it's pete from cheap homesteading I'm in the garage this morning and we're gonna do a
little bit of a unboxing when I bought my whole swarm of chainsaw
I ordered a Alaskan sawmill for it and they make very affordable Alaskan
sawmills I bought the 24 inch because I didn't want to spend too too much I
think it was like 80 bucks or 90 bucks or something so it's very very
affordable way deeper than if you actually purchased a Granberg or or
anything like that so I ordered it at the same time I never got around to
opening it I really hope all the parts are here
because it's been months now but what I'm gonna do is we're gonna unbox it and
we're gonna assemble it and get it ready so we can actually use it so let's go so
holes form up for the workingman tools and accessories they wrap this
thing up like crazy with tapes you can't even really see the label anymore but
they had a nice picture on there so we are gonna try to open this thing how do
you open
wow they really reshape this stuff up oh
so there you go there's instruction manual and you got some sort of toolkit
here you got a set of gloves and you got a chain saw wrench probably two fits all
the nuts on the actual Alaskan sawmill that's pretty good you know it's all me
to believe in them tracking and everything that is pretty pretty cool
okay let's start doing it let's set this over here though okay so what I think we
need to do is get the two vertical upgrade pieces which are this piece and
this piece they have all the increments stamped into the bar that's pretty nice
okay so right now we need these two pieces and I don't know if they're the
same they're the East aluminum pieces
now see they look the same they look identical okay so the way this looks
we're gonna lay this a would like you're gonna assemble it okay so that one will
be the back one and this one will be the front one so that will go on the far
side like this here so now we need to find these little u-bolts and these
wedges and it's in your package here
that's all that is the aluminum piece sits here the knot pull it through and I
think yeah looks like seven flat washers I don't see any flat washers so they
didn't pack the flat washers which isn't a huge deal I am gonna be loosing these
on and off the most so I don't want to wear into the aluminum so I'll try to
find four washers for it okay so we're going to throw this there
I'm just gonna do this by hand for now
very nice okay so we'll do the other side
so all this goes this way and this goes to the inside you're gonna get another
u-bolt and aluminum piece washers okay so we're gonna find the two side pieces
I think maybe I'll throw this bar in so I can hold that together this thing
actually looks pretty good and it seems reasonably well-made it's got aluminum
pieces for your actual guides it's all incremented here it looks pretty sturdy
for sure I don't know I have never seen a Granberg Alaskan sawmill but I can't
picture being much better than this so we're gonna start installing the side
pieces you get your carriage bolt and you slide in your trash and you get one
for the other side and slide it up here
we'll do the other side
two knots two small carriage bolts okay
so what is next there's a small piece that cross is here
which is this piece I mess this up I gotta loosen one of these you need a
carriage bolt in the center slide that one in the center we'll get another one
one there do the same over here one one thing they don't have is a step by step
they just have a parts breakdown and I mean it's reasonably simple so there
should be no reason you can't get it together
here's a carriage bolt here and a carriage out there now you get this
plate on the plate ress over here and there so we're gonna
just tighten this up by hand I don't know how good quality the grand bird
Alaskan sawmills are I can't picture them being much better quality than this
but the price is way way different I didn't price out a 24-inch Granberg
but my guess is probably gonna be close to 300 American even for a small one so
I mean that that's a lot of money and this thing here was less than a hundred
dollars so I can kind of justify purchasing this and to me it looks great
I'd love to actually compare it to a Granberg and see if there seems to be a
noticeable quality difference because to me I can't see it it looks pretty good
quality to me and it seems incredibly light like not cheap light but light
enough that you can carry around the bush and not have a heart attack or
something like that it seems to be a decent weight like that which is very
very little so I can easily see myself carrying this around okay so I got these
tighten up those tighten up so when I get my chainsaw I would I am
gonna have to adjust it to it because this is for 24 inch I think the biggest
part I got is 20 inch and you know what that is what I'll have to work with
I mean maybe another year I'll buy a bigger bar or whatever but for now I'm
just gonna try to cut a few boards give it a try you know see if I like doing it
and see how fast we can do it because I don't have endless amounts of time so
okay so we're gonna put this bar in the middle here somewhere
22 inches 22 it's somewhere there
tighten that up not up okay so that's really really awesome it seems getting
very sturdy now we only have four more bolts to go so what we're gonna do is
they're gonna stick these pull through and we are going to slide that over the
bolt and then we'll do it for this side and then we're gonna credit it okay I'm
not gonna tighten it up I'm gonna make sure it'll thread into the knot because
sometimes when people weld nuts I kind of distorts it and the thread isn't that
good so I just want to make sure that an electric thread in all the way oh we are
going to do the same to this side I'm gonna throw the bolts through
set that up there hey so this is basically what looks like assemble you
got two aluminum pieces that seemed pretty substantial really I don't see a
real problem with that they've got increments here in here that you can
easily see and adjust to they got nice track aluminum the pieces that aren't
aluminum or Chrome nicely like the upright pieces
seems like nice chrome has nice caps on the end I think it's it seems finished
very well my first thoughts on this thing is this thing's built pretty well
I don't see anything on it that would make me go okay that's cheap for what it
is you want it to be light so you can carry it around the bush so it is
definitely that but it seems engineered enough and sturdy with these aluminum
side pieces that I think this thing lasts a long time as long as I'm careful
with it anyways so I can't picture a Granberg being better quality than this
but I you know what maybe I should try to find someone that has one and we can
try to compare it but I am super happy with this I just need to find the time
to actually get it out there and use it because you know what I have a tendency
to start on something and then get a little distracted and then start on
something else and not finish the first thing so what I need to do is cut my
firewood first so I can actually try out the Alaskan sawmill or you'll just never
get anything done I need to get my firewood cut first before I start going
into craziness so that's about enough for today and you guys have a good