Useful sawmill mods

[MULE_MAN]

The main thing with your modification  ???

Is Mary Happy  ;D ;D 8)

[Gilman]

Bibby,
First off thanks for the R&D!  Free is a very good price.

Second, do you see any reason or situations where you wouldn't want to power all of the back stops?  

[Bibbyman]

The only problem I can think of is...

Sometimes (well,  more than sometimes)  you get a rough log where you have bumps and knots sticking out.  And sometimes these bumps and knots will now have a chance to hit on the middle back supports – thus pushing them to the loader side of the mill.  On logs – say up to 30" – this should not be a problem.  On really big logs that may make it more difficult to get the blade through without bumping into the outer blade guide – if this should happen.  I think this would be a small chance and nuisance.  You'd just have to trim off the swell or knot or turn the log to another face.

The way I have this one linked,  it'd only take a couple of minutes to run the nut off the tie rod link and take the rod off.  I even thought about setting up with a clip style pin used on 3 point hitch so it'd only take a second to disable.  But I think I'm going to try it this way for awhile.

[Gilman]

I think you're right bibby, the pros will probably far outweigh the cons.  

[ElectricAl]

If anyone is getting ready to order a new mill from WM. ;D

Try asking for option BB for Hydraulic sawmills. ;)


You know Bibbyman Backstops  :D

[Gilman]

Bibby how much did that back stop support cost?

[Bibbyman]

Something like $85 and shippin'..  

It's not the cheapest way to go but it worked out well in two ways.

1) Everything was there - just had to cut and reweld.

2) It left me with an extra manual back support I could go back to if this failed.  Or, if it worked,  I could use the extra manual back support to try ideas to build a replacement for the other manual back support.

Also,  my metel working equipment is limited.  I'd had to go to a metel fabraction shop to get the lever cut out, etc.

I almost have to do it this way because Mary would not allow me time to play around and disable the mill.  This way,  I could get the new back support ready and then sawp them out.

As it went,  I had Saturday morning planed to work on the back stop replacement.  Left Mary in the house watching a "chick flick" movie.  "You just rest dear.  I'm going out to work on the back support."  Out there 10 minutes and here she comes.  "I just want to get this order done before you work on the mill."  It wasn't until 7:00pm that I got to go back out and make the swap.

The tie rod, eye end, yoke end, threaded rod and pipe cost about $30 to make up.  Got the parts at an industrial supply place.  The paint less than $5.00.. got it at the local Farm and Home supply place.

[Gilman]

I could see her standing over you with her hands on her hips with a look of, "If you as much as scratch my mill..."

 :D :D

I'd better and hurry up and make all my mods before Kathy starts running it.  After theb, the only way I'll get to saw is if I get her pregnant.  That way, I'll know she has to go to the hospital eventually, even if it does take 9 months.  ;)

I wouldn't make one for anyone for $85.00.  That's a reasonable price.  Did that come with the stainless pad?

[Bibbyman]

No pads,  no rollers.  Although it's the model that will take both.

I don't know about Mary.  I've done hundreds of projects - big and small.  We've built two homes togeather with our own four hands, the sawshed, etc.  I fix all kinds of things.  But I don't think there has been a time when she's not thought... "He's going to screw this up.  I just know it."

[Gilman]

We'd better keep Kathy and Mary away from each other.

Her first apartment she moved into when we were first dating didn't accomodate a double bed up the stairs to the 2nd floor.  I removed the moulding and carved into the header a bit to fit the box spring though.

Once that sawsall fired up it was like leaving your pet outside on the 4th of July.  I thought it was going to be days before she came back to the house.

[Gilman]

Here's how I clean my drive and idler belts. I hold my left hand in place and pull the belt down with my right hand. Two trips around and it's clean. I just knew WM put that guard on there for something.

[VA-Sawyer]

Here are some of the mods I have made to my mill.

First up is the foward battery box. I added this so I could run the hydraulics without having to bring the saw head to the front of the mill.

I used square tubing to weld up a box frame. It is bolted to a couple of square tube stubs that were welded to the saw frame. The switch is rated 400 Amps and has a removable key. The switch, battery wiring, battery box and the fuse block are all from a marine store. I have a 225 Amp fuse installed for now, and it seems to be working fine.

This is a closer view. I installed the switch so as to prevent any arcing or sparking during transport or maintenance. I turn it off and remove the key to secure the mill.  The battery is charged whenever the head is at the front with the engine running. I have a 7 pin RV plug on the mill, so I wired it to charge the battery while towing as well.


