How to interpret and use lumber scales on a sawmill, and make your own custom scales 

Rule of thumb for softwoods -- they will shrink about 7-9% across the grain. That has been pretty accurate in my experience. I saw my 2x lumber at 1-5/8" thick when green and it shrinks to about 1-1/2" over time.

@@Lumber_Jack thanks so much for the quick reply. Very helpful, I was wondering why Woodland didn't have a scale laid out for finish sized lumber given that most people will not be planing their boards.. thought I was missing something until I saw your video on using the scales and making your own. You do a good job on those keep it up they are very informative and greatly appreciated. Thanks Dave

If you plan to plane/dress the wood, sawing at 6/4 will give you the right size after all is said and done. If you want to use the lumber rough sawn, sawing at 1-5/8" increments will leave you with about 1-1/2" thickness at the end. I almost always use the lumber rough sawn, so I saw on 1-5/8" increments most of the time.

@@Lumber_Jack thanks. I live in an area that allows you to cut and use your own wood to build a house. I’m in the process of it now and was thinking about specific application the contractor would prefer big box dimensions… like joist hanger for example I assume are designed for big box dimensions not literal dimension sizes.

I don't pay attention to the winch clicks since they don't really correlate to anything except the design of the gearing and ratchet mechanism. I always follow the index holes next to the hand crank. Each index hole should correspond to 1/16" change in height and be very consistent. Normally I go below the cut like you, then crank up to the mark to put full tension on the cable, then go into the closest index hole and release the index pin. I am almost always right on top of one of the index holes or close enough to jiggle into one. The accuracy is probably within 1/32". Technically you don't need to use the index pin since the winch has a brake and should hold position wherever you let go of the handle, but I don't trust it on something with so much vibration and shaking. But other folks do and seem to be just fine. By the way, the printing of the Woodland Mills scale is not super precise. The tick marks are pretty thick and I noticed they are not printed as exact as a tape measure when I put one side by side. I'd say there is about 1/32" slop in the printing of the tick marks. I'd like to find a more precisely printed sawmill scale for my true scale. Norwood makes a nice one but it's over $40. I found one from a science lab company for much less money that I plan to try. One extra thing to check -- make sure there is only single wraps of cable on your winch pulley spool hub with no overlaps or birds nest. I saw one photo where a guy had his cable all tangled up on the spool and it caused very inconsistent changes in height. It's because his spool diameter was always changing with crank angle and no longer consistent. The cable needs to be neat and tight on the spool with only single wraps around the hub of the spool.

I struggled with the clicks in the beginning too, but then I noticed that if I lower it again by a different amount and then raise, the click won’t happen at the same height. You can get your click exactly on the line by lowering and raising the head a couple of times.

@@differenthandyman938 There is nothing special about the clicks -- they are just part of the winch's ratchet and brake mechanism, which doesn't have the ability to give repeatable results due to the brake clutch that allows slip between the ratchet and your crank input. That is why WM put on the index wheel and pin setup, since that will be absolute and repeatable (you could also count revolutions of the handle for large changes). You should ignore the clicking and not use it to set height in any way.

@@Lumber_Jack I removed the pin you are referring to and threw it away on day one. I would always touch it by accident and it would lock when I don’t want it to. Never missed it since. The click mechanism seems to be locking it reliably and all my cuts are perfectly straight. That’s when I manage to keep my blade from jumping. I even made a piece of veneer once for fun 1/16” thick and 16 feet long.

@@differenthandyman938 You may want to watch this video by Oregon Old Timer who studied the guts of the winch, here's a link that goes to that part of his video: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-MaVm0OSksYg.html The geared part he spins freely there is what engages the ratchet mechanism that clicks when cranking up. As you can see, it is not coupled to the shaft directly, it's just gripped by clutch plates after you begin cranking upward. This is what allows the ratchet to engage on up cranking and disengage on down cranking. But because of that, the position of the gear and the ratchet mechanism it clicks/locks into will never be the same consistently. You do not want to use the clicks to try and correlate vertical position of the saw head. This won't affect the ability of the winch to hold position -- because it's a brake winch, it will do that pretty well regardless. The only purpose of the indexing pin and wheel is to give you repeatable accurate vertical positioning of the saw head. It's the only part of that winch mechanism that is able to do that. Without it, you must carefully position using the ruler visually and hope the ruler scale is printed precisely (beware, the stock WM rulers are not, they have somewhat sloppy printing of the hash lines). If you want to set vertical in 1/16" increments with easy repeatability, the index system is the way to go. To put it in vivid terms, sawing a single 1/16" veneer is nice, but if you want to saw five of them in a row with repeatable, identical thickness, you're going to want the index system working!