I need to stabilize my woodmizer, and can't find a picture of a factory made stationary woodmizer anywhere. Anyone know of any? I may just have to wait till I win the new mill at the end of the month!!
I can help you out there Sawyerkirk.
We put installed a new LT40HDE25 last January. I have a post under the Sawmills and Milling area that has my first report plus pictures. May try this link to find it as it's about 5 pages down now.
Wood-Mizer LT40HDE25-RA First impressions
https://forestryforum.com/cgi-bin/board/YaBB.pl?board=sawmill&action=display&num=1012183341
I also have some pictures out on Cartogra of our sawmill operations. Most are of our old mill but the last 6 or so are of the new LT40HDE25.
http://www.cartogra.com/home/ViewMyAlbum.asp?coll_id=885556
I've got more pictures and can take more if you need them. Allen Root has one bolted to the floor also. He was a great help when we were going through our installation.
You can find some pictures on the Forum Photos also.
Thanks, The pics worked wonderfully. Not exactly what I had in mind, but should work just fine.once again woodmizer kept it simple. I have a tendecy to over build things. Thanks
You're welcome!
I haven't got a clear "mental" picture of what you're goal is with you're Wood-Mizer mill. But I remember a while back them issuing a warning not to just take the axel assembly out from under a "mobile" Wood-Mizer and call it stationary.
The factory stationary mills come with bolt-on posts that are designed to be bolted to a concrete floor. I substituted for concrete the heavy planks that run out a couple of feet on the driver's side for added base support and "deadmen" anchors on the log loader side to insure it won't be pulled over with the loading or turning of a heavy log. Some really "rock the boat".
The reason you don't need the extra bolt down on a mobile setup is because the axle and tire assemble make an outrigger to keep the clean side up. :o
I once took the tires off our older LT40HDG35 to gain some added work area. I blocked up under the hubs. But after a couple of smallish logs, I put the tires back on and left them on. ;)
I've had the axle off for a few years and yes, the mill does rock when loading big ones, my plan is to bury an oak 8x10 beneath my legs the run large lag screws down into it. and run the chains like on yours.
I thought about using railroad tie sized runners under our mill with lag screws too. But I was a little concerned with the lag bolts eventually working out like spikes do on a railroad track and thus not offering any tip-over protection. You may want to see if you can find some long galvanized bolts and heavy wide washers like the ones used for power-pole brackets and such and bolt all the way thought the 8x10s. (You may ask your local electric utility - they may have some as I don't think they re-use any of that stuff. They recently replaced some poles coming to our place and left the poles with everything on them - insulators, hardware, copper ground wire and all.)
Of course, the chain and deadman setup would be good insurance.
When we installed our stationary mill we dug out 3ftx3ft 3ft deep holes where the legs where and filled it with the concrete that they use to patch highways with. You can get it from most companys that have mixer trucks. Since we where in a 3 sided shed I wasn't too concerned with frost heaving. While the cement was still wet I put the biggest bolt that would fit through the leg hole into the cement with large washers on them. When I installed the mill I used large washers on the bolt and doubled the nut on top. After a year and a half I have not had any cracking near the bolt as of yet. The only thing I would have done differently is cement a sloped ramp to the loader arms on the mill.
While we deliberately did not want a concrete floor to work on. But it would be nice to have the skidblock, loading arms and under the mill area paved. Our shed is on a slope and it is down hill to the loading arms. The repeated traffic of the tractor loading the skidblocks has packed in runts that cause a lot of water to run in when it rains. Crap builds up under the loading arm bases and, of course under the mill. It would be a lot easier to keep clean if it were paved.
We would like to install a log live deck but would like to build a larger shed (never enough room) so we're holding fire on that.