The LumberWorksForums

Ok here we go. pictures of my mill that i am building.


The pictures are of the frame.

Here we have the winch mounted and ready to work.


The two pictures are of the bearings that ride on shafts that keep the head inline.

I dont clam to be a welder or know what i am doing so if anyone copies this mill you are on your own.
More later.
Thanks Alot Mr Mom.

My wife just down loaded the camera and i will get pictures later.
Got more steel today.
Thanks Alot Mr Mom

here are some old pictures that i found.

This picture is of the saw frame.

How the pillow blocks are going to hang on the sawhead.

Do to some design rework i put the saw head in the middle of the carrage uprights.

I cut it down from 48" to 24" wide.
Thanks Alot Mr Mom

It lives !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Got the mill fixed. Had three of four pullies touch the track cut the mill apart at the top and had to reweld the mill back togeather but not perfect.
Got the motor mounted and put all the other stuff on and added the blade and started the motor and off she went.
Just have to get gaurds built and blade guides put on and finish the cross members on the saw bed.
Time to go to bed and going to get a good night sleep.

Thanks Alot Mr Mom

I just know you are to the point where you can't help but lying awake in bed at night thinking about it.

Ok now that it is alive and the weather is bad i cant do a thing . All the work that i have to do is going to be done outside so it will be a little bit longer to complete.
I let the mill run a little and went to get the wife and the set screws losened up and the drive tire and blade went forward when i got back with the wife and kids.
Must have not tighen them hard enough.
tree bucker ..... you are right i can waite to get sawing. Cabin fever it getting worse and the two combined it not a good thing. The thought that keeps going throught my head is that i could saw one log with out guards and it will be ok but i know that i will have to waite.

Thanks Alot Mr Mom

What keeps the head of your mill from jumping up and down and move around??
Is there some type of clamp??


Thanks Alot Mr Mom

The LM2000 has a bracket that bolts to the roller rail on the head and wraps down under the top lip of the "C" channel that the bed rail rest on. It clears everything so you can leave it on during operation. It keeps the head from falling off (ask WB ) if you roll it into something. There's also a bolt-on clamps for trailer models that secures the head for travel.

Thanks treebucker but i was talking about the saw head that goes up and down. I understand what you said but i could have misunderstood you.
When i have my mill running it moves alot.
I dont have the bed done so that might be some of the problem.

Thanks Alot Mr Mom

Well MM If you got a Band on the tires, and that part of fabrication is done, and motor and all, the guide tubes or what have you should be a snug enough fit that there is no horizontal moving around,of the saw head, left to right foward to backwards,, up and down movment should be kept in check, just by the sheer weight of it all,,,if you havent made guards and wheel covers for safty's sake,, when you do, that will add some weight,,

Now I'm sorta thinkin that you used car tires,, even the lil space saver type,, the manufactures do a good job of makin the tires pretty true, and the rims,, BUt with no vehicle weight on them,, there just spinning carring the band,,the wheels may be in dire need of balancing,, YIKES,, if the band is on,, remove it, and fire it up just turning the drive wheel, which will be pretty safe, bring it up to spped and watch it,, hopefully its pretty round, and just needs a good balance,BUt if these tires were on a car, it might be necessary to break them down and make sure there is no FIX-A-FLAT in there or anything else that makes them heavy on one side , GULP, Member,, months ago we discussed band wheel speed and stuff,, posted formulas and stuff for approapiate speed,, there is a lot more mass to the size and weight of car tires, they have to be pretty good,, and its one thing to spinn them but another, to keep them turning under a load with the blade burried in wood,,
Do this,, take several pictures, Good ones,, of both sides, lets see what ya got,, and we'll go from there,,

Robert...Cant take pictures kiddies broke camra . But you have given me some ideas to work on.

Thankis Alot Mr Mom

Ok did some test runs and it works pretty good but the blade wants to bow in a cut have blades guides on.
I cant get it to stop .
Logs have been down for sometime they are trees that the township took down. the trees were leaning acrossed the road so i know they have alot of stress in them.
any ideas??

