Crusarius’ sawmill build - started with Linn Lumber basic kit

[petefrom bearswamp]

Lookin Good Keith

[mike_belben]

Nice work, that came out great

[Crusarius]

Thanks everyone. it is a never ending work in progress. it really needs paint but I keep changing stuff. really need to get paint on it before winter so I can move it outside and have some room in my shop to work again.

[Brink5821]

Thanks for the pics!  I will have some time tomorrow to work on my backstop design.  You final design seems Simple yet effective.  Thanks for the safety comment on the hinged blade guard.  A clip of some sort could prevent a mess.  

CFarm, not sure what the plan is for the wood yet.  I have been teaching myself to weld and my projects keep getting more involved.  I have some woods and tress, so why not build a mill.  Don't know much about milling yet, but I stayed in a Holiday Inn Express once or twice so why not.  I was thrilled when the first run cut smooth as butter.  Maybe my plan should be to hopefully sell some slabs so I can buy a mini split for the garage.  Welding and grinding in 90+dog heat has not been fun.

[Crusarius]

Brink where you located? I am always up for a road trip and love to help.

[Brink5821]

Crusarius,
   Thanks for the offer! I'm hoping to have a good day in the shop tomorrow, and if I like how my backstop design works out I'll post a pic.  I live in Northern Virginia.  My mill is similar to yours in lots of ways, and different in others.  I guess I could start a build thread.  I cut my first log in the garage, and like you, got sawdust everywhere.  I heeded the advice of many and completed my guards before I put power to the blade.  It was exciting when the acme thread with handle lifted the head unit, even more exciting when the tarp motor took over the hand cranking.  The real test will be a big log, but a lot of work before then, not to mention an axel and wheels so I can move it out of the garage.  

[Crusarius]

if it wasn't for the cost one of my other ideas was a vertical stop. make cups on inside of frame and use a main driveshaft from front of mill all the way to the last backstop. then put gears on the driveshaft and a rack on the verticals. That way I could crank all of them up from the end of the mill. it would make it very easy to align that way. But the cost was a little to much. and I felt the 1:1 drive would have been to hard to raise and lower. Plus then I would need some type of a lock to keep them up.

[Brink5821]

Your crank and driveshaft gave me an idea.  I have about a foot of acme thread left. Maybe I can use it for the backstop lift mechanism.  Then I can use the same handle l have for the manual crank on the lift.  My backstops turned out OK.  I need another piece of 2 1/2 x 2 1/2 x1/4 to finish up.  The hinge is some 1 1/2x 1 1/2 square bar I had left over from another project.  One corner is rounded so it pivots and the others are left square so the hinge holds the bar in the horizontal when down.  When in the up position the side rails provide support.  In an effort to keep everything square to each other I welded all for hinges at the same time clamped to a piece of 2x2.  I also ran a solid piece of 1/2"round bar through all hinges at the same time while welding.  It seemed to work out pretty well.  For the hinge pin I am using a grade 8 bolt.  Next weekend I will hopefully get the backstop completed and am picking up a generator trailer axel that I think I can make work.  


 

 

 

[Crusarius]

That came out really nice. I chose not to use solid bar stock in the hopes I could keep it lighter. I think that extra 2.5 square you added is going to be unnecessary. Once you get the backstops to a height you like I bet you never adjust them again. It will just be one more bolt to check for looseness.

Speaking of that I have just over 3 hours on my engine since I installed the hour meter. I started noticing bolts loosening up yesterday when I was cutting stickers. I guess now is a good time to check everything.

[btulloh]

Nylon lock nuts.  Don't leave home without 'em.

[Crusarius]

I have lock washers on just about everything. but I noticed my bolt that was holding my clutch on loosened up. Need to hit it with an impact to make it tight.

[mike_belben]

Chinese arbor presses break the casting ALL THE TIME.  I swear we tossed them monthly at S&W.  Hunt around, collect 3 then build your mechanized vertical backstop out of the gear and press anvil.  the gear rack cuts are already in it, just put it in a box.

[Crusarius]

thats a great idea. to bad I am not in an area that happens a lot. I think all the arbor presses where I work are the original ones from when I started here.

I did think about some type of linkage but decided to go the easy route with the rotating stops.

