Home made chainsaw Lumber mill... that works!

[Bob]

About 2 decades ago I found myself Up in Shingletown on a small patch of land that had 17 years of over growth on it and a Bunch of tall pine trees. I worked for months to finally get that place and finally succedded, we even got it with no down and a few bucks back on closing, its probably one of the best realestate deals I've ever done <GRIN>
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Anyway I found myself in the need for LUMBER ! and sense I had 2 Homelite chainsaws of the same size
I decided that a chainsaw sawmill would be the ticket to getting me free lumber !
I started by looking at verious chainsaw attachments,guide bars and slides and then drew up plans on the computer and made sure everything would work ...first and then went out to the shed and made it.
 the most technical part of the whole thing was the attachment to the chainsaw bar... because it has to be very strong and not bend when clamped down real tight.
my unit has 2 clamps on it one by the tip of the bar and another by the motor...
Height of cut is adjustable to about 12" if I remember correctly and is accomplished by 4 thredded rods that are attached to the rollers.... the Rollers are thin wall pipe that I had on hand and have wheel barrow wheel bearings on each end of the metal tube (green) to act as the bearings so they roll real well.
 the Rollers are a set unit. and are attached to nuts that are used to adjust the height above the saw blade... so it can be adjusted to be a FLAT cut or an angled cut if desired....
at one time the thing was shinie and new looking but now its looking really rough ! LOL
(see pic)  I cut many a plank with that thing and have only one regret.... it needs a bigger saw!
at a cutting speed of 2" per minute max. its slow at best... and a bunch of work
I wound up making out "Entertainment center" for the TV and stereo unit from trees on the property
with that unit and I admit was very satisfying to complete the project heheheheh
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all in all it works... but it is slow. but if you have nothing else it is a real God-send !
... I learned early on that cutting the first cut on a Log was the most critical.... it has to be a good flat cut... so I made up a guide that clamped to the log and provided a straight platform for the rollers to roll on.... once the first cut was done  the guide was removed  and then the rollers rolled on the log itself....
 I probably cut up 3 or 4 large 10' logs with that thing, making 2"x12" x10' planks and those are handy boards even now as I still have some of them around here HAHAHAHAHAHA!
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before I made the chainsaw sawmill ( or Alaskan Mill) I made a tip guide that really worked great
it was a odd tool I had that I modified to fit the tip of the chainsaw bar to stop the cut at a certain depth....
 what I did is snap a chock line down the log and cut a shallow cut down the mark by hand... then with the initial cut as a guide I took off the tip guide and carefully finished the cut through the log... I did this many times to square off logs and make them useable for stuff as foundation blocks
stair steps and other big 8"x8" wood needs.... this method is far faster than the Bar type saw mill and only takes a short while to get the idea so you come out with straight sides....
I read where a guy made his entire Log house this way.... squared up each log by snapping chock lines , trimming off the outside round part , flopping the log on that flat side and snapping another line and continuing untill the log was a uniform square hunk of wood.
its allot of work but less work than cutting logs into 2"x12" planks  HAHAHAHAHAHA
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here's a pic of my Old Home made Chain-saw sawmill...
Bob.......