Here is how I added an oil pressure pickup line. There is a factory plug in the oil filter adapter. I removed the 1/8" pipe plug and installed a 7" section of 1/8" pipe. I drilled a hole and installed a grommet in the baffle where the tube stuck out. I added a pressure guage with a remote oil line kit from the auto store. This picture also shows the fexible oil drain line you can get from WoodMizer.
 

I have the oil pressure guage mounted next to my tach so I can keep an eye on both while sawing. The tach is made by Tiny-Tach. It is their commerical unit. It displays Total Time, Current RPM ( engine running), Job Time ( Since reset), Max RPM ( since reset), and has two presetable countdown timers. It sells for about $80 from the company. In the bottom of the picture you can just see where the previous owner added pipe cross extensions to the toe-boards. These are handy when adjusting narrow logs or boards thicker than about 2 inches.


These are some three inch backstops I made for a special job. They are designed so you can drop them in or pop them out in a couple of seconds. Very handy when using the 3 inch clamp attachment with short boards.

Here is a close up of the backstops.

This shows how they are made. (No comments from the welding critics please! I was dog tired and welding in the dark)
They are inserted into the 2 cross tubes closest to the clamp. The back has an inside corner that sits on the corner of the main frame tube of the mill. There is just enough slop so that you can tip up the back of the stop to install and remove it. The nut welded on the bottom of the insert is just a spacer/pivot to hold the top of the insert close to the inside top of the crosstube and allow the back to tip up when you grab them. Pressure from the clamp holds the insert securly in place. If I make another set, I will add adjustment bolts at the back so I can fine tune the vertical alignment.
Will post more later.
VA-Sawyer

[SawDust_Studios]

WOW!  There are alot of great mods here.   I wish I just had the time to do them all.  I guess my best mod was going from my LT30 to my LT40HD.  

Does that count?   ;D

I only have 75 hrs on it and I hope to add some of these mods in the near future.

[VA-Sawyer]

One simple improvement you can make is to replace any nuts and bolts you remove with Stainless Steel ones.  This is more of a problem on older mills as WoodMizer seems to be using more SS on the newer ones. An important exception to this is any high stress points that call for Grade 8 bolts in the parts manual. Quality SS is about equal to Grade 5 hardware and may fail if used where a higher strength is called for. Use a good grade of Anti-Seize when putting a SS nut on a SS bolt to prevent galling. Use Nylon Locking ( Nylock ) nuts rather than lockwashers where possible. I get most of my SS hardware from Fastenal as our local store has a pretty fair selection of SS, and better prices than the other hardware stores in town.
VA-Sawyer

[Bibbyman]

I'm really pleased to see so many useful mods posted on this thread.  Some I never thought of.   (where's that wacky guy that put sled runners under his LT15?)

But I never intended this thread to be mods exclusively for and on Wood-Mizer mills.  Surely some of you Timber-King,  Baker, Peterson, Double Cut, etc. owners have made some mods to your mills also. Tell us about them..

[VA-Sawyer]

Here are a couple of more mods .  Sorry Bibbyman, but these are also for an orange mill.  :

Woodmizer suggests that if you have the single chain holding up the head, that you add a second chain for safety. On newer mills ( I think since '92 ) they went to an intergrated  double link chain. Trying to balance the tension on the two single chains wasn't easy to do. Here is my solution:

The orange chunk of angle iron with the 2 bolts comes as part of the chain upgrade kit. It has slots to adjust the second chain ( right hand chain in the picture ) up and down so you can match it with the fixed position first chain.  I welded a stud onto the angle iron and added the u-channel on top of the crossbar. The stud passes through a hole in the u-channel and has a nyloc nut and washer on it. To adjust, loosen the bolts that go through the slots. Tighten or loosen the nut on top of the stud to even the tension on both chains. Tighten up the slot bolts. Haven't had to readjust since I installed it some 5 months ago.

Here you can see 2 of the lights I use for evening sawing.


I bought a cheap line level and broke off the little hooks . I glued this to the front of the main tube with some silicone gasket sealer. I level the mill by setting the leg behind the hitch to the proper heigth while looking at this level. I crank down all the other legs till they are just firm on the ground.


A previous owner had put crankdown legs on my mill in place of the factory style ones. I replaced the 2000 lb unit with this 5000 lb unit and welded on a much stronger mount. I need to do the same at the back, but I have to figure out how I'm going to anchor the head for transport on the new mount. Notice the second level for the cross direction.

