finally sawdust -- HF mill

[grouch]

New old guy here. Got my first ever sawmill about a year ago but things got in the way of really using it, other than a short trial to make sure it worked. Hoping 2016 will be a kinder year.

It's a Harbor Freight bandsaw sawmill. This is not the choice for someone intending to become a professional sawyer, obviously. It's well suited to my purpose, though -- turning some of my own trees into lumber for me.

When I called HF about the machine, they had 3 active advertisements going, each with a different size engine. Spent nearly an hour on the phone and the (helpful, patient) guy on the phone still couldn't be sure which one was currently shipping. I gambled and it turned out to be the largest then advertised, the 301 cc.

The shipping charge was less than KY state sales tax. Weird for a 770 lb crate by truck freight.

I live at the end of a little country road. Just before my house, there's a hairpin curve that my neighbor at the other end of the road hates. He runs a 'dozer and backhoe (actually a trackhoe) business and his lowboy scrapes the bank on the inside of that curve every time he takes it. The Conway Freight truck driver called to make sure he could get his rig all the way to my house. I told him about my neighbor and 2 truss trucks making it around the curve. When he got here, it was obvious that truck was never going to bend enough to make that turn. He backed up about a mile to get to a place where he could turn around. If he had any frustration or aggravation about it, it never showed in any way. Once turned around, he went to the other end of the road where my neighbor met us with a Bobcat.





Used the same HF lifting sling to get it out of my pickup, back at home.



Naturally, I had to open the crate right away.



I had spent the night before adapting my homemade front bucket for my homemade forks (they were on the back), in order to lift the crate off the Conway truck. That didn't work out so well when the truck couldn't get here, but the forks and the night work still paid off.



Had to have a little ballast on the back -- it's a 30 hp tractor.



The mill has to make a badly neglected old barn its home for a while.



Will add more later.

Oops. Left out the documents in the crate:

[grouch]

The track sections are made from 5/16-inch unequal leg angle. (Yeah, I'm sure it's metric, but I don't have a metric tape measure). The leg that the wheels ride on has been squared off. I measured 2-13/32 x 3-15/16. Close enough to 2-1/2 x 4.




Each of the 4 track sections is 76-13/16 inches long.









Toughest part was lifting the head with only an 8 ft 'ceiling'.


Lifted by using a sling through the same brackets that would eventually hold the cables to raise and lower the head on its posts.



And there it sits.

[tnaz]

Enjoyed the slide show and read.  Sounds like an A#1 truck driver.  Now just need some pictures of saw dust and lumber?

Thanks for sharing,

ttnaz

[grouch]

(I'm slow).

Now you pros are gonna laugh at the sticks I started with, but I'm new and didn't want to take too big a bite at first.



The hefty fellow in the shadows there is my son. (Warned him over 15 years ago that he'd have trouble adjusting his eating to fit with not doing football practice and training and weights. Still strong as a mule, though).



Real boards and sawdust at last!



These were actually kinda special logs as it was a tree beside my son's driveway. Something ringed it right at ground level and it had to be cut.


A picnic table sized to a wee granddaughter.



I started and finished that table while her birthday party was going on. (How's that for procrastinating?) She's made use of it nearly every day since. Can't get a better thank you than that!

[tnaz]

And you made it!!! :D

Good job to me.

[cutterboy]

WOW! How many little kids have their own picnic table? Thanks for all the pictures Grampa.

[grouch]

And you made it!!! :D

Good job to me.

Thanks! Apparently you were asking to see some sawdust as I was trying to get the last batch of photos up. Like I said, I'm slow.

[grouch]

WOW! How many little kids have their own picnic table? Thanks for all the pictures Grampa.

Glad you liked 'em. That table represents most of the useful lumber from those first little logs.

There was an almost square almost 4x4 thing that came out of the center of the first one. Turned out I had a dogleg at the joint between the tracks -- each end of the track was just a little lower than the middle. After that was corrected, I got several narrow boards and a real 4x4 out of the next log.

