The chainsaw mills have their purpose. I have a home made band saw mill and a Alaska MK something or other chainsaw deal. Unless you have a tractor with a loader or some way to pick up and move good sized logs then you just take the chainsaw mill out to your log and saw into beams as big as you can handle. Then you can take them back and saw boards or whatever. I can saw pretty well with my Husqvarna 460 with a 24 inch bar and ripping chains but really stresses my Stihl 271. You really need a bigger saw to get any durability.
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Tom I started with the Alaskan chainsaw mill. In my case I has an old Stilh O36 i think it was big old boat anchor of a saw from the late 80s my uncle has bought new and I used from the time I started using a chain saw. That handled the mill ok but I ran into issues with the saw long story short a friend of mine wanted to trade and he is still using it today with some difference in how we work the issues don’t bother him. Anyway I bought the monster stihl to replace it the MS460 about the same weight but 20 years of better technology and power. Last year I added the MS261 to my collection as the MS460 just isn’t that much fun to saw fire wood with anymore. Actually if I am honest it was never fun but my real men use big saws mindset mellowed with age.
Anyway that said I found the chainsaw even very well setup not fun for cutting wood. Now growing up on a farm I an spoiled with the tractors but if I didn’t have one I would invest in a lodging arch and haul the logs to a real mill instead of use the chainsaw mill it is just way more work than I want to put into getting boards.
It was the perfect starting investment for me at the time though spent short money for it cut the lumber I needed for a few projects and got to see if sawing wood into lumber was something I wanted to do. Honestly if I still lived on a small lot under 10 acres and i wanted to get my own fire wood off it i would have a chainsaw mill and saw enough of the best logs to do my own wood working because it wouldn’t take much for that type of lumber demand. Being on the farm where I have buildings that need a lot of mantaince I bought the bandsaw mill because I knew it would pay for itself and I am sure it already has. So I agree both have their place but I I don’t really want to do the chainsaw mill again. If I had a one time demand for a saw mill say a log truck worth of lumber to saw off my lot maybe clearing for a building or something I would hire a portable bandsaw mill before I would cut it with a chainsaw my time would be worth more than paying someone to do it much faster.
Well my take on that when I was using my chainsaw was that I didn’t have a way to haul the 3 or 4 logs I wanted to saw to a mill so everything I salvaged was a board that I saved.
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I am having Saw envy Dan. I have long wanted a commercial grade saw like your big Stihl’s but couldn’t justify the cost. Most of my wood is on fairly steep hillsides. Takes a lot of effort just to get the firewood. A log arch wouldn’t do me any good and I could use the neighbors FEL but I’d probably roll the tractor over trying. I do have a winch and a few snatch blocks I manage to snake an occasional saw log down with. Pressure wash it so I don’t eat up my blades. Been a couple of years since I have sawn any lumber anyway. This is the carriage for my mill. I had the tracks mounted on a trailer but hooked a wheel moving and put a twist in the frame that I couldn’t straighten so I pulled it apart to re-do it a other things got ahead in the endless to-do list. This is my home made carriage made out of motorcycle wheels. When the engine is on it it’s just a 420 cc preditor. Works fine if you take your time. Certainly not a Wood Mizer. I want to set it back up with a fixed carriage so I can run it off wood gas. Just need to get double the amount of track.
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Well tom I would suggest you get a pasquali like mine for those hills but honestly while you couldn’t roll it over as the wheels are basically the highest point already it is all but impossible to get parts for them in north America now. But those 4wd Italian tractors where built for hillside orchards and are amazing machines for mini sliders. But yes step hills are definitely dangerous places for equipment. Fortunately while my hay fields are all hills nothing that makes things too dangerous only a couple of tricky spots on this farm.
I do like your homemade sawmill head it is basically the same design as my mill. I was worried about the rubber tires before I bought mine but it works great or atleast it seems that way to me. I will admit I have no other experience to compare it to.
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I heard that running the blade on tires takes the set out of the blades, but I ground the crown of the tire flat and take care to keep everything running true so that the cutting teeth are shifted a little forward of the flat andnot actually running on the rubber. Never seen a Pasquali. I’ll have to look that up. I actually do own a tractor. It’s a 1958 MF TO35. Another thing I bought and parked 15 years ago and it sits weathering away. It would probably run. Glow plugs were shot and they wanted 65 bucks a pop even then. Maybe I’ll do something with it some day. I wanted to keep it because even though a tractor like that isn’t worth much, if you go out and try and buy a four cylinder diesel like that it would be big bucks.
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That is the thread on my restoration of my pasquali. It has been a crazy long project.
That MF is a nice little tractor. Those have the perkins diesel IIRC and it is pretty much an indestructible motor. I bet @k_vanlooken could give you pointers to convert that to wood gas. It would be an interesting challenge as the motor is so well designed. I am thinking replace the injectors with plugs but picking up a ignition source would be tricky.
But I always liked those tractors just never had a need one would fill. My Allis Chalmers D17 does all the field work for me. My pasquali will take over some of the lighter duty work this comming summer now that it is back up and running.
Oh I have no idea about the tires and the set of the blades. I will have to see if I messed mine up when I was using the new blades. Next on my list of investments is a grinder and setter for my bandsaw. After using it some it seems like i will use the mill enough to make them pay for themselves over time.