Thanks Alot Mr Mom

What species are you cutting and how wide are the cuts that are giving you problems?

I'm assuming that the problem is a bow across the width of the cut. Don't rule out a bad blade. Don't even think twice about changing it out now just to see what happens. We got burned bad by this when we 1st started. We didn't know what was going on and assumed that the problem was something we were doing wrong. In our case it wasn't one bad blade it was four(dealer freebies) in a row. We switched brands and that was that.

Also check the tension on the blade. It won't hurt to tighten it some just to see what happens.

The guides should be adjusted for each cut to get them in as close to the log as practical. If your blade is tracking ok (centered on the tires during the cut) then look at the guide rollers again. I don't know what roller setup you have but most types running under no-load there should be about 1/32" clearance between the back of the blade and the guide roller/bearing. The back of the blade should not be touching until it is in a heavy cut. Also look at the guide alignment...see if they're tilted up or down. They should be paralell to the bed.

well thanks for the info . i will recheck things and see if somthing is wrong or not lined up right.
Tree..... It doesent matter how wide i cut big or small.
Just have to recheck things.
I had to flip the blade (put the teeth the other direction) . Would that have anthing to do with that??
Thanks Alot Mr Mom

Depends on how long you ran it that way. If you did it too long you may have knocked the edge off of the blade and it would need to be replaced.

I know you're not used to this. So get the feel of how hard the head is to push when it's not making a cut. You should only have to push with (I'm guessing here) an additional 10 lbs of pressure. When you have to start leaning into it to make it cut say 10" wide then it's time to change blades.

Doesnt look to me like I read that he ran the blade backwards,, that he just had to invert it, which I had to do on my 1st mill before installing the blade,,, because some companies cant weld them either way,,this does not hurt the blade in anyway,,

I drew up a picture of the one I made and couldnt get it on here, so I went to Cooks Saw and grabed there picture, I'll try and get it on here, I'm starting to have puter problems,, its about 6yrs old,,But below is what I did to make mine,, or you can buy one from cooks for about 10 bucks,,You can go to this link,, http://www.cookssaw.com/shop/ and then type in this # 123-030 or Blade alignment tool and you can catch a picture of it there

Now that said,, here is a simple tool to help you get the paralellism of your blade set to be paralell to your bed,,I drew the rendering just to get the point across,, not great but if you study it you should be able to make one of these easy, I used 1/8" aluminum for the channel body, and bent it, 2" x 2" x 2" ,drilled and taped a 1/4 / 20 threads on top for a thumb screw,, basicly a couple a slots on the sides so you can fit into them a piece of say 1/8" aluminum flatbar,, Love flatbar,, did I ever mention that? The flatbar, could be an aluminum ruler, just like you might find bolted and used for the scale on some economical mills,, it should be about 16" long, maybe al little more,, when you tighten up the thumb screw, it puls the flatbar up against the body of the blade,,now you need to place a decent streight edge on the bed of the mill,,it should be metal or the like, then you have the blade tensioned up, tight,, now this lil device does TWO things,, it makes the guides on both sides paralell, to the bed,, so ya want it near the guide on one side, and say ya got your blade set at 12" above the streight edge that is layin on the bed,,with this lil deal, you measure at the extream front of it to the bar on the bed,, check your deminsion and then measure the distance at the center and then the opposite end of the flatbar on the bed,, these specs you want the same,,, if not you got to be able to tilt your guides to achive the paralellism that is necessary for a quality cut,,,, but not only that, your guides should be pushing the blade body down about 1/4",, this may be a little more difficult to do with tires,, because of air pressure,,once you have achieved the paralisim of the blade to the bed, then you need to recheck the cross measurements,, you dont want one side of the balde at say 12" to the bed and the other at 12 1/4",, so you'll need to be able to adjust the left and right tilt of the sawhead,,,,

Robert thanks for the info. the reason that i have all this trouble is that i cant get the blade tight enough.
Thanks Alot Mr Mom

I hope the cure is in modifying the adjuster and not in remounting the spindles.