So my first “real” chainsaw was a Husqvarna 455 Rancher with an 18” bar and I still have the saw.  I bought a house with a lot of trees and I decided that I needed a good saw so I purchased the 455.  For those of you that don’t know, the top two chainsaw companies (Stihl and Husqvarna) both produce three grades of chainsaws: homeowner use, farm/ranch use, and professional use.  If you are only going to be using the saw about once or twice a year then you can probably squeak by with a homeowner saw.  However, I would recommend that you by farm grade saw if you are going to be using it more than that.  You will pay a little more but you will receive a much better product for the money and some of the well built farm grade saws have similar features that can be found on the professional ones.  The big difference between the farm grade saws and the professional ones is the crankcase.  The crankcase on the professional models will be made out of magnesium/metal where as the crankcase on the farm saws are plastic.  There are a few other differences when it comes to performance but I won’t get into that.  Obviously if you are going to be doing real serious, everyday work with your saw then you need a professional saw.

Going back to the Husqvarna 455, I decided that when I purchased it that I needed a farm grade saw because of the amount of trees that I had on my property and I new that I would be using the saw often.  There is no particular reason why I went with Husqvarna instead of Stihl; I just happened to like the features on the 455.  The first year/year and a half I was really surprised with how much I was using the saw.  I had a lot of firewood to buck (cross-cut) from a tree job that my friend and I did on my property; we took out two large trees and a third smaller one.  That year was also particularly stormy and a lot of trees came down as a result, adding to my workload.  A couple of people that I know requested for me to clear some of the downed trees on their property and I decided that it was time to upgrade to a professional saw.  The professional saw that I decided to go with was the Stihl MS 362 with a 20” bar.  Again, no particular reason why I chose one company over the other— the Stihl just happened to fit my needs better.

Before I purchased the 362, I didn’t know a whole lot about sharpening a saw chain.  I had bought some gimmicky file guides for my 455 but they never seemed to really work all that great and I often brought my chains into the saw shop to have them sharpened.  But most of the time when I got my chains back from the saw shop I noticed that the saw would not cut straight and that it would saw through the log at an angle.  A lot of people think that when a saw cuts at an angle it is because the bar is warped or bent.  This can be true but a lot of the times it is not the case.  A saw can cut crooked for a couple of reasons— if you look at a saw chain you will notice that the cutters alternate from left to right.  If the cutters on one side are sharpened or filed more than the cutters on the other side it can result in a slanted cut.  Also, if the rakers are not occasionally filed down PROPERLY it can result in the saw cutting at an angle.  The raker is the tooth that is directly in front of the cutter and it determines how fast the saw will cut.  If the rakers are not filed down enough the saw will not cut efficiently and it will only pull fine wood dust out of the cut.  Additionally, if the rakers are not filed down correctly the saw will cut at an angle.  If the rakers are filed down too far the saw will cut too aggressively and it can bind up the saw.  You don’t need to file the rakers down every time you sharpen the cutters but you do need to do it probably about every three times or so, using a raker file guide.  The raker file guide sits atop two cutters and allows you to file down the raker to the correct height.  It is important that you use a raker file guide for this and don’t do it free handed… you may file down too far or not enough.  So if your saw is cutting at an angle it might not be a problem with your bar— check the chain fist.

Like I said I didn’t know a whole lot about chain sharpening when I bought my 362 but I was determined to learn.  I was tired of the saw shop messing up my chains so I started doing some research.  I’m not going to go into the specifics of how to sharpen a chain but I have learned that I am better at doing it free handed than I am using a guide or gauge.  I am definitely not an expert at it though, and I am still getting better with it each time I sharpen.  On thing that I would like to point out is that you there are different chain pitches and you have to use the appropriate file size for each pitch.

I could definitely notice the difference in power and performance between my MS 362 and my 455.  Don’t get me wrong, the 455 is a great farm use saw but you really can’t compare the two as the MS 362 is a pro saw.  One note that I would like to touch on is the importance of having at least two saws.  If one saw goes down or gets pinched in a tree you will still have your other saw.  Thus, I still have my 455.

