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DIY slabber

Started by CrimsonCutter, July 09, 2014, 09:35:58 AM

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CrimsonCutter

I was just wondering if anyone here has built their own slabbing saw?  The reason I ask is because the last storm that came through here knocked over a extremely large oak at my neighbors house.  No way it fits on any standard sawmill.  Seems like such a waste for it to just lay there!  I seen several trees this way when a tornado came through here most of those went to a land fill or were burned.
If your not learning...your not living!

JamieT

id be interested in one to!!
Learned just about everything I know, from the greatest man ive ever known. My father! Everything else was self taught thru the school of HARD KNOCKS ;-)

CrimsonCutter

CANNON BAR WORKS

I goggled this and they make custom bars.  Seems like something that could be done!
If your not learning...your not living!

mikeb1079

a homemade jig for a large chainsaw (880 or 3120) would work....or could free hand it into quarters like customsawyer does   8)
that's why you must play di drum...to blow the big guys mind!
homebuilt 16hp mill
99 wm superhydraulic w/42hp kubota

scsmith42

Yes, I built my own with the help of a good friend (Gavin).  I started with a spare carriage for my Peterson WPF and Gavin and I fabricated everything from there.  If I had it to do over again I would source a bar that is at least 3" wide at the drive end.  The bar that I have is actually slightly narrower than the drive sprocket, so alignment is critical or the chain will jump out of the groove.

Just about everything is built with either aluminum or stainless steel, so as to survive being out in the weather.  We've milled quite a few logs with it since it went into operation last fall.  The only changes that I've made to it are to slow down the chain speed (original speed was  7000 fps - it would really fly through a log but we couldn't keep the chains together) and I built a new drive shaft from a higher grade of steel (and also sleeved it for more bending resistance).

The engine is a 30 hp Briggs.  It was nice to start with the spare Peterson carriage as that eliminated the need to design and fab everything associated with raising/lowering the carriage.

Partway through the process my TIG welder developed problems, and we had a lot of problems with a few welds laying down correctly.  Turns out that there was some type of design flaw in the welder and Miller made me purchase an upgrade kit for it in order to correct their screw-up.  This still chaps me a bit (cost over 1K to fix).  After that though it welded like a dream.


Here is a view of the "log" side of the slabber. Bret is standing at the operators station.



 



Gavin Gallagher, my co-designer / fabricator and I right before the inaugural operation!



 


Another view of the log side of the slabber.


 


View from the "business end".  For bar oilers, I bought a couple of the old "Lunkenheimer" style of drip oilers.  They work fine.  There is one for each end of the bar.


 

Front view of the bar tensioner and oiler.  The four pins shown have springs on the other side that provide a constant tension on the bar.  This way as the chain heats up and expands the bar self-adjusts.  I designed them to provide an excentric force against one side of the bar in order to help reduce the sag in the middle.


 

Back view of the tensioner and oiler.


 

Engine to idler belt and electric clutch


 


Operators station


 


My inaugural run of the slabber!


 


Here is a photo of one of the welds made after the TIG was repaired.  I regret that we had problems with some of the earlier welds.  This was actually a vertical pass that Gavin made.


 
Peterson 10" WPF with 65' of track
Smith - Gallagher dedicated slabber
Tom's 3638D Baker band mill
and a mix of log handling heavy equipment.

mad murdock

That is some pretty looking beads there, especially for a vertical run.
Turbosawmill M6 (now M8) Warrior Ultra liteweight, Granberg Alaskan III, lots of saws-gas powered and human powered :D

MSSawmill

Quote from: mad murdock on July 10, 2014, 12:34:52 PM
That is some pretty looking beads there, especially for a vertical run.

No chance you're getting any closeups of my welds!  :D

Awesome looking setup, guys. Very nice!
Home-built bandsaw mill
2004 Kubota M110 with LA1301 loader

KS saw guy

I'm wanting to build a dedicated slabber myself, my only hang up is the tensioner. Can anyone help me?

TKehl

Welcome!

I've never seen Scott's mill, but I'll go out on a limb and say that big red handle looks like the tension adjustment to me.  Several pictures of that above.

Whereabouts in KS are you?  How big of a log are you wanting to handle?
In the long run, you make your own luck – good, bad, or indifferent. Loretta Lynn

KS saw guy

I'm in the Abilene area. I'm Kind of wanting to be able to slab some of the biggest cottonwoods and osage orange we have. Some go as wide as 6 feet.

YellowHammer

Scott,
That is very nice machine.
YellowHammerisms:

Take steps to save steps.

If it won't roll, its not a log; it's still a tree.  Sawmills cut logs, not trees.

Kiln drying wood: When the cookies are burned, they're burned, and you can't fix them.

Sawing is fun for the first couple million boards.

Be smarter than the sawdust

TKehl

Have you looked into a double ended bar and an Alaskan style mill?  That's what I'm looking into for the real monsters.  (My mill can only handle up to 4')

Example:
http://timbergreenforestry.com/Sawmilling%20Big%20Logs%20With%20A%20Chain%20Sawmill.html

Cannon makes bars that handle something like 7-8'
In the long run, you make your own luck – good, bad, or indifferent. Loretta Lynn

Savannahdan

Do you use regular chainsaw bar oil?  If I'm not mistaken, Lucas instructions for their slabbers call for using regular motor oil. 
Husqvarna 3120XP, Makita DCS7901 Chainsaw, 30" & 56" Granberg Chain Saw Mill, Logosol M8 Farmers Mill

Kbeitz

Quote from: scsmith42 on July 10, 2014, 11:42:44 AM

View from the "business end".  For bar oilers, I bought a couple of the old "Lunkenheimer" style of drip oilers.  They work fine.  There is one for each end of the bar.


