Hud-Son Forest Equipment Warrior Portable Sawmill-Slabbing a large elm tree
I hope you enjoy this footage of my new sawmill. Follow me on instagram at reno_woodworks
Alright. Good morning or good afternoon. Depending on where your watching this. This elm tree came out of Carson City, Nevada which is about 30 minutes south of Reno where I live. On the large end we were just looking at is about 36 inches and the butt end here was about 42 inches so I think this is the heaviest tree I have lifted on my log arch trailer. The winch was working pretty hard. The log calculator online put this is 2800 pounds but I’m thinking it was more like 3,000 pounds judging by the way that my trailer reacted.
I didn’t have the trailer flat which was a set up fault of mine which caused the tree to swing over here a little bit but I ended up just putting that winch cable straight to that chain and I ended up getting it home just fine.
Overall I’m definitely getting more efficient and faster at picking these logs up with this trailer that is relatively new to me. I think I’ve hauled maybe five or six loads with this.
Here you see me dragging the log off the trailer. The chain is attached to a fixed tree in my yard. This has worked very well for me getting the logs off the trailer. In some of my other videos you actually see me rolling the log off over to the mill.
I took out all the footage of me trying to wrestle with this tree. I way under estimated my ability to move a 3000 pound tree by myself. So I ended up having to cut it in half and canter lever the half sections with my trailer over to the mill. I was kind of sad because I really wanted to take this tree all in one piece but I’m currently trying to fabricate a bracket that would basically be a rail that would go across the six by six and I can push large trees that I cannot roll over to the mill. So hopefully in the near future I’ll have that figured out.
When I took the last section off the tree it moved a little bit and its really hard to try and re center it to the orientation of the blade horizontally. So what I’m doing here is taking off another cut which ends up being one inch on one side and about two inches on the other that way I know I’m going to be flat on my next cut and I re-secure the tree with those wooden wedges you can see clamped down to the cross pieces there.
My son is helping me push here. He’s way behind the mill out of harms danger. He was more or less watching me but it was fun having him out there and see him getting interested in the process.
So while moving slabs by yourself is not easy for these little pieces I just use a dolly and than I have a flat cart for larger pieces. A little trick that I figured out down the way that you’ll see here is using a crowbar as your lifting point really helps center the stickers so you can basically look at both points of the tree without smashing your fingers trying to get them into place. Hopefully if you don’t already know this tip, this will help you out.
Just to recap this big log was once one and I had to cut it in two to get it on my mill. I’m thinking of new ideas on how to move logs over. I still want to chain them and drag them off. I’m thinking some kind of roller system would help me get these huge pieces over especially when heavy equipment really isnt an option for this.
I did get that other elm all stacked and stickered. I wanted to show you one product in closing, quvinex strapping and this in my opinion is better than steel. I was told that steel bleeds onto your wood. This is a nylon based material and you can get this stuff really tight and it basically will keep all these pieces nice/straight/tight while they are drying. Their starter kit comes with about 1600 feet of material. Maybe like 250 buckles and this rachator which I’ll show you how it works. Basically, put these pieces in and than you start this manual rachator and that is really tight. I’ve been really impressed with this product so far. If it reduces the amount I have to put through the router by just a little bit, it will be well worth its weight in gold. I can tell with the stacks that I’ve already done that are getting exposed to some sun that its keeping them nice and tight.
So hopefully you enjoyed the video!