[mike_belben]

I think i have two of them.  But dont ask me which container or what state.  

[Crusarius]

Confusion or denial?

[Crusarius]

after milling this weekend I am wondering if the crank at the head of the mill to raise the backstops was good idea or not. I would walk over and unhook my clamps, then I would have to walk back to the front of the mill to raise or lower the stops then go back to the clamps and tighten them up again.

The crank at the head is nice when adjusting height during milling but not during moving or loading the log. I may have to rethink that. maybe move the crank to the center of the mill and make it so I can crank it from either side of the mill. 

[Ljohnsaw]

How much milling/how many logs have you done so far?  I did a few things that I thought were great ideas at the time when I was building.  Mostly overthinking.  : Having a manual mill, I try not to move the log too much and try to handle the slabs and boards as little as possible.

I load the log with the backstops fully up (so I don't roll it off the back side ;)).  I level the pith and clamp.  I cut down removing slabs of reasonable weight.  I chainsaw the junk to ~4' and toss on my SkyTrak forks.

If I remove boards that need to be edged, I try to leave them on the bunks so I don't have to lift them up.  A set of side bunks would be handy (like a log holding area).  Much easier to slide then lift.

With log stops fully raised, I rotate 180° (if big, with SkyTrak).  No need to clamp and log stops are lowered to about 1".  Remove slabs and boards as above.

Now rotate 90° with the log stops fully raised - level pith and clamp.  Cut again down to target.

With log stops fully raised again, rotate 180°.  No clamping again (usually).  Might clamp some of the boards that need edging.  Much easier to clamp to a cant then just the backstops.  It also gives you a reference to measure the full length of the boards to be edged.

So, you only need to clamp about 1/2 the time.  Since I have limited space by the mill to "store" the junk/slabs, handling them once (cut and stack on forks) saves me a ton of time and not tripping over the mess is a bonus.

What I found is if you have 1 helper that gets in the groove, you will more than double your daily production and you will be less tired at the end of the day.

This is all stuff I learned from MM and others here.  It just took a while before I was following all their advice! ;D

[Crusarius]

I have been reading a lot of what you talked about. Until I actually started milling it did not make sense to me. Now it is the AHA moment I am starting to understand everything.

I may be up to 20 logs I milled. Sunday I milled 10, 42" long roughly 10" diameter logs into stickers. That is when I was rethinking my backstop crank location.

I am still trying to find a flow path that works for me. I thought I had one I liked but the tractor forks can't hold slabs and lumber reasonably at the same time. I run out of room.

[Ljohnsaw]

I cheat a little on the lumber storage.  I have a 10' set of rollers and a mill bed right now that is 40'+. So I roll the (smaller) lumber to the end of the mill.  When I'm done with a log, I have a pile of lumber (already cleaned of sawdust) at one end, the target timber at the other and a stack of waste on the forks.  The last thing I do on the mill is raise the log stops all the way up.  I dump the scrap in the burn pile, pick up the timber and then the lumber and take it to storage/drying area.  Then I usually put the tongs on the forks and grab the next log on the way back.

It only took me 3 years and 50 logs to figure it out. :D

[Crusarius]

I am still trying to just get a large enough area to setup the mill and still have access to both sides for log loading and unloading. Living in the woods on a hill is really challenging.

[Ljohnsaw]

You don't have to have access to both sides.  I'm working from one side and the other is where the sawdust goes.  Only walk over there to adjust the log stop and occasionally to turn a cant.  I normally work from the clamp side to turn cants.

However, it would be nice to put a rack over there to stack the lumber as I go.  Only problem is it would be covered in sawdust :-\

[Darrel]

 Living in the woods on a hill is really challenging.

Do tell, there is nothing steep on my property and there is nothing flat.  That is something I can and will change when I get a tractor. 

[Crusarius]

From the property line on the left to the closest side of the house is a 40' elevation gain. My mill gets set up on the property line directly below the house. a 24' long trailer is not easy to maneuver in that area. Especially place in in an area you can use the tractor to load logs.

[Crusarius]

Thats kinda funny. looking at the topo map my property elevation rises 100' over the 1000' length of it.

[proptorudder]

Did you have any vibration problems with your mill?