I just waded through the outside party and planted that table in the middle of the yard. It was like a magnet for the half dozen or so 2 - 4 yr olds there.  (All the folding tables were adult-sized). I puffed up like a peacock at granddaughter's reaction when my son told her that it was her table and that I had made it from the tree that used to be in her yard.

One of the ~ 5 y.o. girls there had to have a look at the sawmill after seeing the table. It wasn't just a glance, either. She wanted to see how the blade travelled, how the engine was connected to the wheels, and how the whole assembly rolled on the track. That one might be a handful for her parents, soon.

[thecfarm]

Special logs make special picnic tables which make special memories.  ;D

[Savannahdan]

I have one of those purple HF straps and use it a lot for pulling and lifting logs.  The HF store is just down the street from me and it's hard not the visit even if to just look at things.  I would have loved to have been a fly on a limb watching you carry the picnic bench into the party.  Kids make a lot of what we do fun.  That goes for having your son there when you used the mill for the first time.

[Sixacresand]

Looks like you are having fun assembling a mill, milling, building a picnic table and post pictures.  Thanks, I enjoyed the post.  Building something for a Grandchild from something you milled is like the "super bowl" of sawmilling.

[Kauff44]

Nice mill grouch!! Congrats!!

[grouch]

I sure appreciate all the support, folks! You should have seen how long it took to set up for and make that first cut. The few sawmills I've seen in person have been scary circular mills operating at full blast. The only things I "know" about operating a bandsaw sawmill are what I've read here on the Forestry Forum.

Been trying to find photos of the next logs I cut. One was a gum tree that's been standing dead for no telling how long. Couldn't find those photos so I shot some of the planed boards as they are now in my garage. Will try to get those up today.

[grouch]

[edit 2016-06-11: This is not gum. This is elm. See Whatcha Sawin, replies by WDH and Magicman, beginning about msg1395304 on the linked page.]

After the little poplar described above, I didn't get another chance to saw until last fall. Found a standing, dead sweet gum tree and got part of it cut up, but couldn't find the photos taken at the time. Here are some of the boards as they are right now. The poo-brown stuff on the end is some old latex paint put on to try to reduce splitting of the ends.

[Peter Drouin]

Good job, and good luck. 8) 8)

[Chuck White]

Nice lookin' wood!

[sawmilllawyer]

Really like those boards. Nice figure. Magicman can tell you about milling that sweetgum wood. :D. Enjoyed your post and welcome to the forum.

[grouch]

Brain derailed -- forgot to give any kind of review of the saw itself. Not much help to other hobbyists / amateurs without that. (I don't think this mill would provide any competitive advantage to a professional).

This is an all-manual mill. It won't fetch, turn, lift, position or clamp the logs for you. The head is hand cranked up and down and the carriage moves along the track by operator power only (assuming you got the track level). If you assemble it and set it up correctly, it will cut true.

I only have two minor complaints with the saw. The carriage flexes a bit too much in one plane -- the off side can lag behind the operator side in little tiny jerks, and there are no fenders to keep sawdust off the carriage wheels.

The blade is held rigidly parallel to the track so the cuts are parallel. The flexing takes place in the one plane that doesn't affect the blade's path. Best way I can think of to describe it is to call it yaw as in an airplane. There's no roll to the carriage, which would yield boards varying in thickness across their width. There's no pitch to the carriage, which would give boards varying in thickness along their length. It just yaws. And just enough to make me want to fix it.

I think it can be stiffened up with the addition of a couple of posts at the back of the carriage and then connecting the tops of those to the tops of the existing posts. Some 0.120 wall, 2 inch square steel tubing should do it.

The groove in the carriage wheels likes to pick up sawdust. It packs in there and then the movement of the carriage feels rough and the yawing described above increases. There are no sweepers ahead of the wheels and there are no fenders over the wheels. I cut up a couple of plastic anti-freeze jugs and zip-tied them over the front wheels. That helped. Now I need to do it for the rear ones.

