Milling lumber on the super cheap! The Alaskan Chainsaw Mill

So a few months ago I bought an Alaskan Chainsaw mill to start milling up some of the smaller pieces of lumber I might want to use in my projects.  The mill clamps directly onto the bar of the chainsaw and guides you as you move down the log lengthwise, and it keeps each new cut surface straight and parallel to the previous cut surface.  They are nice but not very fast so I have been putting off using it, but over the weekend I finally got the time and nerve to give it a try.  My first cuts will dissect the sugar maple someone set out for free in Hatfield a few months back that I was lucky enough to pick up.  The wood has lots of black spalting marks on the end so I hope that the inside is pretty nice as well.  Spalted wood is wood that has been infested by some sort of fungus and the fungus creates unusual patterns in the wood that can be very beautiful.

The first thing I needed to do was create a flat reference surface on the log that could guide the first cut into the log.  I found a nice piece of pressure treated that did the trick so I nailed it down, set the mill to a depth that would clear the nails I just drove in, sharpened my chain and got to it.

After a few minutes I was through my first cut so I shut down the saw and took a look at wood to see if it was as nice as I thought, and if i was going to make a second pass or just turn it into fire wood.  As you can see from the photo it was rather nice, in fact it was even nicer than i expected! so I fired up the saw and kept cutting.

After 4 more passes I had the log milled and laying on the ground for inspection.  It looks great and I stacked and stickered them at the shop to let them dry.  I started in on some of the bigger logs in the pile after this first one was done.  Unfortunately they did not have quite the same character, but were still nice enough to warrant milling.  I milled it all to a fat 1 inch, more like 1 1/4 inch, and after they dry I might resaw them and make bookmatched panels for cabinet doors or just plane them down into some really great cutting boards.  Either way the the Alaskan Chainsaw mill proved worthwhile and I hope to get some time to mill up the rest of the stack soon.