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I haven’t resharpened or reset any blades yet. When I built the mill I bought a bunch of Wood Mizer blades. Can’t remember how many but I think they cost something like 360. I have a tooth setter I got from some guy in Tenn because he got an automated one. I have heard of people carefully tapping them with a hammer to reset them but I think that would take a degree of experience. I have seen on the web were people built blade sharpeners out of reworked miter saws.
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Tom I am torn on the bandsaw sharpener. I have looked at many of them and the price seems crazy high for most of them. But the unit looks just complex enough to be tricky and time consuming to design from scratch. I was seriously thinking about getting one of the chainsaw sharpeners and building a bandsaw sharpener from it. But then I found this unit.
I am thinking maybe I can stretch my budget that far and that the time I would save would be worth it. I honestly am saving money at the moment and making a priority list of repairs I need to spend it on before spending anything.
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I don’t think I will be buying any of those sharping machines 
I sharpen my blades much faster than the machine and don’t bother with taking the blade off the mill .
All that is needed is a small cordless drill , a grind stone , steady hand and a strong pair of reading glasses . I have learned to leave the gullett alone but take about .005 off the back side of the tooth.
I do have a tooth setter ( home made ) but after the blade has been sharpen 4-5 times I gain very little to reset thus haven’t used the setter in about 10 years .
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I would definitely need a better hand or far more practice to sharpen by hand the few times I tries where less then productive.
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I think you would need to do a lot of cutting to justify the 700 bucks. I build my mill to use a certain size Wood Mizer blade. I don’t know one brand from another but a guy from a homesteading site I use has cut a lot of thousands of board feet of lumber and He said to use them. Monkey see, monkey do. So a non-bimetal Wood Mizer blade costs between 15 and 20 bucks. I never really did any kind of production cutting, usually just a log at a time when I needed something, but cutting pressure washed Ash logs I have only dulled a couple blades. Most of my wood needs are planks and beams. Not boards so it’s hard to tell board feet. The point being I could go through a lot of new blades before I hit 700 bucks. If you had a way to debark those logs you would be able to go much farther between blade changes.
Not sure if I ever get to the point where I’ll sharpen a blade. A new blade is cheaper than a chain saw blade. From the Stihl dealer I’m paying 31 dollars a loop right now. I have a bench mounted chain sharpener that I use to retrue the cutters after I screw them up enough filing that I start cutting arcs, but I like putting on a new chain and cutting so much that I will buy probably way more than I should. I don’t smoke, drink or smoke or do drugs ANYMORE, so indulging in a new chain is just a luxury I afford myself.
To Wayne’s point. I think that things like filing chains or I imagine band saw blades is mostly a matter of some kind of muscle memory. You do it enough time and it becomes automatic as to where and how much. Same as playing a musical instrument. It’s just about much repetition. I’m pretty impressed at how you managed to lock those weird shaped logs into your mill and cut them so nicely. Good job.
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Thanks those logs gave me a hard time I plan on designing a little platform so I can better hold logs under 8 feet. Here there is some wood like the cherry that is worth the effort.
I buy the woodland pro chains online and save some money there.
https://www.baileysonline.com/selectors/chainsaw-chain-selector.html
But that said I definitely like my chain saw bench grinder. I can sharpen those chains as good as new my uncle claims a new chain doesn’t cut as well.
My ultimate goal is to cut the best logs from my firewood and sell the lumber or build something to sell out of it. So my goal is higher usage. At the moment my goal is to saw logs to fix my old falling down barns. I am amazed at how many boards I have used since I had them on hand here around the farm. It definitely changes your mind about doing something when you know the lumber is just labor.
So I get your point about the band saw cost vs the grinder. But I am cleaning twords getting one.
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Don’t get me wrong. I’m not advocating for any type of saw, but why aren’t circular saws more common on your side of the pond?
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For saw mills the band saws are cheaper and make a smaller cut wasting less of the log.
I have a friend who has an old worn our circular saw mill. It is a nice machine but the logs move past the stationary head which also make it twice as long for the same cut.
Mostly though I think the band saws are just cheaper.
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I can’t remember the last time I saw an ad for a BelSaw mill.
I know that Stihl stuff is a little overpriced Dan, but I really like the chains. They seem to hold an edge longer and they don’t stretch. I have a wall full of 20 inch Husky chains that stretched to much to tension by their third or fourth sharpening. I know the chain oiler on the Husky saw was not doing a good job. I bought new oil lines for it. Just haven’t taken the time to tear it down. It’s more of a job than it should be. One of these days I’m going to find some rivets and shorten those chains.
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Well I have used the woodland pro chains for about 20 cord a year for about 15 years was why I thought I would share the link. Stihl does sell a good chain I don’t know who makes theirs now and I do like the oil holes in the chains they do keep oil in the bar groove better.
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I do use those Woodland Pro ripping chains. Mostly because you can’t buy ripping chains in a store here or at least none I have found. No complaints with them and that was with the Husky with the less than optimum oiler.
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With band saws you can cut a real big log. If you use a circular you need an UFO. Imagine the blade gets lose. I used to do maintenance at Knauf where the made wood wool plate. Logs in, wool out. Circular saw was 2m 6 feet big. Nice frisbee. Like I said before, woodworking scares me.
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True. With my circular saw I’m limited to about 1 meter (40 inch) in diameter 
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Yes, saw that one before. Beautiful to see. And always, what if? What if your blade runs loose? Aiai. To much mass in it compared to a band saw. And with that bandsaw you can cut bigger diam.
Some things we just talked about over here is how to cut a log? Wich parts are ok, wich is for firewood and so on. That is real craftmanship you don’t see to much anymore.
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