I'm gonna experiment with using this bandsaw as a sawmill,
and for that I'm gonna need some special sawhorses.
Now I just need to get that big log on there.
Now I just need my big bandsaw and a dolly to push it
along this log.
For my summary experiment, I'm gonna remove the trunnions,
and try to move the blade guides down.
I now have 44 centimeters, or 17 1/2 inches between the guides.
The log is gonna be at the very edge of the sawhorses,
so I realize I had to add some counter-weights.
The log is secured. This 2 by 4 will guide
the bandsaw straight, and I added this thing here
so I wasn't gonna rub the paint off of it, and, I also added
this guard here, so that when the slab falls off,
it's not gonna hit the blade guides or the wheel.
So, I am quite nervous about this, because I don't know
if I'm gonna hit unexpected vibrations, so if I've got
the log held steady enough, or if the bandsaw is gonna jump.
Let's see what happens.
My casters aren't rolling entirely smoothly on the floor,
which makes it very difficult to get a slow
and consistent feed rate.
Something's sounding rough all of a sudden.
No problem up here.
I don't know. I don't know.
Maybe I'm just overly nervous.
I'm kind of afraid of that slab dropping on the saw when I get
to the end of the cut, so I'm just gonna clamp it on here,
it's quite a ways from the blade, so I'm not too worried
about pinching it.
Oh, this sucks, this part here is hitting on here.
Basically, this is sticking too far out, and, I thought
the saw would just cut it off as I went past,
but it sticks out so it even hits this part here.
Now what?
Ha, it does work.
Now I've just got to flip the log and cut the next side.
It does help that this log is not so heavy,
so I can still lift one side of it by hand.
Just to be on the safe side, I am screwing this on
just a little bit to keep it from sliding around.
It looks like I'm going at a pretty good speed here,
but this is actually 16 times playback.
With 3/4 of a horsepower, this saw is way under-powered.
I actually stalled the motor quite a few times.
Even with sweeping the floor occasionally, I still ended up
getting quite a bit of dirt build-up on the rollers,
and that made for a very uneven ride.
This is the last board I'll be able to cut off of this
like that, because I'm running out of support on the bottom,
and I even added this brace here to make sure
it's not gonna tip off.
I guess I got one more board off of that, but what's left now,
I might be able to re-saw some thinner boards off of it,
but not in sawmill mode.
Finally trimming this board, I just followed along
the curve of the wood instead of using the guide.
The log is all milled up and I cleaned up
all of that moist sawdust out of the bandsaw,
because that's not good for it.
And, this is ash. And this tree,
at some point in it's lifetime, it got pruned back
because the trunk had all kinds of branches coming off of it.
In fact, I think at the base it split into two,
and one of those got cut off.
Ash is a very nice wood, I like it very much to work with.
It's hard, and it mills really nice.