More later,
VA-Sawyer

[Paschale]

VA-Sawyer,

Those mods look great!  Thanks for posting the pics, and good job keeping the resolution high in the pics too!   ;)

Oh, and it's good to know about that single chain/double chain safety issue.  That's something I'll need to change on mine!

[Bruce_A]

Are other mill so complete that they don't need these updates?

[DansSawmill]

hey va sawyer, how many , roughly, logs can you go thru with your battery without charging ? i'm in the process of changing to hyd on my woodmizer, ( have log lift, and now clamp ) and would like to go to a dc elect pump system, currently using a gas logsplitter motor/pump, and would like to simplify......
sitting in workshop, drinking coffee and pondering  :P
dan
ps a upgrade isnt a option at the current time
 :-/

[VA-Sawyer]

Dan,

I am using a reject battery from my jonboat for the time being so it isn't very strong to start with. The altenator  charges the fwd battery anytime I have the head up by the front of the mill. It is also charged by the tow vehicle when going down the road.  I would say that even a new battery with a full charge would only be good for 15-20 minutes of pump run time. That might do 3 or 4 medium sized logs. When my mill left the factory it used the 35A altenator that was built into the engine for charging. That turned out to be inadaquate so WM developed the 60 A retrofit kit. Since adding the debarker, I sometimes wish I had even more charging capacity.

I got a PM asking about the lights.  They are made by Grote and have the number 6493 stamped on the back. I think they cost $10-12 at a local fleet supply parts house.

On the single/double chain thing......  WM wants you to have the upgrade installed using chains that have "usa" stamped on the sides before putting on a debarker.  It seems that some of the early chains were imports. When I got mine, it had 2 chains, but I couldn't see the "usa" so I bought a replacement set.  I had the head crash on me once. ( see report in safety section ) Don't want that to happen again. ( How do you link a different thread ? Someone that knows how, please feel free to remove this line and replace it with the link  to the mentioned report. )

Hey, I see a little sun shine outside. Guess I'll go out and play in the mud around my mill.  ;D

VA-Sawyer

[Paschale]

Here's a link to the chain incident VA-Sawyer mentioned.

https://forestryforum.com/cgi-bin/board/YaBB.pl?board=safety;action=display;num=1077683416

The way I do a link, is just by going to that page, highlighting the address, copying it with Control-C, and then paste it into the text of the message with Control-V.  Don't know how to shorten the link, but it works.

I'm going to take a good look at my WM chains, looking for USA.  I appreciate this thread immensely, since it's opening my eyes quite a bit!  Thanks to all for all the useful suggestions.

[VA-Sawyer]

Thanks for the link Paschale,

Somebody asked why we don't see any upgrades for the other mills. I've been giving this a lot of thought ( Yes, my head hurts ! ) I've come up with 4 possible answers:

        1. The other mills are perfect when they leave the factory and don't need any upgrades.  :

        2. The other mills aren't worth the time and money needed to improve them. The owners are saving their green to buy Orange.  ;)

        3. The other mills are upgraded for free by the factory. The owners get to spend all their time sawing instead of typing on computers looking for answers.  8)

        4. The other owners are not able to figure out what an upgrade is.  ???

There.... I've thrown down the gotlet, guntlet, gawtlet, glove of challenge.
 
Hey, Bibbyman, I'll bet we hear a little noise from them now !   ;D

VA-Sawyer

[ElectricAl]

Well, it's obvious that I am not as inventive as WV-Sawyer :


But oh well, here are a couple ideas that have helped us.

Many years ago we had problems with the factory water hose getting hung up on large cants.


So we down sized the tube and moved it to the outfeed side.

Also, we put a duct tape deflector to keep sawdust and bark from getting under the V belt. The tape does the job without knocking the set out of the blade. The tape will last 10 to 12 thousand feet of grade lumber.

 

[Bibbyman]

I figured I invited that comment when I asked owners of other mill brands and types to post their mods.  But I figured we're all big enough to take it.  

We got one of the best threads goin' on sawmill here right now.  So pick up your gauntlet and put it back on and get back to work makin' useful mods. 8)

Besides,  I ain't starting any fights and risk Jeff or Tom kickin' ME off the Forum... >:(

[Tom]

I think we can all stand a little ribbing. :D   I'm kinda curious what others have done to their mills too.

I've still not seen the #1, jam-up, bestus, coffee cup holder yet. :D :D