Chainsaw
Milling

Chainsaw Milling & Tree Surgery combined

Very often it is not possible to gain access with a portable sawmill or it is simply not viable becasue the tree being felled is not large enough for it to warrant a portable sawmill being brought in and set up. However there are occasions when a smaller tree with a straight trunk can be milled using a large chainsaw with a chainsaw planking attachment.

This is quite simply a large powerful chainsaw with some slight modifications allowing the addition of a planking attachment. The chainsaw planking attachment fits onto the bar of the chainsaw and effectively fixes the cutting chain at the required depth.

How it is done

To begin...The the wood to be milled is prepared to remove sections that may be wider than the mouth of the chainsaw planking attachment...

Now that the section of wood has a flat surface the process can be repeated over and over again.

The chainsaw planking attachement can be adjusted to guide the chainsaw to any depth below the flat surface, thus any thickness of wooden plank can be created.

The result is useable, beautiful timber. This example is the chainsaw planking of a dead walnut tree in South West London. It is a labour intensive operation but does yield good quality planks that could go onto be converted into furniture. In this case the family who owned the tree had a fine furniture maker as a friend who had already designed the table that this was to be made into.

This is only really an option when the tree is considered to be of high value or has particular personal significance to the owner, or perhaps really wants to do the right thing in converting their tree into something useable.

Generally chainsaw planking can add an extra day to a job and therefore increase the cost. However there is something very special about producing furniture out of wood from your own tree.

From time to time, with the tree owners permission, and when time and money allows, we do try salvage the odd tree that we have had to take down by planking it with a chainsaw. We season this in our wood barn and convert it into products once seasoned. See "Portable Sawmilling - The End Results"