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Starting a mill build... slowly

Started by Revival Sawmill, November 21, 2016, 04:48:04 PM

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Revival Sawmill

I've been lurking here for a while, joined a couple of days ago and have been shamelessly picking your collective brains for information about building portable bandsaw mills.  I'm starting to gather materials for my first build, and thought I'd start posting progress here in case anyone is interested!


Wheels, bearings, blade guide wheels, zerk bolts, and three 'on-sale' hydraulic motors from Cook's saw


70' of 7"x14"x3/8" H-beam from the local scrapyard that I'm planing to turn into the trailer/deck


Got two of these RR power units as prospective power sources for the mill.  Since they aren't currently running, and I have no idea about specs or horsepower, I'm not sure they'll work.  If I go this route, they have big hydraulic pumps on them so I may be able to power the wheels hydraulically.  I may end up putting an electric motor on it, and powering it with a separate 3-phase diesel generator. I'm thinking that would make the headrig lighter and I might be able to put the angle-iron track on the outside upper surface of the lower flange, instead of top dead center of the upper flange, and make the headrig carriage less long so I can cut longer logs on the same size trailer. Still figuring that part out.  ;D


Bunch of 3"x3"x3/8" square tubing I scrounged up at the scrapyard.  I'm hoping these'll work as the bunks on the log-deck once I scrape the asbestos or whatever that white junk is off of them...

That's all for now.  Sorry this is going to go so slowly!
Thanks,



york

Wooddust please try to keep it all in one thread,with out a doubt ,will be watching this build and good luck...
Albert

fishfighter

Watching. Love things that people build. ;D

Ga Mtn Man

Slow is good...some of us aren't the fastest readers. :D  Looks like it's going to be a heavy-duty mill.  Looking forward to following along.  I see you're in western NC.  What town are you near...I might be close enough to come take a look sometime.
"If the women don't find you handsome they should at least find you handy." - Red Green


2012 LT40HDG29 with "Superized" hydraulics,  2 LogRite cant hooks, home-built log arch.

bedway

Since I built my own mill and it has been a work in progress ever since ill be watching your build closely. If I can be of any help feel free to yell. I might not have all the answers but im a good listener.

ozarkgem

Mighty Mite Band Mill, Case Backhoe, 763 Bobcat, Ford 3400 w/FEL , 1962 Ford 4000, Int dump truck, Clark forklift, lots of trailers. Stihl 046 Magnum, 029 Stihl. complete machine shop to keep everything going.

btulloh

Very interesting.  I'm looking forward to following your progress.
HM126

Ox

K.I.S.S. - Keep It Simple Stupid
Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without
1989 GMC 3500 4x4 diesel dump and plow truck, 1964 Oliver 1600 Industrial with Parsons loader and backhoe, 1986 Zetor 5211, Cat's Claw sharpener, single tooth setter, homemade Linn Lumber 1900 style mill, old tools

Revival Sawmill

Quote from: Ga Mtn Man on November 21, 2016, 06:18:28 PM
Slow is good...some of us aren't the fastest readers. :D  Looks like it's going to be a heavy-duty mill.  Looking forward to following along.  I see you're in western NC.  What town are you near...I might be close enough to come take a look sometime.

We're about halfway between Asheville and Boone - once I've  made some progress and there's something worth looking at, that might be good!
Thanks,

Revival Sawmill


larrydown60

Watching, good luck with your build. Good things take time, mine looks like it might it be spring before I can finish it. It will be 2 years in April.

Revival Sawmill

Got the big V-groove casters to run the carriage back and forth on today! 

Got 8 of them on Amazon, 6" tall, 2" wide, rated for 1200#s, greasable. I'm trying to keep the headrig and carriage under 5000# combined, so I think they should work.  Three of them arrived with some damage to the bearings, but the seller is sending me new bearing parts and explained how to swap them out! That leaves me 7500# to play with on the trailer/deck before I start having towing issues from weight. 
I measured the H-beam more carefully today, and it looks like it's actually 6.75"x14", so I'll have to redraw a few things before any welding happens.  There are two pieces 248" long, one piece 247" and a short 11' one.  I'm thinking now to make the trailer 24' long, cap weld another piece of the same Hbeam across each end buying me another 13.5" of track, and leaving enough scrap to weld two 71&5/8" pieces horizontally at the bottom of the frame at 1/3 and 2/3 of the length.  I think that by turning these two pieces on their sides, they should stay low enough not to interfere with the log bunks or clamp/stop stuff.  I'm hoping the one 2/3 of the way back will be lined up on the tandem axle to help stiffen that area.
I've contacted the power company about running service out to the barn we're building so I can take care of the welding myself; otherwise I'll have to cut/prep most of this stuff and drag it all the way to town and hire the welding out :( 
Snagged a 50hp 3-phase motor today too, in case the diesel doesn't work out.  Still thinking to use the hydraulic pump to engage the wheel and run the carriage transit and headrig elevation control stuff. 
I've asked about hydraulic elevation control vs acme thread in another post, and despite encouragement to use the hydraulic/chain system, I'm still leaning a bit towards the acme thread since I 'trust' it a bit more, and I can already visualize how to use one of the three hydraulic motors I got from Cook's to spin the nut on them, without right-angle drives or worrying about the headrig coming loose and smashing to pieces on the deck...
Thanks for following along! Please pipe up if you think/know I'm making a mistake somewhere!


