Useful sawmill mods

[charles mann]

Lock out, tag out. Gents, turn off the engine and pull the key when changing blades.

i agree. ensure the system is deactivated first. when we do eng washes, we pull the fire pull handles, which shuts off fuel to the engines, and we ensure to remove the "ignition" key before motoring the engines, just so we don't have an accidental lite off of an engine. which has happened in the past and dang near killed a person when it knocked him from atop of the aircraft.
my dad did a lockout on a piece of machinery before reaching in to the electrical box. some clown come through, cut his lock off and energized his machine, sending 4 legs of 220 vac to the cabinet my dad was working in. dang near killed him. 
always ensure all electrical systems are de-energized before getting near anything spinning and or that can cut a person up before they can get away from it.

[thecfarm]

Someone cut a LOTO off!!!    >:(  >:(  That guy should of been wrote up or fired!!!!  I had to use them on a past job. The locks was all tagged with a name and NO ONE could remove it without finding that person to remove it.

[teakwood]

Here is my solution, as simple as it gets, works like a charm and didn't cost more than 4h of work

[doc henderson]

looks great, sturdy, and useful

[charles mann]

Someone cut a LOTO off!!!   >:(  >:(  That guy should of been wrote up or fired!!!!  I had to use them on a past job. The locks was all tagged with a name and NO ONE could remove it without finding that person to remove it.

He was fired, after he had an "accident" when he forgot to tie his after shift going home shoes and tripped while coming out of the shower/locker room. 

[barbender]

If he would've cut my lockout tags off he might have had a bad accident before he tripped over his laces.

[charles mann]

If he would've cut my lockout tags off he might have had a bad accident before he tripped over his laces.

Well, tripping over his laces is what the other spark chasers told the superintendent when asked what happened. 

[barbender]

Ahh, I think I get it now👍

[DDW_OR]

Someone cut a LOTO off!!!   >:(  >:(  That guy should of been wrote up or fired!!!!  I had to use them on a past job. The locks was all tagged with a name and NO ONE could remove it without finding that person to remove it.

it is amazing what an IDIOT can do, or survive.
_________

also @charles mann -  glad your dad survived his encounter with a major IDIOT

[thecfarm]

Was his name Elmer?  :

[Rodmizer]

 ¢Extension for lt30


 These allow me to load logs on mill with forklift and not have the forks around the mill deck .  Also gives me a place to stack boards I need to edge out of the way but not on the ground 

[GullyBog]

Those look good. 

[trapper]

on my 87 lt30 got tired of sawdust blowing all over tried something crude as my 
fabrication skills are nil
 

[TimW]

I got tired of my metal detector wand vibrating off of the hydraulic pump box top.  So I removed a screw from the back of my simple set and installed a wiring clamp.  I hang it there and it is out of the way.  I would have got a photo of it hanging, but the rain chased me inside.  I had to put another knot in the loop, as it would hit the right tire.

 
hugs,  Brandi

[WV Sawmiller]

   Not really a sawmill mod per se but something I find real useful to keep on and around the sawmill are the little magnets like you buy at HF. They are about 2" long X 1" wide X 3/8" thick or so. I bought several pairs of them and keep them under the cover of my control panel to hold my cheat sheet and customer cut lists and such. When I am doing any kind of maintenance to the mill when I remove a nut, bolt or screw or such I grab one of the magnets and put the loose hardware on it to keep it from getting lost. I also attach the magnet with the hardware removed on or in any cover or such it came off of so when I go to reinstall it everything is right there together. They stick right on the mill where you leave them. I keep a couple in my hardware bin to keep loose washers and small nuts and such from getting scattered around.

[terrifictimbersllc]

Made this block which rides on the end of my mill. Has 3 different dimensions. A hole through it with a loop ratchet strap for safe travel. 

Handier sometimes than stacking up boards.



 

 

 

[barbender]

You must be setting up on some decent pitches to need that block!

You guys that have the Mk ll debarker won't understand why I have done this, but anyone with the Mk l debarker should understand. It only has a 1/2 hp motor, belt drive. A regular debarker blade does very little, mostly it just shoots debris back in your face and trips the breaker constantly. There's just not enough power there for those big teeth. I got thinking, what about something along the lines of a wobble dado? I wanted to find some offset washers, thatvwasnt working so I just bent the teeth out on a thin kerf Freud 7 1/4" blade. Then I accidentally set the head down with the blade over a cant and bent it. Even better😁 It actually worked pretty decent. So I decided to try 2 blades, teeth alternating bent outwards. It worked great for 2 logs, then wood slivers got between the blades and spred them apart to the point that they were cutting 2 grooves. So I bent a few teeth towards the center to take care of that. I'm kind of excited about this, it is working well enough that I can see it is already doubling my blade life. This is the first time I've actually been able to tell that the debarker is actually making a difference.

[terrifictimbersllc]

You must be setting up on some decent pitches to need that block!

Sometimes,  yes.  Most common use,  before bringing the head forward, to limit consequence (rocket launcher effect) if head drifts back to the tail end of mill.  If the back outrigger won't drop to the first hole then I use the block instead maybe with a board or two.  Easier than lowering the front to get the back outrigger down. 

I can also sit on it. 

[WV Sawmiller]

@barbender , please give us a sitrep on that in the future and let us know how that is working. I really like the bend wobbly blade idea if it doesn't keep tripping the breaker so let us know what you find.

[barbender]

WV, I can already report that the breaker rarely ever trips with this blade. The only time it does is when there is a large butt flare and I don't pay attention and back the pressure off if it a bit. It's cutting a nice groove about 3/4" deep. With the original blade, it was an 1/8", maybe 1/4" when it didn't just bounce off of the surface. It was really quite worthless.

[caveman]

I made a simple jig last week for our mill for cutting cookies and short logs (fire wood).  I was using a piece of 1/8" aluminum but it deflected a little too much.  I have not used this one yet but I see no reason that it should not work well.



 

 

[terrifictimbersllc]

Like it.  Looks like you could add a flat board to fill in the space if you want to flip over the short sawn piece onto it to have the flat on the bottom but still use the side stop. 

[caveman]

Looks like you could add a flat board to fill in the space if you want to flip over the short sawn piece onto it to have the flat on the bottom but still use the side stop. 

Yes, we could add a short board when we get down to a thin section to saw.  This happened to be the angle iron that was easily accessible when I had a few minutes to tinker  I think it is 1.5 x 3".  With it dropping a couple of inches below the bed rails and having a relatively strong, flat bottom good sized limb or log sections can be adequately supported for making cookies as well as sawing those "big" logs that show up by the dozen in the soccer mom vans.

[terrifictimbersllc]

I've just dropped those firewood logs into that space without having a custom platform in there but like yours better. 

[WDH]

I have sworn off those "big" logs.  I always end up tearing up something.