Milling a Curved Log

Ran across this post on another thread:

Caleb Larson wrote:I run a brand X swing blade mill.
http://www.brandxsawmills.com/

I would be happy to answer any questions anyone might have about swing blade sawmills.

Here is a pic of a curved log I cut for a timber frame truss.

Caleb, if you're still out there, can you walk me through how you follow that curve?  I'm trying to accomplish something similar for a project here.  

With a bandsaw style sawmill, you just hack off the top (as in the photo).  Then you likely flip it over to hack off the other curvy slab and you have your beam with two surfaced sides and a rough top and bottom.

With a swing blade you just chunk your way across the top (as oriented in the picture) making awkward tapered slab chunks.  Once you work your way across that surface, it looks like the picture.  Then you flip it over and repeat.

I don't know if there's a sawmill that would easily let you mill the curved sides without turning them straight.   Maybe an Alaska mill with a bendable guide board...

I have a 24-inch bandsaw that won't allow the full pass of a long bent log.  I'm thinking of milling up to the bend on each side, and rolling back the carriage out of the cut, and reorienting the log a total of 4 times.  The trick will be getting the cuts close to matching.

Ahhh...  Thinking creatively here...  Can you set the log in place so the carriage can cut the middle of the bend, and support the two ends of the log as they hang off the mill?  If so, maybe you could pivot the log halfway through the cut?  

Keep the first half of the log in the carriage path, then when you're halfway through, back the saw up a foot, carefully swing the log around so the second half in in the carriage path and the part you cut is hanging way off, then continue on.  Of course that sounds like a great way to mess up your band saw blade.  But if that pivoting operation could be controlled enough it might work...

I hear you - I think the challenge would be maintaining the level of the first cut as the log is repositioned.  

An idea - I could fasten the underside of the log to a board to give me a reference level for the first side.

Might work.  And yet the more I think about it the more I want to freehand it with a chainsaw.

Freehand milling is certainly viable. You would want to get it securely anchored in position. Stakes in the ground along one side, long screws to hold the log snug to the stakes.