Bandsaw Jigs Session 2: Logs to Lumber

Here's one of my favorite ways to take advantage of a bandsaw, and that is, turn that into a little sawmill so that we can cut logs into usable pieces of lumber. This is a piece of Walnut that was given to me and we'll talk some more about the log, but bottom line what we can do is run this through the bandsaw making multiple cuts to get planks out of it, to get ball blanks out of it, lots of different things we can use this for. Why would I bother? A couple of reasons. One is, let's say a tree goes down on your property and it's a tree that's always been there as long as you own the house. Wouldn't it be cool to get some material out of that tree to build stuff for people in the family who are familiar with that tree being on your property. Another good reason is material that you can't otherwise buy. Up here in Wisconsin there's a lot of box elder. It's pretty cool looking wood, it's great for bowls. You can't buy it commercially from a hardwood supplier, but if there's a box elder tree around, I can take that tree, take a log from that tree, and cut it into material I can use. Now let's talk about this particular one, this is a Walnut log. It was cut quite a while ago, so it's bone dry. Normally what I do is I cut the log dripping wet and you can see from this log why I do. See all the cracks and the checks and before I started here we did cut about six inches off each end of this because it was cracked so badly. So the problem with letting it sit until it dries is you're not gonna get as much usable lumber and it's harder for the bandsaw to go through. Green wood, wet wood, is easier to cut than dry wood. So most circumstances I have the log while it's dripping wet green and I cut it as soon as I can. This is an unusual case, it was given to me by a guy I know out in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, when I was teaching out there. And so kind of because of that provenance I want to cut it up, I want to use it for something, but like I said, normally I'm cutting wet stuff, not dry stuff. Now we have a problem. This is rolly and poley. So if I simply take this log to the bandsaw there's a really good chance that as I'm cutting it's gonna pitch just a little bit. And if it pitches enough, if it rolls enough while I'm cutting it, it's unsafe for you and it's possible you end up with kind of an S shaped bandsaw cut and the blade will get jammed in there And there's no good way out of that predicament. So we need something that's gonna stabilize this and prevent this, prevent that rolling. And this little outrigger is the way to go. Very simple, 90 degrees between face and bottom, some gussets on here that help reinforce it and hold it at 90 degrees. And then have a look there, we've got holes in it. And the holes are sure that we can run lag screws or some heavy-duty screw through the jig and into our log. And that's what's gonna bind the two together. We only needed for our first cut in order to stabilize it and prevent it from rolling. Once we have a flat face you'll see what happens next. So one of the things I want to do is just kind of check the log and see how does it want to be? Let's let gravity be our friend. So as I let this kind of settle down it wants to sit just like that. So it makes sense to fashion the jig in that position rather than kind of force it up on top of that egg shape and fasten it there, you'll be fighting the log just a little bit more. Not to say that you can't do that if you absolutely want to. What happens sometimes with these is that there's a branch or some other feature and I really want to highlight that, I want to cut through it. So sometimes we do end up cocking the log up into a position that it doesn't naturally want to sit in. The other thing that would be nice to know is we don't want to mess up our bandsaw blade so it's a great idea to take a metal detector and run that over the log. So that just now turned it on. Here's one of the screws that we'll use for fastening. And just run that over the log and make sure there's nothing in there. Especially, I think that read the staple that's holding the jig together, there we go. Especially if it's a log that's from somebody's backyard. 'Cause in backyards, you know how that goes, people put up a clothes line, they put a nail in a tree, they build a tree house, whatever. So you want to be really careful about those logs. All right, here's where we're at. It wants to sit in that position and I'm okay with that. I'm gonna fasten it to our jig using just some decking screws. We don't have to pre drill for these. Now don't be worried about driving these screws in from the outside, because there's a certain amount of slab wood, some material on the outside, we're gonna lose no matter what. What a big difference there with that outrigger on to prevent that log from being able to roll. Step number one in the process is a free hand cut down the length of the log. But we need to know where we're going to cut, we gotta have a line. So here's how I do that. If you look right there, that's the pith, the center of this bullseye here is the original sapling from which this tree grew. I use that as a starting point. And what I'll do is look down from the top and I wanna align with the pith and I'm gonna with my utility knife just put a little bit of a cut there and that'll make sense in a second. Now on the opposite end I'm gonna do the same thing. I'm gonna come down here and I'm gonna align with the pith. The reason for the little dig, the reason for the little cut in the log is 'cause I'm going to do this with a snap line. So a one man show, I can lock the lineup in that cut, bring it to the other own, line it up with a pith, and snap. I've tried a couple different approaches here for getting lines on these things. Felt tip markers and a straight edge and really the chalk line works the best, I'm gonna redo just the end of it here 'cause it's a little wavy, the log is, and I can't quite see my line. That's better. All right, next step, I'm gonna make sure that the upper guide on my bandsaw's high enough to accept the log and then we'll be ready for cut number one. We're ready to cut, this is gonna be cool, I've got the height of my upper guide set. I've also added an out feed table behind the bandsaw so when I'm finishing up the cut stuff's not falling off the end of the earth here. And we've got a good aggressive resaw blade on there. Four teeth per inch, wide blade, so it's capable of making this cut. And I think with that, we're ready to go. Remember, this first cut is basically free hand. We're gonna freehand follow that snap line. One of the things I love about doing