Revival Sawmill

Progress is intermittent at best.  I've switched the design to use the 50hp electric motor to drive the mill, and have been working on getting a 3 ph diesel generator to keep it portable. Unfortunately the best prospect for a generator fell through, and I totaled my truck on the way home from not picking it up :( .  Now it's looking like this thing is going to be stationary at first, and I'll have to add axles and a tongue to it sometime later. My next project is sorting out the hydraulics for the deck - to rotate/tilt/clamp the logs.  I have a 'spare' 25 hp electric motor that I was considering running a hydraulic pump off of, but it seems like overkill.  Most of the electric hydraulic power units I'm seeing online are only 5-10hp?  Anyone have any guidance about how much hp I need for the hydraulics on the deck?
Thanks,

Rougespear

3-6 GPM seems to be about what most mills are using.  Depends on your desired cycle speeds.  A 3hp electric motor should do well enough for sure.
Custom built Cook's-style hydraulic bandmill.

Kellyj

Where did you get your 30" band wheels from?
Many projects started, few finished.

ozarkgem

a 10 hp hydraulic power unit will be more than enough.
Mighty Mite Band Mill, Case Backhoe, 763 Bobcat, Ford 3400 w/FEL , 1962 Ford 4000, Int dump truck, Clark forklift, lots of trailers. Stihl 046 Magnum, 029 Stihl. complete machine shop to keep everything going.

Revival Sawmill


Revival Sawmill

Have a 5 hp hydraulic unit in order; if that doesn't do it, I'll go up from there😈
Thanks for the guidance!

Revival Sawmill

Anyone know why most mills use a chrome shaft with a bushing-type-thing for the saw head to run up and down on?  Why not more v-groove wheels and a piece of angle welded front and back of the carriage, sort of  like they use on this one:
https://youtu.be/PwneKMStNp4
you can get a good view of the vertical v-groove wheels around 33 seconds into the video.  Are there problems with sawdust/chips getting in between the wheels and tracks?
I was considering using two vertical v-groove wheels on the front of the carriage on adjustable mounts and one fixed one on the back of the carriage - then I could use the adjustments on the v-groove wheels to 'tilt' the blade up or down in relation to the bed (the cooks videos say to have your blade tilted down a couple of degrees for some reason?).
Thanks for any answers/input!

lbjordal

Good too see that your still building. 

I have plans for a mill using pretty much the same Cooks parts as you.   

I think the reason for using chrome shafts and bushings as guides is simplicity (no rotating parts or bearings)   


Revival Sawmill

Makes sense! 
Yep- still building- finally got some electricity run in, so I can use the welder etc.  I've sketched out a design but I think it's overbuilt/too complicated/expensive.  Thinking seriously about ripping off the Hudson design where you just scootch the bearing blocks around to control tracking instead. Picking up a big circle mill in the next couple of weeks too😄- I'll have all the bases covered pretty soon!

lbjordal

Im still considering designs myself.   Im sure the way cooks does it works,  but I dont like it. 

Have you seen how Serra does tracking control?   Looks simple and elegant,  unfortunately the band wheels from Cooks doesn't have the pulley integrated, so at least for the driven side I have to come up with something else. 


https://www.timbertools.com/images/D/Alpina-2-01.jpg

drobertson

For the size of that mill on the vid,, the feed looks slow,,, not much different than any other,,clearly not a production operation,,
only have a few chain saws I'm not suppose to use, but will at times, one dog Dolly, pretty good dog, just not sure what for yet,  working on getting the gardening back in order, and kinda thinking on maybe a small bbq bizz,  thinking about it,

Revival Sawmill

Quote from: lbjordal on October 19, 2017, 05:45:07 PM
Im still considering designs myself.   Im sure the way cooks does it works,  but I dont like it. 

Have you seen how Serra does tracking control?   Looks simple and elegant,  unfortunately the band wheels from Cooks doesn't have the pulley integrated, so at least for the driven side I have to come up with something else. 


https://www.timbertools.com/images/D/Alpina-2-01.jpg

Those Serra mills look pretty slick!  There's a bigger one somewhere on YouTube with a really clever center-clamping system.  The belt looks like a complete PITA to get to/change!

Revival Sawmill

Yeah something about the one in the video seems 'off'. I was sort of wondering if it was one of the first times they'd run it, or if the operator was being cautious because of the camera

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