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Newbie circle or band?

Started by nlrwrangler, July 17, 2011, 10:18:10 PM

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nlrwrangler

So I am looking at buying a mill. I am on a tight budget and I am looking at something like the boardwalk junior or the tr15 or the 1220.  But I also have found a circle mill that is in running condition will need a power source but will be able to see it saw and use it before buying. So I am asking your opinions.     I understand the difference in kerf between band and circle mills.  The band mill will be a more manual mill and I will loose more wood to saw dust with the circle.   The circle mill is currently set up for pto or they are currently using a drive shaft off of a truck and putting the truck in reverse and spinning the blade at 600rpm. 

How much money should one expect to spend on setting up the foundation for the circle mill.


Thanks for your replies.  The circle mill alone will cost me less then the tr10.  And I have another power source in mind.  It is a 52in blade how much hp is needed.


Thanks
Chase

tyb525

Welcome to the FF, Chase.

Circ saws do lose more to kerf, however it will also be faster than any of those band mills (meaning more board feet per hour). Is it a wood or metal husk? Made by who?

What do you plan on cutting with it? Will you be sawing by yourself, or with a helper?
LT10G10, Stihl 038 Magnum, many woodworking tools. Currently a farm service applicator, trying to find time to saw!

paul case

welcome to the forestry forum.
i would just say that i think that the bandmills are cheaper to fuel and keep blades on,as well as to learn to saw and some safer to operate. 
i couldnt be happier with my ez model 40 and the customer support that edward provides. pc
life is too short to be too serious. (some idiot)
2013 LT40SHE25 and Riehl edger,  WM 94 LT40 hd E15. Cut my sawing ''teeth'' on an EZ Boardwalk
sawing oak.hickory,ERC,walnut and almost anything else that shows up.
Don't get phylosophical with me. you will loose me for sure.
pc

nlrwrangler

The mill was built in 1894 in Pennsylvania.  I will include the only pic I have of it.  I have not bought it yet.   But am seriously considering it.  I have three power units I am thinking about.  I need to know the needed horse power.  One is the current chevy truck they are using to power it.  It is an added cost on top of the price of the mill.  Second is if the driveshaft idea is a good one I have a chevy s10 that runs great and the body is rough and is said to produce about 110 HP.  The third seems like over kill but I have access to an international 549ci that has been a power unit for another sawmill.  It runs on propane and I believe that it could be geared through belts to turn low RPMs and not drink too much fuel.  It is for sale locally and the guy said that he would throw in the mill it was set up with but the tracks are a mess and seems like it would be above my head to rebuild the whole mill.  I have pics of the tracks and the carriage of this mill if someone wants to see them.

captain_crunch

would like to know more about mill before I open me trap but I am circle mill lover and I personaly would prusue it just me .25 cents worth
M-14 Belsaw circle mill,HD-11 Log Loader,TD-14 Crawler,TD-9 Crawler and Ford 2910 Loader Tractor

nlrwrangler



Ok 2nd time is a charm.  Here is the pic of the mill I am thinking about purchasing it was built in 1894.

beenthere

If you don't already have a copy of Stan Lunstrum's Circular Saw book, you can download a pdf file here.

http://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/documnts/misc/circsaw.pdf

From the pic, looks to be in fair condition.

south central Wisconsin
It may be that my sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others

Mooseherder

A truckload of concrete will suffice to get you going.  If I had to do it all over again it would be a Bandmill for me. ::)
Buy a nice Bandmill and be sawing lumber tomorrow. ;)

bandmiller2

Chace,alot depends if you are going into this as a hobby or if you seriously want to produce lumber,and plan on doing it for a long time.That circular mill is old and will require alot of work.Forget the Chevy s-10 you want a big heavy engine that will lug,a diesel is best but propane would be good if you can feed it.Restoring and setting up an old circular mill is a commitment and not to be taken lightly as it must be done right to be sucessfull and safe as possible.Be sure bits and shanks are available for the headsaw some older blades are sidelined toothless.You could choose middle ground and buy a swing mill and be portable and self contained.Sometimes the cheapest mill up front costs the most as you set it up.I'am not trying to discourage you Chase I have an old circular mill and a bandmill they boath have their strong points,  and I do enjoy running the big wheel more. Frank C.
A man armed with common sense is packing a big piece

Ron Wenrich

I put up a circle mill on cinder block piers.  I put them in below frost line on a concrete foundation, then put a wooden 4x6 lagged into the top.  That's what I set the track on.  You should have extra piering in the log loading end due to the weight of turning the logs.  

