Building a 4" Wide band sawmill

[ozarkgem]

I confess wide blade band mills fascinate the crap out of me. I am going to look at a resaw that uses 4" wide bands. Wondering if I could use the wheels to make a horizontal band mill. The draw back is I have to send the blades off to be resharpened at 50.00 ea and the bands are 250.00 ea. But man what a sawmill. 2" bands make more sense . Wonder if I could use the wheels on 2" bands.
   Think about it. 4" bands, 75 hp electric motor, that would be Tim Tayloring it I think. 

[bkaimwood]

We share feelings buddy. If I had nothin' but time, and quite a bit of extra spending money, I'd build one. But, I have neither, and already made one home made band mill...although a total success, I vowed to never do it again. So far, I've held my ground...

[longtime lurker]

I got a whole lot of info RE this not so long back... just exploring an option... and you can definately run the narrower bands on them. We actually were looking at a 6"band, and the freight to get the bands to and from the sawdoctor was the killer for us rather then the price of the bands or the filing costs. (Nearest place that can properly handle a 6"band is like a 2000 mile round trip, and it woulda meant having a lot of bands in the system to keep a sharp one up to her all day every day.)

Anyho... what we worked out was that we could run 6"bands for when we really needed that kind of performance... but just run 2½ or 3" the rest of the time. Thing being that you can get plenty gear to sharpen and set up to 3"bands and they dont need to be hammered, just regard them as disposable.

SO you got no issue with running a 2" band on a 4"wheel at all. Most band resaws usually have a strain chart on them that will list the correct strain for different widths and gauges of saw anyway. But the reality is that you wont be able to feed it like you can a wider band so there is a lot of power there going to waste.

Next question though is why would you want to take a band resaw and make it a horizontal saw? Now that part makes no sense. Unless you wanted portable theres no point, and even then you'd be better to do a slant rig like a Sanborn rather then a horizontal rig. Let gravity become your friend.

One things for sure, if you set it up right it'll saw some wood in a day!

[WV Sawmiller]

O'gem

   In 2002 or 2003 my wife and I visited the Central Africa Republic and had free time on our last day so asked to visit the local sawmill run by a French Corporation. Amazingly they agreed and they gave us run of the mill. We went in their furniture shop, into the power house where they blew sawdust into a firebox heating boilers to make steam to run the plant (My wife still has not gotten all the sawdust out of the lens she had on her camera at the time), through the woodyard where the only white guy we saw warned us to stay away from the equipment boneyard because a python had eaten the project manager's dog the previous week, the storage sheds and the mill itself. We saw logs over 6' in diameter in the yard but watched them load and cut one over 4' in diameter. They loaded the log on the mill, shifted a laser template around to maximize the yield then clicked save and the computer took over and cut the same pattern as on the template. Was very cool to watch. The lumber looked to be about 5/4 X 12" wide X 12' long.

    Anyway, their mill was a huge band mill. We watched 2 men carrying a blade. I'd say it was 12" wide, 1/4" thick and probably close to 30' in diameter when installed. They put the blade in a jig, welded a spot on each tooth then ran it through a sharpening and setting station to grind each tooth to the proper angle and set.

    Up to that point I did not know any mill used anything but a big circle blade to cut something that big.

[ozarkgem]

I got a whole lot of info RE this not so long back... just exploring an option... and you can definately run the narrower bands on them. We actually were looking at a 6"band, and the freight to get the bands to and from the sawdoctor was the killer for us rather then the price of the bands or the filing costs. (Nearest place that can properly handle a 6"band is like a 2000 mile round trip, and it woulda meant having a lot of bands in the system to keep a sharp one up to her all day every day.)

Anyho... what we worked out was that we could run 6"bands for when we really needed that kind of performance... but just run 2½ or 3" the rest of the time. Thing being that you can get plenty gear to sharpen and set up to 3"bands and they dont need to be hammered, just regard them as disposable.

SO you got no issue with running a 2" band on a 4"wheel at all. Most band resaws usually have a strain chart on them that will list the correct strain for different widths and gauges of saw anyway. But the reality is that you wont be able to feed it like you can a wider band so there is a lot of power there going to waste.

Next question though is why would you want to take a band resaw and make it a horizontal saw? Now that part makes no sense. Unless you wanted portable theres no point, and even then you'd be better to do a slant rig like a Sanborn rather then a horizontal rig. Let gravity become your friend.

One things for sure, if you set it up right it'll saw some wood in a day!

The reason to convert it to a horizontal is I am a one man show. Easier to do with a horizontal mill and drag back. There are some other things to consider with a vertical setup. You need a carriage and feed and setworks , lots of track, a bigger building.
Don't get me wrong I love the slant beds. My favorite you tube watch. Just more than a one man mill.

[Magicman]

With those expensive blades, you will need a foolproof debarker and metal detector.

[bandmiller2]

I think wide bands would be an advantage until you reached the point where you needed a saw doc to sharpen and tension. Most wide band users have their own saw shop. Have any of you fellas seen a comparison of costs narrow band, wide band, swing and circular mill. A large circular head saw must be pretty cheap to run I have a couple that are as old as I am and I was born mid forties, and their still slashing logs. Frank C.

[longtime lurker]

I think it depends on how we define cost Frank.
Narrow band guys point at wide bands and say too expensive to buy and run.
Wide band guys point at narrow bands and say too expensive because of low productivity per man hour.
Circle guys like me look at all bands and say too expensive to run one way or the other, either too slow or too expensive.
All band guys look at circles and say too expensive due to kerf.

