here's how I clean logs! a little info sharing for noobs!

Hey guys, in the spirit of helping the new guys out, I'm postingt this little tutorial on how I skin logs. It's been almost 3 years since I found this place, and if it weren't for the advice of Benz, Will, Tom and the others, I'd probably be making Jimmy Carter tikis with parrots and shit on 'em. So anyway, some of you have inquired as to how I skin palms & get stuff done so fast, so here's how I do it. Is this the BEST way? I don't know...it's just the technique I've developed.

Step one, I don't use a planer like a lot of guys. It works, but with all the thick-barked sable & cabbage palm we have here in the sunshine state, a planer could take a loooong time. So I use a chainsaw to sort of "filet" it off....like roast beef...

now, VERY IMPORTANT, you need to keep the chainsaw blade sharp...otherwise, it's gonna take 3 times longer. Here's what I use - a dremel tool & dremel's chainsaw sharpening attachment...works like a charm...

when you're done it should look like this. See the little slices of bark all around it?:

Then I take the angle grinder with a 40 grit flap disc and clean the tool marks off so I have a nice smooth surface to for a good draw out with my sharpie.

This log is about 6 ft tall and a foot thick, and the total time for the above process was about 30 minutes.

Hope this helps and feel free to comment or critique. If someone has some better ideas, by all means throw 'em out there. It's all about sharing the stoke...

Great! I need to get one of those dremel chainsaw sharpening thingamajigs! Thanks for sharing your technique!

yes. a sharp chainsaw blade is key.

and a good solid saw that's got some ass too it is very important aw well.

a burned out 14 inch homelite is gonna take twice as long as the one I use, which is an ECHO CS450. 4wd Bill told me to buy that like a year ago....and that was damned solid advice. It rips thru everything and runs like my toyota truck...dependable as a wood burning stove.

Cool to see tutorials!!! YAY!

Great Post. I have been using this technique ever since you told me about it a few months back and it really works great. I won't even mention how I used to skin logs because it was extremely time consuming and labor intensive.

I also need to get that sharpening bit for the Dremel...I have a manual file and it sucks cause it always gets caught and I drop it probably 50 times throughout the whole process. How long do you spend on each tooth?

Submerge cedar and redwood logs in water for a few weeks, or month. The bark will peel off easily.

Nixxy, oh god you're manually filing it? go like right now and get that dremel bit...and like maybe 5 or 10 seconds per tooth?

and very cool tip on the cedar & redwood...

Benz gave me a small piece of redwood and wow...I would saw my left arm off & feed it to the dog for a big redwood log...damn...

5151- thanks,
I have 4 to skin

On 2012-05-02 08:17, pjc5150 wrote:

and very cool tip on the cedar & redwood...

Benz gave me a small piece of redwood and wow...I would saw my left arm off & feed it to the dog for a big redwood log...damn...

Come to Cali and get plenty redwood

Good stuff 5150 - I have been doing pretty much exactly what you described here for quite a while, but a recent project involving some larger logs forced me to adjust the way I prepped the logs and I thought it might be worth mentioning here. I should have snapped some pics but here goes:
I have a shallow v-top sawhorse I built a few years ago to support logs horizontally (great for chisel work at a non-backbreaking height). I lay the logs in this and run the saw from end to end rather than vertically and roll the log a bit after every few passes. This kept me from having to perch on a ladder or bend down to get the low end and also kept the logs stable while skinning them. I actually have started using this on shorter logs as well, just because it avoids undue abuse on my back.

Also have to uh... echo what you said about the Echo. I picked one up a few years ago and to quote something GMAN said some time back it still "runs like a raped ape". New spark plug once a year and a good cleaning now and then does wonders too.

Thanks for the information share man - and cheers fellow Floridian :D

On 2012-05-02 08:17, pjc5150 wrote:
Benz gave me a small piece of redwood and wow...I would saw my left arm off & feed it to the dog for a big redwood log...damn...

Wouldn't it be better to saw off a leg? I just see carving with one arm to pose a bit of a problem. :D

That looks alot easir than this.


Cheers Watango

Damn Watango !!! That is exactly what my yard looks like!! I need to employ the chainsaw method!