Where the husk sits, you should have a pit under the saw.  That's to help with sawdust handling.  I put a dust drag on mine and I never shoveled dust.  

A 52" blade will give a maximum of a 20" cut.  You should have about 100hp.  Diesel generally works better than gasoline, but the propane might work as well.  With the added hp, you can also run other types of operations.  We used to run both hydraulic and an edger from our power units without affecting the performance at the saw.  

At a minimum, you will want to put some sort of a roof over top the saw.  Sun on a saw will do funny things to a blade.  I put a frame over top of the husk and put shim cuts and slabs on top to keep the sun off.  

It sort of boils down to how much time you want to spend sawing.  The circle mill will give you much better production, especially over a manual band mill.  A little longer for setup, but much more production.  On a circle mill, you won't be pulling slabs and pulling boards off the top of the log.  With a few sets of gravity rolls, you can be pushing them everywhere.  Blade costs for circle mills should run you about $2/Mbf, at most.  Some loss of volume due to kerf, but it doesn't make much difference on small logs.  Bigger logs is where the gain comes in.  Learning curve is about the same as a bandmill.  You just have to learn different things.  

The downside is that your circle mill isn't portable.  There will be added expense to the circle mill.  You will need belts, and you may want to go over to a V belt system vs the flat belt system.  You will also need some tools associated with circle mills like files and insert wrench.  The saw may need to be hammered, and the shanks may need to be replaced.  Not a big deal, but it is an added expense.  I get my saws hammered about every 1 million bf or more.  Shanks should last a couple of million bf.  
Never under estimate the power of stupid people in large groups.

bandmiller2

Chase,thats a righthand mill and if run with a large farm tractor would have to be belted as the PTO turns the wrong direction.I have seen foundations using sono tubes filled with concrete and as I used, sections of utility poles set on concrete deep.usally the spacing is 4' near the husk and loading turning area offbearers end you can stretch them out a little more.That old a mill probibly has babbit arbor bearings, unless they have been changed,not a big problem if their still usable.Show us more pictures and close ups of the carriage and feed works. Frank C.
A man armed with common sense is packing a big piece

sealark37

You can power your mill with 50-60 hp.  Many mills run very well with International UD-9 units in that power range.  Torque is more important than hp.  Many circle mills are set up on cross ties to saw in a temporary location.  Beg or borrow some local expertise when you set it all up.  You can take advantage of someone else's experience.  It will take some time to move and get started, but your cash outlay will be far less with the old mill than with the bandmill.  Regards, Clark

paul case

ron,
that $2 per 1000 bdft of sawing sounds awefull good to me. i know that my bands will get around a penny a boardft blade cost. does that include hammering? tha part that hurt me the worst was hitting hardware in a log would ruin my bits on the circle mill i had costing me new teeth. about $60 worth. a new band for mine is $18.

chase,
the added expense  of a truck load of concrete could cost another $1000. thats pretty permanant too. then a power unit, then a shed. if you buy a portable bandmill it wll be ready to saw when you get it and it will fit under your carport or in an existing barn. if you dont like it, you can just sell it and its gone. the concrete piers for a circle saw however wont be gone.
i have been down that road. i bought 1 mill for about as much as a small bandmill and moved it but never set it up. the other circle mill i had was a steel base m-14 belsaw. it would saw lumber but the blade about drove me nuts. that was before i found the forestry forum. these guys could have probably helped me solve my troubles in short order. however i sold both mills and bought a bandmill and have been sawing lumber ever since. i still have all my digits too.
btw. what kinds of trees are you cutting?
pc
life is too short to be too serious. (some idiot)
2013 LT40SHE25 and Riehl edger,  WM 94 LT40 hd E15. Cut my sawing ''teeth'' on an EZ Boardwalk
sawing oak.hickory,ERC,walnut and almost anything else that shows up.
Don't get phylosophical with me. you will loose me for sure.
pc

Ron Wenrich

Hammering costs about $100.  They don't really hammer them much anymore, they roll them.  I get it done every 1 million bf.  That's a total cost of about 10ยข/Mbf. 

My numbers are for sawing 4/4 hardwoods without a debarker.  You should be able to get about 25 Mbf on a set of teeth.  It costs about $50 for a set of teeth.  $2/Mbf.  You'll get better results sawing thicker dimensions or sawing softer wood.  Rarely do you have to buy a new saw unless you're sawing some good volume.  They'll last as long as you don't hit extremely heavy metal.  Metal detectors are a good investment for any type of mill.

