Adding hydraulics questions

[DMcCoy]

I want to add hydraulics to my homemade mill.  I plan on using a small tractor as my hydraulic source, it has an oil cooler built in.  I keep all my HP on the saw for sawing.  I want to add 2 hydraulic motors, one each for carriage travel and saw head lift.  I hobby saw and while it can be mobile I see no need.  I have a JD 4610 with forks for log flipping and loading so don't need all the bells a whistles of a full on hydraulic mill.  Mainly I looking for suggestions about locations of motors and valves.

The carriage travel motor could be built into the base or the carriage. I see no big reason to do it either way but have never done this either. If it is on the carriage then I would mount both valves on the carriage too.
If the carriage travel motor is in the base then one or both valves could be located on the base.
For valve locations I have seen mills both ways.  Operator "ride on" carriage with controls there and controls at the end.
Do the hoses just drag back and forth or what do you do with them?
Comments?

[sandsawmill14]

electric up and down will save you some major headaches and cost less too. a 12 volt 4 wheeler winch works great and is geared just about right far as speed i put the hyd motor on my hudson mill and changed it to electric in less than a month

[Kbeitz]

I want to add hydraulics to my homemade mill.  I plan on using a small tractor as my hydraulic source, it has an oil cooler built in.  I keep all my HP on the saw for sawing.  I want to add 2 hydraulic motors, one each for carriage travel and saw head lift.  I hobby saw and while it can be mobile I see no need.  I have a JD 4610 with forks for log flipping and loading so don't need all the bells a whistles of a full on hydraulic mill.  Mainly I looking for suggestions about locations of motors and valves.

The carriage travel motor could be built into the base or the carriage. I see no big reason to do it either way but have never done this either. If it is on the carriage then I would mount both valves on the carriage too.
If the carriage travel motor is in the base then one or both valves could be located on the base.
For valve locations I have seen mills both ways.  Operator "ride on" carriage with controls there and controls at the end.
Do the hoses just drag back and forth or what do you do with them?
Comments?

You could use a hydraulic hose reel.



 

[starmac]

I may be way off here, but if you want to use an external power source, wouldn't it be cheaper and easier to use a generator and electric motors than haveing to hook up to a tractor, especially if you do use it mobile occasionally.