Any woodworkers?

My Jet SFX14 is one year old. I’ve had a few times where it took 10-15 minutes to change a blade. This was a huge headache today! I use a bandsaw a lot, more than any other tool probably. This is my third one in 20 years.

 

My wife saw my anger and frustration and ordered two Timberwolf blades from woodcraft. Thanks wife!
I use a 1/8” blade 90% of the time. They are hard to find sometimes and they can be pricey. Paid $135 for these two today.

 

You need to make 5 reply in your intro thread before you have full site privileges. Just replay thanks, or whatever. It weeds out scammers and robots.

 

New arrival....

 

Built a hay feeder for my buddy that has pet goats. Left the truck for a couple of minutes and found this scene. Luckily everyone held their bowels while exploring the interior.

 

Thanks! There was a bug in the system, it only let me make one post! I think someone intervened and fixed it. It’s all good now.

 

Just knocked out some spoons for my mother-in-law. Not my usual work and my fingers hate me for it!

 

How do you do that? Wow!

 

YouTube videos, a sloyd, gouge, and hook knife! To cut the shape of the spoons (not the bowl), you’ll need a combo of either a bandsaw, hatchet, coping saw, and a sloyd and/or saw rasp. Seems like a ton of work, but it’s mindless and extremely therapeutic, and I’m a psychologist.

 

Still learning, I’ve got two complete sets of stems steamed and glued, but I’m still not convinced they are my final ones. Practicing shaping one for now, promptly ruined it and ordered a spokeshave instead of trying to make my block plane and chisels work….

current lessons I learned the hard way. When gluing up laminates, mark them so grain orientation matches, I managed to accidentally have them alternated across 3 pieces and my plane and chisels just gouged it where it changed.

don’t be so fancy with the wood type the first time you build something complicated and new. Currently steaming ash, which is what was recommended in the first place, but I wanted to try the pretty stuff.

min never going to have this fiberglassed by the time it freezes here. Haha.

 

@woodtickgreg I've got my mill and I've got my saw.. so let's talk about ripping chains.

The fella at the Stihl shop wasn't familiar with milling so he was confused about the ripping chains. I know you grind your own etc, but any advice on half skip, full skip etc would be super helpful to me.

The saw has a rollermatic bar on it.. do I need to swap that out too?

Thanks in advance!

 

Hopefully this appears to be correct on the thrust side.



This is as far back as I can set it on the Rollermatic bar...

 

Mount looks good. Nothing wrong with the roller bar, you can keep that. You can check with grandberg for ripping chains, or bailey's on line. When you first start out I would recommend using a commercially bought ripping chain until you get a feel for how the milling operation feels. Then you can move on to a custom ground half or full skip chain. Which one? I would try one of each to see how your saw works with them. I like to grind my chains to about 15 or 16 degrees. Milling chains are usually around 10 or 11 degrees. And standard chains are about 25 degrees.

 

Thank you!

Any suggestions for Stihl chains?

 

Well you don't have to run a stihl chain unless it's an odd size, and stihl does make those. Usually on your bar it will list the pitch, gage, and number of drive links, that's all you need to shop for a chain.
It might say something like 3/8 .050 72dl
If your going to grind your own chains a skip tooth ground to 15 degrees will do the job, not as slow as a full milling grind and not as aggressive as a standard 25 degree chain. You will need to sharpen your chains often. I sharpen by hand while I'm milling with a file and I carry a couple of spare chains with me in case I hit a nail or whatever might be hidden in a log.

 

Of course it's kinda buried on the bar.. this is the best photo I can get.

I'll wait to start grinding my own chains until I have more experience. For now, I'd like to have a couple of extra chains like you said and grow from there.

Again, appreciate you sharing your knowledge on this subject!

 

That's a 3/8 pitch, .063 gage, 114 drive links.
Look at the granberg milling chain to get you started.

 

Yup.. understood that.. thank you! Unfortunately for me, there's a 4 week lead time and a $50+ cost on these chains.

Stihl does make ripping chains but ordering one from them is more complicated it appears.

Here's what I mean by that...

 

Check with bailey's on the chain. They used to make them up per order.

 

Go with Baileys, I have bought ripping chain from them before.