Cant Hooks, Levers, and manually moving big logs

[oldclaypaws]

I'm close to effecting Phase 2 of my 'cunning plan', and considering buying an Alaskan mill and a BIG chainsaw, either a Stihl 660 or 880. The intention is to mill timber on site myself close to where its lying, rather than selling it whole or having the higher costs and disruption of contractors processing it.

It'll enable me to fell or mill small numbers of the big oaks in my own time without having plant crashing through the understorey, cut the timber for my building from the windfallen oaks, and also eventually sell milled timber or finished products like garden furniture myself rather than whole butts to sawmills. I'm not in a hurry or short of time. Felling the big boys will be done by pros as required.

Part of this is researching the manual moving of big logs, particularly rolling them short distances to raise them a few inches off the ground for milling. I can see the use of a winch with a strop wrapped round a log will roll it quite nicely, and if I have another body, two of us with levers and Cant Hooks should manage it. Question is what Cant Hooks, bars, levers, & winches do others use and recommend- No cheating with mentions of cranes, tractors and wheeled toys ! I'm on a budget and looking to use elbow grease and hand tools.

[ballibeg]

I use the Timber Jack from here,

http://www.chainsawbars.co.uk/products/ ... equipment/

I can roll and lift clear of the ground with its feet to allow me to cut.

Rob who runs the website is a top bloke and he's a great chainsaw miller. Worth sounding out when looking at mills.

Dave

[oldclaypaws]

He seems to be the main man when it comes to bars, mills and chains. I spent today measuring oaks to work out what size of mill and bar I need (ideally 48"), and have looked at his site and videos extensively, I'll be crossing his palm with plastic shortly. The little 12v Granberg sharpener was also quite cute.

By a coincidence, I emailed him an hour ago asking about the Woodchuck dual Cant hook (same make as the Timber Jack) and whether it came with the optional 'foot', it looks an excellent bit of kit. Also quite like the logrite mega hook (sold via Orion Heating), which is a 78" Cant hook that can cope with logs up to 45", but a bit steep at £194- ouch.

[Dexter's Shed]

I have the woodchuck timber chuck, great bit of kit and well worth the £75 I paid for it

as for saving money, my log trolley/carpet trolley was only £15 from evil bay

[Wendelspanswick]

A different kind of chain mill, have you seen this?
http://item.mobileweb.ebay.co.uk/viewit ... 1056210442

[Wendelspanswick]

As an aside you don't need a 48" mill to log 48" butts, by the time you square up the butt, you will get away with a shorter bar.
A 48" bar is really scary, in the mill I worked in we used to get a guy in to halve the big butts before they could fit on the band mill. He had welded two bars together and made a chain up to suit.
On one very memorable occasion we had an enormous Elm butt in and we hired in a chap and his teenage son who had a 72" bar with a chainsaw power unit at either end.

[oldclaypaws]

The Norwood, Logosol and Alaskan are all variants on the same thing, but the best value and most versatile seems to be the Alaskan + Mini Mill+ a ladder. I have very large butts, I measured some today at 42", so I do need a big bar and mill, but take your point about squaring off, thats useful to consider and might bring me down to needing a 36" mill. Bar is likely to be a Sugihara 46"- always useful to have a bit spare rather than not enough.

[Bearwood]

Dammit! You qualified out the tractors.

I'd be interested to see how you get on. There are parts of my wood which the badgers have made impassible to four wheels, so milling in - situ would make for a better option. Not sure if I'd need to go huge with the size of the saw, but I'm interested in the discussion all the same

[oldclaypaws]

I'm happy for this thread to include mill discussions if the moderators will let it roll as its part of the same process, but please lets include a couple of mentions of log jiggling as per the title.

Part of my thinking is with a huge long log, say 36" wide and 15 feet long, you dont actually need to move it- you can mill it where it lies until you get down to the last few cuts, then when most of the weight is cut off as planks or beams, it'll be easier to raise it up with levers off the ground for the final cuts. This video is good at showing how the mini mill squares off the sides, meaning the first three cuts, top and sides need no movement of the mother log at all. You can just walk away with a plank under each arm.

http://www.youtube.com/embed/-zb2B-Ljag0

Anyone got any suggestions for long levers, what do they call them and where do you get them from- farm & country shops?

[ballibeg]

A long lever is a short lever with a long scaffold pipe slipped over!

Dave