I needed another project... Log arch - farm shop project.

[robinson46176]

I've been working on this one in my head for a while now but the time as come that I need it built.
What I'm building is very much like the one in the picture but heavier and with bigger wheels and hubs and length sized for 20' logs. It needs to be wide enough to easily straddle the sawmill. It's pretty simple really. I have an empty pallet ready to gather the components on to start building it. Some of the parts I have saved for years for it. The wheels, hubs, spindles and lower frame sections are from a scrapped 12' Kewanee farm wheel disk. I have heavy steel rectangular tube for the bulk of the frame and I already have 2 winches for it.

That is not my sawmill in the picture but my configuration is a bit similar. I'm moving my mill into a smallish garage about the size of that carport that has a garage door on one end and I need to add a little onto the back end for my longer bed (21') and add a garage door there. That arrangement then needs the log arch for log loading from the end.
I'll probably not move the mill before I cut this next batch of lumber but I also need the log arch to assist in getting the logs out of the woods without dragging them through the dirt and gravel (bad for blades) plus I have a rather pesky hill to deal with and the arch will be much safer than dragging logs. Once up the hill and back in civilization I can just back the log arch up the ramps of my old backhoe hauler and position the logs as needed. I have a 10,000# winch on that trailer that I can use if needed.

The lumber I am cutting is for the rehab house and is about 1600 board feet of sub-flooring, mostly cottonwood, probably cut 5/4 and lightly planed on both sides (Band-saw mill lumber normally doesn't need a lot of surfacing.). At least half of it (above the half basement) is going down on new engineered "I" beam type joist 16" OC which are of course much wider on top than just dimension lumber joist.
I need to get the sub-flooring cut and stickered in on the drying floor and get forced air moving through it so that it will be dried to a reasonable level by the time I am ready for it, probably this fall. The other half is over a crawl space and is in much better shape. There I may just sister onto the existing joist to double all of those then put down the new sub-flooring. I might even cut those from some maples I have.

Sawmill - Log arch.jpg (42.88 KiB) Viewed 2992 times

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[BuckeyeDennis]

I’m jealous! I have several nice ash logs that are going to waste. But even if I had the equipment to mill them, I still don’t have space to dry the lumber.

[robinson46176]

I’m jealous! I have several nice ash logs that are going to waste. But even if I had the equipment to mill them, I still don’t have space to dry the lumber.

I'm blessed with room to dry lumber. I have a lot of barn loft space where stuff will stay dry and dry fairly fast. I will need to check carefully to be sure support is adequate but with a sawmill additional support is easy. Our son has access to decent used utility poles about any time too.

My best locations for quick drying is four smallish unused steel grain bins with forced air. Since I will cut all lengths of logs including many down around 6' to 8' The round shape is not a handicap. Three of them are about 14' diameter and the 4th is 21'. The 3 smaller ones have steel perforated drying floors about 2' above the concrete floor. In the 3 warmer seasons they get quite warm inside and one about 30' from the mill I intend to paint the fully exposed south half black to make it even warmer. I won't use the high pressure grain drying fans (too expensive and too noisy ) but instead I will hang a common ceiling fan up in the center and just let it run 24-7. If I decide I need more air movement I will switch to squirrel-cage furnace blowers for drying.

It's been generally unpleasant weather-wise (or I'm just getting old) this spring (?) and now it is going to suddenly going to get nice... I'm going to be trying to get everything done at once but I'm no longer young enough to do that... I try to keep reminding myself to pace myself so I don't burn out the first week.


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