How to Freehand Chainsaw Mill with a Stihl - 9 Useful Tips

thanks for the informative video. I first saw this method in The Gambia, West Africa and subsequently saw Advoko's video and it really is revolutionary, and I have bought a property with 1 ha of woods, so plenty of material for sawmilling. Together with a friend I milled logs on a traditional stationary chainsaw sawmill with the bar running perpendicular to the log. It was very slow and consumed a lot of fuel, so never going back to this.

And then there was the time I was driving a friend's car (and he was in it) and put windshield washer fluid in the antifreeze tube! Fortunately, we got it sorted, drove through a snowstorm, and still made it to our meeting on time (for which we were being paid!) Thanks for allowing us to follow your journey of discovery and wonder.

Just started learning about freehand chainsaw milling and I first learned it from the guy you were talking about. But I needed more information and I appreciate your two tutorials. And yes I did learn stuff by watching somebody else learn. Also the tips and tricks helped tremendously. Thank you so much

Like you I saw Advoko Makes and have been using his system for freehand saw milling. I do NOT sharpen my saw at 10 degrees as per ripping chains. Alexi also states that you do NOT have to modify your chain, but it does have to be sharpened evenly More than sharpened evenly is that the rakers are correctly set. A worn tooth and a new tooth properly sharp and with their rakers set will take about the same bite from the wood. The cutting cross-section of the tooth does not change significantly as the tooth is worn down - they look funny because there is not a lot of tooth left behind the edge, but it is the edge which does the work. GULLETS - as you sharpen your saw be sure to take a pass or 2 in the gullets, this is where the chip / shaving evacuation goes. The Shavings - the ones you showed in the vid actually seem a little long to me - I get them about half that length. When they are coming out about half the length of yours, the cut is happening faster and there is zero clogging up at the drive sprocket housing on the saw body. You regulate this with the angle of the cutting ... where those 3-5 teeth are hitting the wood. You want the last 1 - 3 inches of the bar and the bottom 90 degrees of the sprocket tip to be the cutting zone, CAUTION needs to be employed, you are working right on the edge of the kickback zone, as soon as you hit the tooth that is just above that midline on the sprocket tip and enter the TOP 900 degrees you are in Kickback zone - keep your top hand firmly on the handle....but not locked up, this hand has the greatest impact on the finish and evenness of your cut as this hand controls the rotation of the bar relative to horizontal while providing part of the pivot for the swinging the cutting plane. You need to hold enough to prevent unwanted movement and protection against kickback, but at the same time allow necessary movement in the plane of the cut ("swinging the bar" as Alexi calls it) Duty Cycle - As you indicated these saws, even the professional lines from Stihl and Husqvarna and others, are not intended to run at full throttle for an entire tank full of gas. A few minutes at most and then a cool down. I've been running the same saws for, in some cases, 40 years and for the most part they all run as if they were still new (I'm sure compression is off a little on the older ones, but they still fire up and run/cut like new) Fuel - If you are using the premixed fuel it should be spot on, if you are mixing you own use the highest octane you have at the pump ( I generally use the 93 or 94 Octane ) - the back of the 2 cycle oil mix states a lower octane than I use, but the higher the octane the more protection you have against detonation / knock and other undesirable side effects of high(er) compression and heat and high load. A higher octane can give you a little more difficulty starting a cold saw on a cold day so if you are in very cold climates, you might want to run the 89 once you start heading below 0 degrees F. If you are even unsure while mixing your fuel / oil err on the side of slightly more oil to fuel ... NEVER LESS oil to fuel. A slightly oil rich mix may smoke a little more but it will not cause the problems of ring scoring or overheating (due to running lean). If you have an older saw which still has the manual mixture (L and H jets on the side that you need a very small screwdriver to adjust) you want to run on the rich side of exactly right as opposed to the lean side - this adjustment is as much art as it is science (just right is 13:1 fuel to air stoichiometric (sp) ratio if I recall correctly, ideally you want to be say 16:1 - if you were adjusting this in an airplane you would have an exhaust gas temp gauge and you would adjust to 15 degrees F cooler than max to the rich side of the balance for power ... and we want power here .. so you find that max RPM on the Low speed jet and then back out just a little bit more as the RPM will come down just a little bit - again, it's an art as much as a science, what that best point sounds and feels like is different for every saw I've ever used For the high speed jet you are adjusting how it wants to run both as you squeeze the throttle to max - should advance smoothly, and how it runs at max RPM ... tricky as you do not generally want to run at max RPM unless you are in a cut so that you don't overspeed the saw or otherwise cause it damage ... but for just a second...spin it up and then let it down - don't hold it wide open throttle unloaded !!! ... you want it to get there and run smoothly, not smoke, or JUST a little smoke, but no skipping, popping, ugly drowning in its own fuel sounds etc ... then you take it to a log and make a cut and see how it runs at max rpm while under load and fine tune your adj....more art than science once again) If you have a newer saw with the automatic carburetors, or the really fancy fuel injected units !!, this is all an archaic practice used by us old guys. Good Luck! ps, I've used a Husqvarna electric saw to do this on a small log - it works, but same as a gas saw, you don't want to just squeeze it and go, it WILL heat up and shut itself down for thermal overload protection and the battery will not last as long on a charge - they too are not designed for a steady continuous high rate discharge ....but the professional battery saws will do the job and as they improve those, they will work on larger and larger logs.