this is when that log opens up and you can see what the grain looks like inside, that is very cool. This is some really neat walnut. One of the things that's interesting about walnut in particular is air dried walnut has a different color than kiln dried walnut. This is what we see with air dried, a little bit more pinkish hue to it, it's pretty neat material. So I digress, just a little bit from logs to lumber there. Next thing we need to do is another cut 'cause we're not quite ready to make planks yet. I'm gonna set this one aside. Now, where we'll go with this is we're gonna throw our conventional resaw fence on the saw and put that cut face up against the fence and start cutting material. Well, if I do, I still got this rolling problem because we have a half round. What's gonna make life easier for us is we just need a flat across the bottom here and we're gonna do that the exact same way which is snap a line, free hand cut, and we'll use that as a shoulder to help keep this stable. Now we can lower our upper guide quite a bit. That'll make it a lot easier and safer for our next cuts. So here's what I'm gonna do next, I'm gonna grab my bandsaw fence, I'm gonna do a drift compensation on it just like you saw earlier with our miter gauge resaw fence. Get that fence all set and then we'll come back and have a look at what it takes in order to start cutting planks. You ready for this part? Gonna be really cool. There's our one inch plank. Now bookmatch, in the world of bookmatch. There we go between these two pieces that grain's perfect mirror image. Now think about what's gonna happen here. I'm gonna continue to make my cuts so as I do this and I take off another piece then I have another bookmatch, and I have another bookmatch. This is called sequence cutting of my parts. Now we can actually take it a step further and if you can use the material this way, so they came apart like this, and if I fold them in this direction, we've got a butt end match on these two where it's still a mirror image from here to here. So it's another cool thing about doing your own logs to lumber is that you can keep track of these parts and use them accordingly in your project. Now here's how we got here. I did drift compensation on the fence, figured out where the fence had to be. Then set the distance from the fence to the blade based on the thickness of material I wanted to produce. Remember, especially when you're cutting green wood, if you want three quarter inch stock to work with you're going to cut it at one inch or more here. 'Cause a couple of things are gonna happen, it's gonna shrink a little bit as it dries so you're gonna lose some thickness. And then when you're ready to use it you have to get it flat and straight. And so we're going to take some more material off to make that happen. So be sure you're over cutting it here. If the end product is going to be veneer we're not gonna cut veneer at this stage when the wood is wet, we're gonna do the veneer after the wood has the opportunity to dry. So logs to lumber it's a pretty simple jig that we require for this but make sure you get your setup right, good blade selection. More careful you are in that first free hand cut the more usable lumber you'll be able to get out of your log because you'll have a nice straight face to go against this fence. Give it a try, it's a lot of fun, great way to get material you couldn't otherwise get. Our logs to lumber carriage is really easy to build. It's a good idea to make this one out of plywood rather than an MDF or a particle board product because of the stress that it's gonna go through as you're handling a heavy log. Now, dimensionally let's talk about this. The one I'm gonna put together for you in a second here is 24 inches long. I've found that working by myself I can handle logs up to about 12 inches in diameter, 36 inches long on my bandsaw, and that's of course because I have a capacity in excess of 12 inches of height thickness. So if you're gonna work with smaller stuff you certainly don't need a 36 inch long jig but if you are gonna work with that longer material, make your carriage longer. I've got more than one of these and I use the short one for short logs, the long one for long logs. I just use whichever jig is gonna work with the material at hand. For our jig we're gonna put together now working with three quarter inch AC plywood, home center stuff, nothing special about it. Got two components here, we've got a vertical and a horizontal. Plus we're gonna add gussets in there to help keep everything nice and rigid. Vertical piece is eight inches wide by 24 inches long. My horizontal piece is six inches wide, 24 inches long. Dimensions are in the PDF that comes with the class. Before we put everything together we need holes for the lag screws to go through so I've got those laid out. They're four inches in from the end. We're gonna drill quarter inch holes. Now for spacing on this, like I said, four inches in from the end, I'm four inches to this one. So I'm about centered on my board. Inch and a half down, inch and a half down. That spacing is not critical and in all likelihood what you're gonna find as you use the jig is you're gonna go back and add holes. And the reason you're gonna end up adding holes is because as you work with different logs you might find that right where you want to drive a lag screw there's a bump in the log and you're not gonna get a good bite from the lag screw there. So you might end up with holes over here or up here, just go ahead and pepper that vertical with holes if you need to to make sure that the log is nice and secure. Now this part's getting pretty straight forward. I've already gotten marks on here. And that's gonna indicate where our gusset goes. Those are an inch and a half in from the edge from the end. And I've already got my squaring lines on there. All right, gotta get organized here, there we go. Glue, grab, and screw. Now, our right angle pieces are gonna go in there. Not imperative that we cut the back corner off but it makes it a little bit easier to hold on to 'cause we don't have a sharp corner out there. I did that on the miter saw. Getting on my square lines that I can see from this angle. Well, I think you can see how this is coming together, I'll get this gusset screwed in place. Then I'm gonna do the same thing on the other end, that's gonna take care of the construction of our logs to lumber jig. And like I said, remember that don't be shy about adding additional holes in the body of the vertical. Because we want to make sure you got enough holes in there to keep that log nice and secure. That takes care of putting together our logs to lumber jig.