DIY Cam Dogs for band mill

Alberta Wolf · May 30, 2018, 09:57:20 PM

I'm just wondering anyone made some cam dogs for their own band mill.For me I'm in the process of doing that for my LM2000 band mill.I'm at stage 3 :D of stage 5metal.. :D .
Stage 1 drawing on paper with pencil.
Stage 2 made it with cardboard paper ,seems to work in theory.
Stage 3 :D ;) I made it out of square wooden board and some plywood,nails, screws,tested it out and it seems to work.

A few days from now I'll be making it out of metal.

Ljohnsaw · May 30, 2018, 10:39:20 PM

I made mine from another member's design. I'll try to search for the message.

I used stuff on hand. You can squeeze a lot of water out of a log with these puppies! I've split a piece of 1x4 pine across the grain once.

Found it: Off w/ the screw clamp...

Alberta Wolf · May 31, 2018, 01:37:52 AM

They sure look like professional made,I sure hope mine look half as good. ;) By the looks of those babies you got a lot leverage.There is no way that log or cant is going to move any where.Well must say they sure look beautiful.

kelLOGg · June 03, 2018, 07:17:15 AM

ljohn, I like the vertical-only motion for height adjustment of your design. How well does it perform? Does the handle clear the side of the mill on a big log?
Bob

Ljohnsaw · June 03, 2018, 09:33:48 AM

Quote from: kelLOGg on June 03, 2018, 07:17:15 AM
ljohn, I like the vertical-only motion for height adjustment of your design. How well does it perform? Does the handle clear the side of the mill on a big log?
Bob

My old clamp design was a real pain to use:

I made the cam part long to get into the bark. It would have a tendency to lift cants - not good. If I was doing a big log, the handle would get in the way sometimes if you couldn't get it to rotate far enough around.

On my new ones, the clamp is usually high up on a new log so the handle can go down and clears the rails. If the log is really big, I just wedge it with some wood. Once wedged, a 2,000+ pound log is not gonna move!

I like the vertical design most of the time. Pretty stout. My cam clamps are just over 7" off the bed when all the way down. IF I had rotating mount, that would be better when you get down low. I'm thinking of making a smaller version that is 90° from these - make it parallel to the bed so I can cut down to 2". But, in reality, once I'm down to a square cant, I can usually go clamp-less. I might experiment and move the lower bolt up a couple inches and re-drill the yellow/orange bar to match. That would allow the whole clamp to sink lower into the slide.

What I really need is a bar on my blade guide to strike my log stops before the blade does. I wasted two newer blades in an hour last week. :'(

kelLOGg · June 03, 2018, 12:03:46 PM

Quote from: ljohnsaw on June 03, 2018, 09:33:48 AM

What I really need is a bar on my blade guide to strike my log stops before the blade does. I wasted two newer blades in an hour last week. :'(

We've all done that more than we thought we would. Kbeitz made something on his mill just like that.