One day I was on YouTube looking at some chainsaw/tree work videos when I came across something that blew my mind— milling lumber with a chainsaw!  The guy in the video was milling out a log with a chainsaw mill.  Now I don’t know about you but being able to mill your own lumber is a huge deal to me.  If you are a homesteader or if you are in the rustic furniture business or cabin building business then a chainsaw mill is pretty much a must have item.  One could make the argument that you could just go to your local hardware store and buy some lumber.  That’s great and all for your “run of the mill” lumber like 2x4’s and such.  But with a chainsaw mill your imagination is the limit.  If you need a piece of lumber with odd dimensions or if you need a custom piece of lumber then you are not likely to find it at your box store.  I enjoy designing and building (and selling) rustic furniture so I decided to purchase a chainsaw mill after seeing this video.

After a lot of research I decided to purchase the Granberg 30” Alaskan Chainsaw Mill with their 9’ EZ guiderail system.  Now, chainsaw milling is the most demanding thing you can put a saw through— it is extremely hard on the saw.  If you are going to get into chainsaw milling you need AT LEAST a 70cc saw but I would personally recommend at least an 80cc saw.  My MS 362 is a 59cc saw so that wasn’t going to work in the mill and I had to buy a bigger saw.  I chose the Stihl MS 660 Magnum but I almost went with a large Husqvarna saw.  The MS 660 has a 91.6cc engine and can hold up to a 36” bar but I bought mine with a 28” bar.  One thing that is important to note here when you put your saw in the mill is that you loose a few inches.  You can’t put the mill bracket right on the sprocket nose because you will bind up the sprocket so you have to bring it in a couple of inches towards the power head.  Another thing to consider is the felling spikes— if you keep them on and you have large felling spikes on the saw, like the 660 has, then you will loose a couple of inches there as well.  In my case I decided to leave the felling spikes on the saw because I might use the saw for cross cutting as well and I don’t want to re-install the spikes in the field.  You might choose to do it different though.  So to give you an example, I have a 28” bar on my saw but I only mill a log that is 19” wide with the way I currently have it set up.  If I removed the felling spikes then I would be able to mill a log about 24” wide or so.

When you mill a log down the length of it then you are doing what is called “ripping” and you need a ripping chain.  The ripping chain is filed differently and it removes less material as it cuts.  You will notice that the saw dust that comes out of the saw is fine and it is not like the chunks of wood that you see during cross-cutting with a regular chain.  The cutters on a ripping chain are filled between 0-10 degrees (usually about 5 degrees) where as the cutters on a regular chain are filed at about 30 degrees.  While we are on the subject of chains I would like to talk about oil during milling.  To make sure that I don’t burn up my bar during milling I have turned up my oil pump all the way on my 660 so that it pumps out the maximum amount of oil onto the chain.  I have also since turned up the oil pumps all the way on my other two saws— it is cheaper to buy oil than it is to buy a new bar.  If your saw is oiling correctly it should be going through one tank of oil for every two tanks of gas.  However, if you turn the oiler all the way up then I would check the oil lever more often than that.  The last thing that you want to do is let that saw run dry!  While I am on the subject of oil I would like to touch on the subject of fuel real quick.  When it comes to your two-cycle oil, don’t cheap out.  Buy some good quality two-cycle oil so you don’t destroy your engine.  Sometimes the manufacturer will extend the warranty on your saw if you purchase two-cycle oil that is made by the manufacturer of the saw.  Also be sure to use ethanol free gas in your saw; ethanol is one of the worst things for a carbureted engine.  To find a gas station in your area that sells ethanol free gas simply type “ethanol free gas stations” into a search engine and it should pull up some websites that you can enter your zip code in.  If you live near a large lake, a lot of marinas sell ethanol free fuel and that is where I get mine.