Last month, I hit RR spikes.  They cost me a few teeth as it glanced off the head of the spike.  That saw is still on the arbor and sawing wood.  Nails will ruin maybe a few teeth.  You either repair the teeth or put in new ones.  You're not replacing a saw or all the teeth.  Getting a saw hot causes more damage to the saw than hitting nails. 
Never under estimate the power of stupid people in large groups.

paul case

ron,
how fast does your saw turn?
how big is your blade?
how many hp do you have on it and is it diesel or elec?
that may help  chase out.  pc
life is too short to be too serious. (some idiot)
2013 LT40SHE25 and Riehl edger,  WM 94 LT40 hd E15. Cut my sawing ''teeth'' on an EZ Boardwalk
sawing oak.hickory,ERC,walnut and almost anything else that shows up.
Don't get phylosophical with me. you will loose me for sure.
pc

Ron Wenrich

I'm running a 54" saw at 690 RPM with a 125 hp electric motor.  Rarely have I hit hardware that took out all the teeth.  Insulators are an exception.  Normal nails may take off the corner on a few teeth.  But, there are lots of time where the nails don't phase me at all.  It will cause me to dull a little quicker, but I've often hit nails and kept on sawing.  I've run smaller saws and slower mills with the same results.

Were you using carbide teeth?  Metal is death to carbide.
Never under estimate the power of stupid people in large groups.

nlrwrangler

So what ft lbs of torq is needed to run a 52in blade.  Is the 125hp electric motor over kill?

Ron Wenrich

I've run mills with motors as small as a Detroit 471.  I'm running a bigger motor because I have a bigger mill.  We're more on the commercial side.  Rule-of-thumb is that you want 5hp/inch of cut.  You can run smaller motors with less power, but what happens in a circle mill is that when you lose RPM the dish will go out of your saw.  That will cause heat, and that will cause you to cut off line, giving miscuts. 

Belsaw uses smaller blades so that the PTO off of a tractor could be used.  Farm tractors often don't have the same hp as the bigger power units.  You can do the same, but that's an added expense.
Never under estimate the power of stupid people in large groups.

bandmiller2

Anouther factor is the number of teeth on a saw.Belsaws not only use a smaller saw but also fewer teeth, further reducing the power needed.Of course with fewer teeth you must reduce the feed rate,you want each bit to take about a 1/10" bite. Frank C.
A man armed with common sense is packing a big piece

paul case

that is what i was dealing with frank.
belsaw had a gear reduction driven by v belts on the feed of the m-14 i had. it was pittifully slow. 40'' blade and onlu 24? teeth. i messed up the blade by heating it exactly the way ron described. easy to do when you dont know what you are doing.  pc
life is too short to be too serious. (some idiot)
2013 LT40SHE25 and Riehl edger,  WM 94 LT40 hd E15. Cut my sawing ''teeth'' on an EZ Boardwalk
sawing oak.hickory,ERC,walnut and almost anything else that shows up.
Don't get phylosophical with me. you will loose me for sure.
pc

bandmiller2

Paul,heating your headsaw is A right of passage for new sawyers,and a hard lesson learned.When I got my first circular mill up and running everything was crusin the interstate til a chip got between the plate and husk and heated the saw,had to go back to the smith for rehammer.Believe me I watch that area like a hawk and have a hinged section that will flip up if anything gets between the saw and the deck. Frank C.
A man armed with common sense is packing a big piece

nlrwrangler

I took the plunge yesterday and I bought a used EZ boardwalk JR.  Looking forward to putting that first log on.


paul case

new or used? i had a neighbor who bought a jr about a year ago and decided that he was a mechanic shortly after that. it was for sale last i knew for more than a new one! let us know how it goes and congratulations. pc
life is too short to be too serious. (some idiot)
2013 LT40SHE25 and Riehl edger,  WM 94 LT40 hd E15. Cut my sawing ''teeth'' on an EZ Boardwalk
sawing oak.hickory,ERC,walnut and almost anything else that shows up.
Don't get phylosophical with me. you will loose me for sure.
pc

nlrwrangler

I bought it used.  It is 3 years old and seems to have very little use.  I am the third owner and I believe that it has had less than 10 blade changes.  Came with 5 ft track extra track and 3 blades.  Drove about 350-375 miles to get it.  Excited to set it up and use it tonight.  I have two cedar logs at the house I am going to try it on. 

paul case

let us know how it goes!
i am sure that you will have questions and here is the place to put them. pc
life is too short to be too serious. (some idiot)
2013 LT40SHE25 and Riehl edger,  WM 94 LT40 hd E15. Cut my sawing ''teeth'' on an EZ Boardwalk
sawing oak.hickory,ERC,walnut and almost anything else that shows up.
Don't get phylosophical with me. you will loose me for sure.
pc

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