If you are using a ripping chain and only have a few teeth engaged at a time, then there will be relatively low resistance on the chain and having the throttle wide open will result in very high revs. It would be like taking your car on the motorway and sitting in second gear. You'd be redlining the whole time. Take it a little slower and sit at part throttle so that you're in a sustainable rev range.

The hand milled planks are so lovely and rustic … great your friend was so generous by giving you all that wood …further projects ahead … that’ll keep you busy Luke 😀 🙏☘️😘

They made their tanks the same way in WWII. Beautiful engineering but highly delicate and prone to breaking if you didn´t use them just the right way. Glad you got it sorted!

2 stroke engines, arghhhhh. Bane of our lives when we did scooter repairs. The planks you mill are stunning. Can't wait to see the house you must be building with them!!!

Thanks for your help i learn something new i chainsaw for 10years now and i had always dust coming out.😇💟💟💟 love you

great explanation! i even watched the other video you mentioned a while ago, but adding your own points was really useful, great watch! thank you alot!

Before YouTube I was free hand cutting boards and timbers. After cooking my old wood boss from the 80's I learned that it needs some no load run and needs a few idle minutes. Fist I tried one pass to rip a board out. Made a dozen boards at 3" X 5" 16 footers. The saw seized up 400.00 later I started only sticking the tip in. Many boards later I still have my 3rd ever saw still running. Oh my first ever saw was Husqvarna and it would never start two days later I got my money back and bought that wood boss 21" bar from stihl never going to use another name brand.

Great looking planks there, thanks for all the tips too. Could be a business there in selling live edge slabs. I struggle to find really pretty wood for DIY projects...

Great video! I also tried freehand chainsaw milling after watching Advoco Makes on YouTube! Pretty cool stuff! We wound up using out first freehand log to use as a guide for a little clip on milling guide. I found cutting the cross piece from every second tooth really did help with the cutting speed while using a smaller saw as well...

Great video. Sorry to hear you have had some troubles. thanks for sharing your lessons.

now i know what you meant. My grandfather allwas told me to first read the manual when i get new things and i still tend to do that when i get a new toy. safed me some money th elong run. Glad your sorted again. See you next year ;-)

Here I am revisiting this video again. Just like it alot.

Advoko Rocks 😊

Appreciate your tips! We should learn from each other!

Nice video and editing.

Boards look great! Nice job! Your changing your method to letting off the throttle after running at higher rpm will make your saw last much longer. Milling is very rough on saws. (I recall that Advoko said he burned up his Stihl as well while milling. He even asked for chainsaw recommendations. Stihl, Husqvarna, Dolmar all make excellent saws. However, as you know, all saws require a break in period (10 tanks or so) and even after break in, “shouldn’t” be run wide open for longer than 10-15 seconds. Generally bigger models (100 or so cc like 3120xp, ms880 etc...) run at lower rpms, and are therefore recommended for milling. But are very expensive. Large Chinese saws are cheap, so sacrificing them to mill, and saving your good saws, is an option.)