: I have had the great luck of gaining access to about 20 Port Orford (white)
: cedar trees. These trees died several years ago when the root rot was
: going around my home town area. Anyway my problem is cutting them up into
: slab for use. Do any of you know of an easy to build mill that I can use
: my chain saw on to plank these things? The biggest one is about 24 inches
: at the base, I will cut them to 20' lengths before sawing, shorter if
: needbe.

: Thanks for the help

http://www.right-tool.com/right-tool/almilatwor.html -- - - Pictures of the process.

http://www.righttool.com/granberg/begin.html - - - - replacement ripping chain and supplies

http://www.anton.no/images/til_site/Mill%20Instructions.pdf - - - this has a nicely illustrated article showing two types of milling attachments. I think you could build either. The question is whether you want to cut with the chain horizontal, or vertical. The dovetail-end rail is a nice idea which could be fabricated and used with either type of mill.

One of the vertical milling attachments is pictured below. It came from
http://www.granberg.com/lumber.html

This appears to be riding on the edge of a 2x4 and looks like it would be simpler to make. It appears to just clamp onto the chainbar, with no drilling.

An even simpler version is the beam machine, which is sold for $39 -- and since the company is in canada, that may be in canadian $, so in US values it would be even less. http://beammachine.com/ At that price it would be cheaper to buy than build.

Yahoo has a listing of several timbermaking attachmetns for chainsaws. You'll find more URLs here:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/milling/links

Check out the "lumber Maker" at harborfreight.com search for this model number:

41085-0AFA they ahve cut the price to $19.99! Again a vertical milling attachment which is guided by a 2x4. Very simple and cheap.

Hope this helps

PGJ