So far I have milled red oak, maple and pine… I should be milling cedar soon if all goes well.  What I have found out may surprise you.  While it is easier to cross-cut though pine, it is actually easier to mill red oak.  I guess because of the sap.  All of the trees were approximately the same diameter so that doesn’t have anything to do with it.  One thing that you need to watch out for when you are milling red oak, which I have learned the hard way, is that oak is pretty bad when it comes to bowing, checking (splitting on the ends), cracking and twisting.  You really have to take care of the lumber after it is milled and let it dry properly.  To help prevent the oak from checking you can pain the ends of the lumber to prevent the wood from drying out to fast which results in checking.  Believe it or not, lumber doesn’t loose much moisture out of the grain that runs across the top or bottom of the board.  Most of the moisture that is lost is evaporated from the ends.  If the moisture escapes the wood too fast it will check, or split.  As with the red oak lumber that I milled I didn’t pain the end edges after I milled it and it checked pretty bad.  Some of the pieces were almost unusable but I was still able salvage a lot of it.  Next time I will definitely take the extra time to paint the ends.

Currently I am building a table and some benches out of the red oak lumber but you can build pretty much anything with the lumber that you mill yourself.  I have really enjoyed the chainsaw mill so far and it was well worth the investment.  I haven’t paid the equipment off yet but I will once I sell some of these things that I am building.

In writing about some of my experience with chainsaws I hope that I have helped you or perhaps answered some of your questions.  There certainly is a lot more to it than just what I have wrote here and these are just a few of the things that I thought were important— please keep in mind that his was not meant to be a detailed guide to chainsaws and how to use them.  I plan to update this periodically but if you have any questions please contact me.  With that said I can’t stress the importance of safe chainsaw operation enough and the importance of safety equipment.  Thanks for reading!

The future LumberJack is fascinated by daddy's chainsaw!

LumberJack.

Pleased to meet you.

Thank you for visiting us at Kieler Bee Homestead.  We, like a lot of people these days, were coming to the realization that the rat race was just not for us. We were living paycheck to paycheck working well over 40 hours a week each just to sleep in a house that was way too big for us anyway.  We became overwhelmed at the upkeep of a house that was empty most of the time and we were way too tired from working to do it ourselves. But because the economy is in a recession we didn't have the money to hire others to do the work we had to muster up all the strength we could to keep up. Why two young adults with only a dog decided to buy a 4 bedroom, 3 bath house just to sleep in is beyond me. But hey, you live and learn.(I learned that owning a big beautiful house was not important, sure it was nice to hear from family and friends "Wow, what a pretty house!" ....those words did not pan out to happiness, security, or feeling fulfilled.)
...So more of my story... I worked for a popular southern restaurant and was working toward owning my own store, which is plan A.  When gearing up for the big hairy interview process God answered a HUGE prayer... we got pregnant!!!! While over the moon excited, I was also nervous about having a new baby, being in a new city with a multi million dollar store in my hands. Well God likes to throw curve balls, because while working literally half my life to own a store, what I felt to be my true mission in life, the biggest way to make an impact on those around me while being an entrepreneur... little did I know that being a full time mommy and homesteader was my true calling and owning my own restaurant didn't worked out. Which broke my heart, but looking back on the past few months with the Rugrat, I couldn't be happier.
So on to Plan B, The LumberJack and I had discussed, in a dream like world, what if...what if owning a store didn't work out, what then?  Well we had said we wanted to homestead, keep bees, garden, mill trees and build furniture and above all live simply.
So on a mission to do just that we sold nearly everything, our 2,500sqft house in suburbia included. 
We were now a quest to find a house with a little bit of land that we could live in immediately (we were living with LumberJack's parents while we looked-just so happened to be through the holidays...did I mention the Rugrat had just turned ONE the week we moved!=STRESS!)
After 4 months and 2 failed offers on other houses, we found one!!!  It needs some updating, I'm good with that, but we have a house, some land, a pond, GREAT neighbors, and a chance to live life that makes us happy.  

I hope that is what we are all on a quest to do, find what makes us happy, hold on to it, keep it, cherish it, keep doing it, whatever it is, find it!  

We sold this beautiful house is suburbia....

And bought a house with a HUGE pasture with a pond and a meat smoke house...this is the view of the house from the far side of the field. Our own little piece of the world.