My house is situated in front of a forest of cedar trees. In the past, I have been able to use the blank cutter from SteeBar to cut blanks from sections of log, but they are expensive, dull quickly, and have been told they are out of production. I've still got a huge pile of the logs and want to make more blanks. What is a good way to cut round logs into square blanks? I've seen to bandsaw jig found
here and don't see how it would help (maybe I just don't get it).
Any thoughts?
Cutting logs into pen blanks is a little too vague as you don't tell us what diameter and length those logs are, the correct approach will depend considerably of its size.
Considering that they aren't more than 10" round, I would cut them about 11" to 12" length (this will give 2 pen blanks in length) after cutting any old timber/cracks from the exposed ends. This length is ideal to handle with a chainsaw or bandsaw. If you are not confident in slicing the log first in half on the bandsaw, (with a jig or without, even tough a proper made jig is a lot safer and more accurate), use the chainsaw to slice the log (in length) into 2 halves then, and with a flat(ish) surface to work with, rip each half in half again, you then van start to slice 21mm or so boards from the quarters.
Slicing a round log with a chainsaw can be difficult and dangerous, you should fix the log into something, like a vice or clamps to secure the log while cutting. If you have lots of logs to do and you prefer to do most of the slicing with the chainsaw, you should make/buy yourself a proper log vice, if you can make things,
this is the one I invented a few years back and have been helping hundreds of people with this task, saving them, their toes or hands...!
And if you have access to wood logs big enough to make bowls and things like that and you want to keep some blanks for later (and drying at the same time), this PDF file contains some of the best techniques to tackle a log into any sort of cut, depending on its final use...!
Enjoy
Cheers
George
