When chainsaw milling, the first cut is by far the trickiest part. If you get that wrong, you can't really expect anything else to go right for the rest of the log.

The entire exercise is centered around creating a flat surface to guide the Alaskan chainsaw mill. Logs are naturally unhelpful in this regard. Not only are they moreorless cylindrical, but they also tend to be not perfectly straight and have these annoying knots sticking up at seemingly random intervals. Three out of five stars.

So in this video I go through the process that I've been using to set up an aluminum extension ladder on top of a log and get it true before making my first cut. It's not terribly difficult, but it is very time consuming, and critical to getting good results so it behooves you to spend it.

Music: Spots Action by Audionautix is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/...)
Artist: http://audionautix.com/