Horses for courses and all that: if the logs are cheap it's hard to beat a circlular saw. Personally I'd like a band resaw in addition to my circle resaw, I think it'd give me the best of both worlds. There's no way I'd want anything but circles for primary breakdown though.

[ozarkgem]

another reason for horizontal is sawing wide slabs. No one around here that I know of does that. If I can run 2" and 4" on the same wheels. No brainer. For every day sawing use 2" and save the 4" for wide slabs. Still thinking on the deal. When I build it will be 2" minimum bands anyway.

[ozarkgem]

Longtime
How do you keep from ruining the set on the 2" band on a 4" wheel? 3" may be the way to go if they don't need tension-ed.

[longtime lurker]

2" bands, 75 HP motor... I've got this really evil grin right now.

This is a Kara... a circular rack bench. Good to watch because you can see how the table/ feed hob synch works with the sizing. Yah, they do a portable version.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Re9RwB8WmnE

This is a big old Stenner band rack bench slow as a wet week, but same as the Kara in terms of how it fits together.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yd38ZZQlpJ0

This is a Brewco 2" band headrig with about a 70Hp motor.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Jv0q3f6DYNg

All you got to do is mix and match!

Oh yeah, I got this really evil grin right now ;D

[longtime lurker]

Longtime
How do you keep from ruining the set on the 2" band on a 4" wheel? 3" may be the way to go if they don't need tension-ed.

Mate I honestly have no idea. However the guy that put this option forward as viable is one of if not the best big band saw doctors in Australia, so I assume it's workable. He actually recommended running a 2.5" band rather then a two inch. I'd prefer the 3" because at 3" you start getting a lot wider range of tooth options.
I know Cooks sharpeners and setters can handle 3" bands.

I assume its something to do with the camber of the wheel meaning the thinner bands would run clear, but yeah... as I say I'm clueless about the details.

[bandmiller2]

Perhaps theirs enough crown in the wheels to not effect the bands set. I know LL is right about 3" bands on a Cooks Cats Claw. I have a timber framing friend and have sharpened many Makita wide bands for him. He would show up with a trunk full of dull bands. Great sharpening job as no setting, stellite tips. Frank C.

[longtime lurker]

 

 

Saw strain chart off a 4" Robinson resaw

[Kbeitz]

My fix for not removing set on a wide wheel would be to buy a Urethane Bandsaw Tire.
Grizzly Tools sell many different sizes. They fit over the wheel and keep the band from touching it.
They are extruded to within .002 of specified thickness and do not require any glue. The tires are
made slightly undersize and will conform to the crown of your band wheel.
Some of them come with a crown. I'm sure other company's also sells them.
My homemade mill has them on.

[muggs]

My brother and I built a sawmill using 4 inch bands. Could have been 6 inch. We used 36 inch diameter wheels. When the width goes up, the gauge goes up. If the wheels are not large enough, you will get work hardening of the band.   Muggs

[ozarkgem]

My brother and I built a sawmill using 4 inch bands. Could have been 6 inch. We used 36 inch diameter wheels. When the width goes up, the gauge goes up. If the wheels are not large enough, you will get work hardening of the band.   Muggs

Hey Muggs how about some pics of that beast. The wheels I am looking at ar 42"

[ozarkgem]

 

Saw strain chart off a 4" Robinson resaw

I was not doubting you just wondering about keeping the set. The ability to switch blades would be whipped cream on peach cobbler.

[longtime lurker]

I was not doubting you just wondering about keeping the set. The ability to switch blades would be whipped cream on peach cobbler.

I didn't think you were doubting friend, I looked it out and posted it because it is relevant to the topic at hand.

I don't know anything about thin bands, and I know just enough about wide ones to be very dangerous.
I know that a stiffer band in a given width will carry more strain.
I know that a wider band is stiffer, and can carry more strain.
I know that it's the actual strain on a saw that determines how fast it can cut without wandering.

I know there's a whole lot of information about performance of different width and gauges of saw in that chart for that particular saw with 36" wheels and a 15Hp three phase motor. ( shop resaw not a sawmill one obviously)

What I'd like to know is just what those numbers mean in real world performance- cut speed and accuracy - compared to each other.  When we go from a 2" x 0.032 band to a 3" x 0.042 band the strain it can carry doubles.  If we go to a 4" x 0.042band it triples.
How much faster does doubling or tripling of the strain mean we can make a cut to get the same cut quality, or how much of a production penalty does it cost to run the thin band?
Just how much feed speed adjustment are you going to have to build into your mill?
Does double or triple the strain mean we double or triple the effective feed speed, or is their some other conversion factor we have to consider?

Those questions get answered by that chart. I just wish we had some guy here who could translate those numbers.

[Clark]

There was a guy on here who made an impressively wide band mill. He was buying oversized stuff and cutting slabs if I recall correctly. NY is the place that sticks out in my mind but I have no clue what his username was.

Clark

[ozarkgem]

There was a guy on here who made an impressively wide band mill. He was buying oversized stuff and cutting slabs if I recall correctly. NY is the place that sticks out in my mind but I have no clue what his username was.

Clark

I know, I can't believe there is not any wide band people on here.

[muggs]

Ozarkgem  Sorry no pics. That was 40 years ago. I don't think even Woodmizer was around then. We kept the head stationary and moved the log through it. It was exciting.  Muggs
8)