Milling Kauai Mango Wood

Recently an island friend who is an arborist gifted several logs from a large mango tree he was commissioned to take down. It was very large and too close to the buildings. The arborist, Travis Redmond, generously volunteered to help slab the large butt log with his Alaskan Chainsaw Mill, so that we wouldn't have to reduce it to widths that would fit on our 32-inch bandsaw mill. Such wide slabs are precious and rare.

The tree was too large for our mill, so we contacted a local man with a special rig, galled an Alaskan Saw Mill. It uses, as you see, a large chainsaw. The tree was cut into three-inch thick slabs, for tables in the future.

The two main logs were delivered on a large tow truck we hired for the job.

The trunk log, on the right, is the largest chunk of mango we have ever seen.

Kumarnathaswami and Travis Redmond, worked together on the log for several hours, cutting ten slabs in all.

It is a slow process but the results are wonderful.

Travis is running a Stihl MS880 saw head.

It\

s noisy, hence the ear protection. We are cutting 3\" thick slabs.'

Working the two ends of the bar makes the work less strenuous and keeps the blade parallel in the cuts.

We sticker-stacked the slabs on a pallet, coating each piece on both sides with a strong solution of borate to keep away the powder post beetles, tiny insects that love mango wood and will otherwise quickly perforate it with hundreds of holes. if the wood is not treated.

This is the entire trunk reassembled on a pallet, sawn, treated, covered. Using the skidsteer we next placed the pile up on concrete blocks in it\

s special spot in the yard, safe and secure to begin years of natural drying.'

Such a marvelous resource: tropical island fruit timbers.

The subsequent logs from the tree were suitable for milling on the Cook Bandsaw Mill. Here we are setting the next log on wooden rails the matching the mill bed, trimming off bumps with the chainsaw.

Half way done with the cuts, leaving the edges natural. These will be small tables, or tressel stock for the larger table slabs, which were 6 feet long. The bandsaw mill with 25hp motor makes quick work of the cutting.

The wood is excellent grade, flawless.

Stacking in the same flitch style pile. Getting the borate on immediately seems to keep the bugs away. That\

s the 24-foot long mill in the background with the remainder of the log waiting to be cut. '
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