Chainsaw Milled Bench

[Mal Paso]

This started as a 12" Cedar Tree that fell and crushed a storage cabinet in the yard. I had to cut it up so I got out the Alaskan Chainsaw Mill and made it into boards. The boards cupped a bit while curing and I don't have a plainer yet so I kept the design simple. The individual boards are joined, edge to edge, with Titebond glue and Biscuits using a Harbor Freight Biscuit tool. Top and bottom are glued and screwed with 3" wood screws. Castors allow it to be rolled into a corner when not needed. Boolit storage on the bottom shelves add weight. I just bought the Arbor Press for gun and mold work. I wanted the equipment permanently mounted but easy to roll into a corner when not needed.

One more off The List!

[Der Gebirgsjager]

Nice job. And that's justice for you...it crushed your cabinet and became one itself! Looks good.

[MrWolf]

Nice work and it smells good too [smilie=s:

[JWT]

Looks good. Congrats.

[RogerDat]

Looks nice, and looks functional too. You have to take some pride in taking the project from tree to cabinet.

[Dan Cash]

Looks nice. What did you do to stiffen the case side to side?

[Mal Paso]

Looks nice. What did you do to stiffen the case side to side?

There are 3 #20 Biscuits between each board in addition to glue. I used an inexpensive Harbor Freight Biscuit Slotting Tool. The Cedar boards are over an inch thick which overcomes the weakness of Cedar. There's no flex. It's like Unibody Design with no frame.

Each top, bottom or side panel is 2 or 3 pieces of wood that were first joined edge to edge on top of 2 sawhorses using clamps until the glue set. The back and sides were slotted and glued together with biscuits. Then the top and bottom were glued on with 7 3" screws each end. Not Fine Woodworking but...... Titebond II glue is stronger than the wood.

[Frank46]

We had a hurricane come through some years back. One of my old pecan trees and it was a big one went down. Most of the smaller branches and limbs broke when they hit the ground. Unfortunately the main body and larger limbs didn't break up. Chainsaw time. I asked around to some of the wood working shops if they wanted any pecan wood. All you gotta do is cut it up and take all you want. Not one nibble, except for one place that said if it was in board form they'd take it. And you all know how far that one went. On the big stuff had to do two cuts one on each side then steel wedges and a sledge. And then burn it. Love your bench. Nice work. Frank

[1_Ogre]

Nice job Mal. Good idea with the castors also, I use them on a lot of equipment that has to be moved around the shop

[Wayne Smith]

Couple of years ago we had a guy come out to cut down a couple of white oaks. Was supposed to take one where the patio would go and the small one of two. He was sick for six weeks. We came home one Friday and he had cut down the one where the patio would be and the big one! Over 70 years old. Cut the branches off and had two 13' logs. Called a portable sawmill, he backed that thing into my suburban back yard!

Dried it on my back porch for 18 months, he estimated 210 bd ft. (6/4 13' planks) Took it to a local lumber place to have it surfaced three sides and a straight edge. 436 bd ft, mostly 4/4 and some 5/4!

Wife is getting matching end tables for the living room - first time in 40 years of marriage. Tops are glued up - quarter sawn, and legs and stretchers will be made, then shelves.

[leeggen]

They use pecan wood for making wooden bowls and the big wooden spoons, forks and such.
I beleive there is a place in Georgia that did that type work.
Very useful cabnet that was built and should be very strong.
CD

[Mal Paso]

Very Cool Wayne! I'd like to see!
My first tree was a Redwood, over 6 feet in diameter after the swell of the butt. It went down one night in a storm. 25 years ago now, we milled it in place with a Stihl 084 and 6 foot Alaskan Mill. A 3" slab of burl, so heavy it would sink in water, is the desk I'm sitting at, came from one part of the tree. The bedroom shelves, you could pick up with 2 fingers, came from another part. The North side rings were tight like pages of a book. Hard to explain the feeling when you pull the slab you've just cut to reveal grain no one has seen before.

[KenH]

Well, that's a good job done there. I had to look up "Alaskan Chainsaw Mill" - that's slick! I remember seeing folks in Guatemala cutting planks with a chain saw, but they didn't have anything like that - just free handed the cutting. The planks were "planks", but not very even. Good bit of work to run them thru my small desktop 12" planer.

Ken H.

[Garyshome]

Cedar is a nice looking wood, maybe a little soft though. What type of finish are you going to use?

[BigEyeBob]

good job , handy bench and portable to boot.

[juzme]

Mal, that's a really good looking piece of work.
You other guys, when you've got dead fall just call Mal if you don't want to work it.;-)

[Col4570]

http://i1052.photobucket.com/albums/s452/livebattery/10GFlintlockShotgun003.jpg (http://s1052.photobucket.com/user/livebattery/media/10GFlintlockShotgun003.jpg.html)
This was a branch from a Neighbours Pear Tree that split from the Main Tree and had to be cut off.He gave it to me and I kept it under my Bench for about 3 years. I had a pair of Breach loading 10 Gauge barrels that I converted to muzzle loading by Sleeving the Chambers and making Plugs. I eventualy made parts and bought some castings for the Locks.That piece of Pearwood turned out quite hard to work but the results where worth it.I got the barrels Proofed at the Birmingham Gun Barrel Proof house.

[Col4570]

http://i1052.photobucket.com/albums/s452/livebattery/10GFlintlockShotgun008.jpg (http://s1052.photobucket.com/user/livebattery/media/10GFlintlockShotgun008.jpg.html)
Another View.The Top Tang is a piece of Angle Steel cut and Filed.I must have had energy to spare those days.

[Der Gebirgsjager]

Nice project, Col.

[castalott]

Well Done, Both of you, well Done

[Col4570]

You have to admire the tenacity,to cut planks from a Tree Trunk and finish the cabinet to such a professional Standard,craftsmanship at its best.

[deepwater]

Very nice job, and the equipment will not get moth holes in it!

You may consider taking the center portion of the top boards that are cupped off with a belt sander. I had a similar situation and round items tended to roll off. It was very frustrating and I lost the smaller items. Please do not let this comment detract from the great cabinet you crafted literally from scratch, from tree to boards to furniture.

deepwater

[OS OK]

Very Cool Wayne! I'd like to see!
My first tree was a Redwood, over 6 feet in diameter after the swell of the butt. It went down one night in a storm. 25 years ago now, we milled it in place with a Stihl 084 and 6 foot Alaskan Mill. A 3" slab of burl, so heavy it would sink in water, is the desk I'm sitting at, came from one part of the tree. The bedroom shelves, you could pick up with 2 fingers, came from another part. The North side rings were tight like pages of a book. Hard to explain the feeling when you pull the slab you've just cut to reveal grain no one has seen before.

I live here in 'Gold Country' and have had to deal with old growth that has been blown over, one of being 250 ft. tall, blocked my stream and access to the top of the hill road…unbelievable. Took weeks to clean that mess up and never did do anything with the stump that stood almost 10 feet high with 1/3 more still in the hole it tipped out of.

Anyway, bottom line…I looked and wished that the tree rings could somehow be manipulated into telling the story of that year here in gold country. They would have told me all about the early miners it witnessed putting two different mines on the property along with the miners that worked that creek. One by one as you insert a probe into that particular ring it would tell that years events. Some rings fat and sassy, some rings thin and having a hard time in drought...

Ya think that there is a iPhone app. for that yet?

[MaryB]

Those biscuit joiners are slick. I used one to build my desk.