The manual claims the maximum length log is 9 ft 2 in. I tested that and it's a proper maximum; it leaves a little comfort space at the beginning and end of the cut. The maximum width board is 20 inches and the manual also claims that's the maximum diameter log. I haven't tested this, but I bet a larger diameter log can be sawed even with 20 inches between the guides. (Maybe Harbor Freight should search for "Bibbying" a log here on the Forestry Forum).

Initial break-in period for the engine is 3 hours. That's also the approximate time of running for 1 tank of gas. Oil is supposed to be changed every 20 hours.

I used the blade that came with the saw for the entire first tank. Now I have a Kasco blade on it with a 4 degree hook. I think these will be saved for some of the hard, dead trees and I'll get some 7 degree blades for general use.

Overall, I think this mill is a very good value for people who want to cut some lumber for themselves and are not going to be sawing every working day.

[grouch]

Really like those boards. Nice figure. Magicman can tell you about milling that sweetgum wood. :D. Enjoyed your post and welcome to the forum.

The next stuff I sawed was plain on the outside and gaudy inside.  Had a mimosa tree that sent roots sneaking under the foundation, so it had to be cut.  It was really too short to put on the sawmill but ...
















(I promise I'll run out of photos. I'm still as tickled as a kid on Christmas every time I open a log and see what's in it.)

[Weekend_Sawyer]

Good review! and great looking wood. I never would have thought to mill that.

Thanks for sharing
Jon

[squidboy51]

grouch

I have enjoyed your adventure with the new mill. The short mimosa log really is an interesting surprise, good luck with your mill and keep the pictures coming. I think I can speak for the majority of members, we all enjoy your pictures and comments.

squid

[grouch]

Good review! and great looking wood. I never would have thought to mill that.

Thanks for sharing
Jon

I had to saw it open after seeing the mangled way it forked and the end grain. Unfortunately, there's been some splitting along the growth rings of the parts I didn't coat with polyurethane. It looks to me like this very wet wood gives up that moisture too fast if you let it.

[grouch]

(Maybe this belongs in another thread or even another forum. It seems to me to be part and parcel with a fumbling new guy figuring out it takes more tools than just a sawmill to make boards from logs).

Started building a log arch shortly after getting the mill, because of all the posts here about how dragging logs leads to blades dulling faster. Took me until this spring to complete it -- 2 days shy of 1 year in the making. First test was about 1 month ago. It's ugly and it's more of an odd trailer than it is an arch but it hauls my logs.

Here's my state-of-the-art design and production studio:

The towers of an old front-end loader for (I think) an Allis Chalmers became the uprights and crossmember of my arch.



I suck at welding pipe.


(More gorey details of welding and rewelding in my gallery https://forestryforum.com/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=7278 )

Recycling some old front spindles and rotors from my '80 Dodge D150.




They have to be attached to those rusty old pipes somehow


Don't look too close at the MIG welds; I'm still learning to use one of those squirt guns.


I don't have a nice flat welding table so I had to improvise with a wooden platform and 3 pieces of PVC conduit cut to equal length.







Here's where it starts to go more trailer-like than arch


The 2 pieces of 1-1/4 inch black pipe and the HF receiver were bought new. Everything else is scavenged.



No photos of first test, but here's the 2nd -- 2 logs at once:





My improvised hitch:


This old white oak is too dear to drag:




That tree was the tipping point for me getting the mill. The sapwood is eaten and rotted, but the heart is sound. I was afraid it wouldn't wait for me to build a sawmill.

Hoping to get some expert advice on here on the best way to saw it up.

[tnaz]

Here's my state-of-the-art design and production studio:

And product output too.  Looks good to me; nice.

Terry

[grouch]

Here's my state-of-the-art design and production studio:

And product output too.  Looks good to me; nice.

Terry

Thanks! We all do what we can with what we have.

I'm still working the kinks out of lifting and securing the logs. I've seen some clever designs for that on here in old threads.

Feeding the mill is more work than running the mill. (I know there's bound to be some magic tune you can whistle to get the trees to just gather at the mill, but the old pros on here just ain't sharin' it).