You can buy new ones from McMaster Carr...
Collector and builder of many things.
Love machine shop work
and Wood work shop work
And now a saw mill work

KS saw guy

I've thought about the Alaskan and double ended barbut I only have a ms660. My band mill only handles a 28 inch diameter.

dustyhat

Just wondering do these long bars have any swag in the middle? looks like it would as long as they are ,or are there something to correct it?

Ianab

Quote from: dustyhat on June 07, 2017, 02:49:34 PM
Just wondering do these long bars have any swag in the middle? looks like it would as long as they are ,or are there something to correct it?

With a dedicated slabber like Scott's you can keep a bit of tension on the bar via that sturdy frame, and/or angle the mounts at each end slightly to counter any sag. You have a lot more "backbone" to work with than a basic Alaskan style mill.
Weekend warrior, Peterson JP test pilot, Dolmar 7900 and Stihl MS310 saws and  the usual collection of power tools :)

dustyhat

Thanks, Ianab, been wanting to build one for myself. just being curios.

KS saw guy

Sorry I haven't gotten on in a bit, had a real downer of a day, had to go to a funeral for a friend's mom. On a happy note, I think I have a plan for the tensioner for the chain.

xlogger

Quote from: Savannahdan on June 07, 2017, 11:03:49 AM
Do you use regular chainsaw bar oil?  If I'm not mistaken, Lucas instructions for their slabbers call for using regular motor oil.
I use as cheap of hyd oil as I can get. Usually under $30 for 5 gallons on sale at Tractor Supply.
Timberking 2000, Turbo slabber Mill, 584 Case, Bobcat 773, solar kiln, Nyle L-53 DH kiln

KS saw guy

Scott,
          What kind of sprocket are you using? I have been told to use a harvester sprocket but want a second opinion.

scsmith42

Quote from: KS saw guy on June 07, 2017, 10:13:37 AM
I'm in the Abilene area. I'm Kind of wanting to be able to slab some of the biggest cottonwoods and osage orange we have. Some go as wide as 6 feet.

KS, I'll try to explain what I designed.

Per Oregon, the ideal chain tension was around 120 lbs, so I designed the adjuster to utilize 8 stainless steel springs that I sourced from McMaster.  The springs are slid over four aluminum dowels (two per dowel). Each spring has a compressed tension range of 25 - 40 lbs, and I doubled them up so as to have more travel.  Thus, when the bar is adjusted mid tension on the springs they are providing 120 psi tension.

Because my 7' wide bar sags, I designed the adjuster to apply eccentric force to the bar via the adjuster mechanism.  When tensioned, the eccentric forces the bar to deflect upward slightly, which raises the middle.

On the opposite end of the bar I have the bar supported by a sliding bracket, and there is a short spacer between the bottom of the bracket and the bar.  This spacer is machined at a slight angle, which also pretensions the opposite end of the bar in order to force the middle of the bar upward slightly.

The sliding bracket typically has some bungee cords that force it towards the side of the slabber.

Here are some pix.

The aluminum channel that you see above the red handle is bolted to the chainsaw bar.  This channel is hollowed out for the sprocket, and has a plate that extends downward from it at a 90 degree angle.  The plate is gusseted where it attaches to the channel.

When the handle is tightened, the springs put pressure on the plate.  This force is applied in an eccentric manner which not only tensions the bar, but also lifts the center of the bar slightly upward.




 


Below is the support mechanism on the opposite end of the bar.  I designed the slabber so that I could either support the bar at about 56" or 72".  If we have a lot of 36" - 54" logs to slab we will move the bar support to the 56" position. This allows the bar to bend less in the middle and provide us with slightly flatter slabs.

If you look closely you can see a round aluminum spacer between the bar and the support.  This spacer has one end machined at a slight angle so that it forces the bar to bend upward slightly in the middle and help eliminate sag.



 

Note that these welds were made before the TIG machine was repaired... (that's my story and I'm sticking to it!)



 



 
Peterson 10" WPF with 65' of track
Smith - Gallagher dedicated slabber
Tom's 3638D Baker band mill
and a mix of log handling heavy equipment.

scsmith42

Quote from: Savannahdan on June 07, 2017, 11:03:49 AM
Do you use regular chainsaw bar oil?  If I'm not mistaken, Lucas instructions for their slabbers call for using regular motor oil.

We've been using bar and chain oil but I recently switched to 30 wt motor oil after we smoked the roller tip on the bar.
Peterson 10" WPF with 65' of track
Smith - Gallagher dedicated slabber
Tom's 3638D Baker band mill
and a mix of log handling heavy equipment.

scsmith42

Quote from: Kbeitz on June 07, 2017, 11:52:40 AM
Quote from: scsmith42 on July 10, 2014, 11:42:44 AM

View from the "business end".  For bar oilers, I bought a couple of the old "Lunkenheimer" style of drip oilers.  They work fine.  There is one for each end of the bar.


You can buy new ones from McMaster Carr...

Yup, that's where I sourced mine from (along with most of the other hardware and materials for the slabber).
Peterson 10" WPF with 65' of track
Smith - Gallagher dedicated slabber
Tom's 3638D Baker band mill
and a mix of log handling heavy equipment.

scsmith42

Quote from: KS saw guy on June 08, 2017, 01:52:56 PM
Scott,
          What kind of sprocket are you using? I have been told to use a harvester sprocket but want a second opinion.

I'm using a harvester sprocket.  As I recall 20mm shaft size, which is slightly smaller than the 1" shaft that I'm using.  We welded a flange onto the shaft and then turned the end down slightly from 1" to 20mm.
Peterson 10" WPF with 65' of track
Smith - Gallagher dedicated slabber
Tom's 3638D Baker band mill
and a mix of log handling heavy equipment.

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