Went looking at furniture yesterday with the Mrs for the new Digs. 90% of it is MDF or Chipboard crap but at prices that would make you cry.
One thing we did see and, amazingly, both liked, were tables made from slabbed wood. Many we saw had " Living" edges". That's sales speil for the outer edge of the tree still in place and not squared off. These are solid, thick slabs of timber milled straight off the tree and either joined or one solid Piece.
They ranged in price from $4-7K. The single timber pieces being the most Exy.
I Cut some logs in half lengthways at my fathers to make outdoor seats and have always liked big timber. I had also only been looking at Chainsaw mills on ebay the night before thinking one may be good to have to go with the new saw I have just bought.
A mate lives about 20 Min from where we were going and I was talking to him earlier in the week . I was saying how the Mrs wants an indoor fireplace but we have no wood supply and it's too expensive to buy. He said you have a wood supply, I have all the timber you could want and as much as you care to come and cut and split. He said he had the loader and could pull it out as long as he could get to it and bring it up to the splitter for me. I thanked him for his generous offer but still really don't want a fire place, my fathers keeps me exhausted trying to make enough timber to feed his.
I really need to get an old wood heater somewhere and set up and test an oil conversion on the thing and perfect it so it's good for indoor use.
The offer of the timber and the price of the tables makes a Chainsaw mill VERY attractive. I have been watching YT vids and it looks simple enough. Looks being the operative word.
I was wondering if anyone has used one of these basic Mills and if they do produce Decent Timber and are practical enough in useage?
The saw I have bought is a powerful one with a 92CC engine but only a 24" Bar but I'd spend the Couple of hundred or whatever on getting a longer bar if Needed. I wouldn't mind joining different pieces together to get the table width I want and I'd like to possibly get something long for an outdoor table which shouldn't be a problem.
I built one many years ago out of Steel Coil packing pieces of timber and some heavy packing crate material and it's been fantastic. Weighs a couple of hundred Kilos and is solid as. Going to need a car trailer to take the thing to the new place. I was thinking maybe I could freshen this one up and cut some 1" Slabs as a new top for it. I was thinking maybe even different squares joined together might look good. Other alternative was to put a framework around it and pour a cement top for it and polish or stain the concrete.
For the legs, one table I saw looked really good with 1/2" x 4" steel just welded in a rectangle and Bolted to the deck. Simple, cheap and easy to build.
I also had the thought of making a forge and getting some Bolts and putting the old style 5 facet heads on them and then putting them on the corners of the table to give it a real olde world look. I could to the same with some rivet looks on the legs and maybe even belt out some arrow head type designs or twist some steel rod and weld that on for decoration.
The other thing I'd REALLY like to do is make some large timber slabs to sit the roid on. Shouldn't be hard to do something 8x8" or even 12x12" and that would really appeal to me. I nearly cry every time I see the YT vids where they get something beautifully squared up to about that size then they cut it down into a load of pissy little boards.
What the hell do they do in the US and Canada with all these damn boards? Here everything is 50x100mm or something like that for walls and structural . Only boards we have are in Chipboard or melamine.
I'm also thinking there could be a market for these larger pieces of timber because the only ones I have seen that size ( only to 8x8) are all that laminated crap.
First thing is cutting the slabs though so I'd like to get any feedback on and Difficulties on that. I have read a ripping chain works best so I'll get some of those as well.
