Bed/bunk Spacers

[Brad_bb]

I made these last month.  Some planed ash 1.5" thick boards with some scrap sticks screwed on the bottom to fit snuggly on my bunks.  I did this because my beam planer will only plane down to 2 1/8" of the bed.  So these will space a slab up higher to plane it with the beam planer.  It's more of a jointer at than a planer.  I found that these also helped when I put a large forked log on the mill.  It spaced it up just enough to get some flare at the crotch off the bed when milling one side as far as I could until the fork got too wide.  Handy tool to have by the mill.


 

 

[Escavader]

How do you clamp the peice down  building it up like that? Ive seen my mp100 throw a 6 by 6 green hemlock 25 feet i didnt have clamped down.

[Brad_bb]

They are a snug fit on the crossbars/bunks. If you look you can also see a 3/4" stop screwed on the inside, like the little ones on the mill.  So you can still use the clamps.  You don't need to clamp too hard typically.  Not sure if you're trying to take a lot off?  Usually I take off 1/4 turn of the crank at a time which I think is 1/16"?  big beams and slabs usually have enough weight that they are not going to move, and thus the knives shouldn't bite in more than 1/16".  I've never had anything like that happen to me in 4 years.  Maybe lucky or just making sure it's stable?  Granted I just started using these bunk spacers.  I did two slabs for my buddy.  I've written about this before, but in the future I plan to build a wide mill bed like Matt Cremona's, and build a frame to hold an MP100 planer head so I can joint (that is actually the proper term here) wide slabs.

[WV Sawmiller]

Brad,

   Good looking idea. At it looks simple enough even a hillbilly might could do it. Do you use one on each rail the log is resting on?

[Brad_bb]

Just one on the butt end and one on the top end.

[Escavader]

They are a snug fit on the crossbars/bunks. If you look you can also see a 3/4" stop screwed on the inside, like the little ones on the mill.  So you can still use the clamps.  You don't need to clamp too hard typically.  Not sure if you're trying to take a lot off?  Usually I take off 1/4 turn of the crank at a time which I think is 1/16"?  big beams and slabs usually have enough weight that they are not going to move, and thus the knives shouldn't bite in more than 1/16".  I've never had anything like that happen to me in 4 years.  Maybe lucky or just making sure it's stable?  Granted I just started using these bunk spacers.  I did two slabs for my buddy.  I've written about this before, but in the future I plan to build a wide mill bed like Matt Cremona's, and build a frame to hold an MP100 planer head so I can joint (that is actually the proper term here) wide slabs.

I usually crank up a quarter before i back up .i went wrong way.it tossed that  6 by 6 like a rag doll.never make that mistake again