Useful sawmill mods

[Magicman]

I understand that but I have never seen the buildup between blade changes to be a problem.  The tracking nor anything else changes.  When I change the blade I take a wire brush and easily knock the buildup off.  Of course the buildup is always more on the drive side because the sawdust gets smashed between the blade and belt, but even there, it has never caused me a problem and removal is easy. 

[TimW]

Removal is automatic now.  Not saying this is the greatest idea.  Just saying I liked the idea and now I am trying it out.
hugs,  Brandi

[caveman]

This is not really a modification, but it helps clean the blades prior to taking them to get sharpened.  Even running diesel as blade lube, sometimes the slash pine or longleaf we saw will leave a bit of sap on the blades.  A 30 gallon drum with about an inch of diesel/transmission fluid/hydraulic fluid in the bottom will get the blade clean in no time.  I put the band into the drum and push it through the liquid in the bottom until the entire band is coated and raise it up an inch or so and let the residual liquid drip off of the blade and put it on the rack to resharpen.


 

The blade pictured in the drum is the one on the far left in the bottom picture.

[Southside]

What is the arrow for?

[caveman]

The arrow is to indicate which way to cycle the blade through so the teeth do not hang up on the rim of the drum.  I put the arrow on there to help the reader make a little more sense of it.  

Also, a 10" table saw blade will fit just right in the bottom of a five-gallon bucket.  Sometimes I'll soak them if they get pitch on them.  If you do this, a bolt or wire through the arbor hole will help to get the blade out without making a mess.

[fluidpowerpro]

Last time sawing I realized that often times when I use my pry bar, I don't have a good anchor point so today I added some "pry bar pockets" to the bed of my mill. I added them in 6 locations, each end and middle.

 

 

[Resonator]

On cleaning sawdust off the belts, be sure to check inside the wheel (under the belt) regularly for any chunks of pitchy sawdust. I know on my mill I've had to scrape pieces out more than once.

[rusticretreater]

Nice idea, Will, Tom & @fluidpowerpro 

[Magicman]

I will never extend the hydraulic power strip on my sawmill but there are a few times each year when the saw head is off of the strip and I need hydraulics.  I use a battery jump box but there is no convenient way to connect so.....


 
I added a couple of pigtails that I salvaged from a discarded jump box.  This gave me solid connection points and there is no way that the + terminal can touch the frame.

BTW, the NOCO 4250 jump box is awesome and I have jumped a tractor, car, and operated my sawmill hydraulics with it.  It is a "kick butt" unit.

[DDW_OR]

YEP
I have used the NOCO 4250 to jump start a 2007 dodge ram with a 5.9
4 times without re-charging

[Magicman]

It's value to me is being able to override and turn it on without it being connected to another battery.  That feature allows me to use it to jump the sawmill hydraulics.  I also cranked/started the (Diesel) Ford tractor which does not even have a battery in it.

My other two jump boxes in the other vehicles do not have this feature.

[TimW]

Lynn,
 That there is genius.  I gotta copy those pigtails.  I might not get a boost box, but those pigtails and jumper cables and the lawnmower equal emergency hydraulics!
hugs,  Brandi

[fluidpowerpro]

After reading this I've been considering investing in a Noco 4250 however I also see other brands that are much lower in cost, not just a little, but a lot! I have never owned one of these devices. Is the Noco really that much better? Does anyone have any experience with other brands?

[Andries]

These electric devices are in such a competitive market that you can count on getting the quality that you pay for. 
One of the key issues when buying, for me, anyways, is reliability. With one of these booster packs, you've only pulled it out because there's problems. 
You sure don't want the solution to the problem to turn out to be another just another DanG problem.

[Magicman]

Yes, I looked at the other units, one being a 6000 amp for ~half the $$.  What bothered me was the physical size.  It was half the size so maybe 6K amps for half of the time??  Kinda like a group 18 battery vs a group 31.  Both are 12 volts but what about the amp/hour capability?

I have two 2000 amp units in the other two vehicles.  They will certainly crank either of them but they fell flat when I tried to operate the sawmill hydraulics.  This NOCO 4250 did not hesitate.

[MattM]

They're very deceitfully with their ratings and you really have to be careful what your buying. For booster packs the old engine adage applies, there's no replacement for displacement. You need lots of mAh in the battery in order to put out high amps for any amount of time and the only way your going to get high mAhs is to have either high quality battery cells and/or lots of them, hence the displacement. So a small pack might theoretically you can get 6000amps (if using Chinese math) out of a AA battery but your probably only getting it 0.0000000001 milliseconds :D

I agree/disagree with adries. Yes you do get what you pay for.... But with Noco (even though they're awesome) you are most definitely paying for the name.

I bought one online from Costco 2 years ago, its a Shell SH916. It's $140 CAD, has a 16000mAh internal battery and its peak current is 1200Amps peak current. It also charges by usb-C which was a must for me and if your into this kinda thing you can lay your phone on it to charge the phone wirelessly.
This thing has no trouble boosting a 5L truck engine. And can't even could the times I've boosted my Ford 3000 with the bad battery and bad generator, in the middle of winter, 5-6 times in a row...  :'( until it the battery got enough charge to keep it running.

Also I leave it in the truck full time, summer and winter and check it every 6 months to see if it needs to be charged and it still has 4/4 bars after that amount of time.

For the equivalent Noco at the time it would have been I think we'll over $300Cad.

[fluidpowerpro]

Made these today. I was talking to never finished at the sawing project and he told me about his, so credit goes to him. They are caps I can slide over the top of my backstops to hold the log a little further away from the exit side blade guide. Often times when taking first cuts off the top, if there are stubs or the log is crooked, I end up hitting the blade guide. This will hold the log an inch further away allowing more clearance. When I built my mill I was so focused on being able to cut as wide as possible, so my backstops only held the log about a 1/4" away from the guide. Theoretically that is fine but as we know, logs are rarely perfect so I struggled with it way too often. With these, once I have a cant, I can slide them off.

 

A while back I posted about these caps I made for my backstops in a effort to hold the log further from the guide. Well...although they do sometimes help, I'm still finding that far too often I end up fighting with a crooked log or a horn that ends up hitting the guide. The amount of time I spend fighting this issue in one sawing job was way too much and really becoming a pain. 
Today I decided to quit screwing around and I built another set of stops.
They are 8" in from the guide. These ones slide up and down and I only anticipate using them on initial cuts removing slabs. Once I have a good side, I will lower them and use my hydraulic swing up stops. 
They say hindsight is 20/20 and that was the case here. I built the saw bed to get every inch possible as far as log diameter. The reality is though that 95% of the time I'm cutting smaller logs and didn't need it so close to the guide. 
When I do need to cut max diameter. I still can, but now I won't be fighting the space issue all of the time.

 

 

[thecfarm]

My stops go straight up and down as the ones you made. Put some inch marks on them. The 4 inch mark is 3 inches above the bed, 6 inchs is 5 inches above the bed and so on.
This way when I use the stops and I have the head at 6 inches I know I have an inch to spare.

[TimW]

Ya know those stops look quite juicy to a saw blade.
hugs,  Brandi

[fluidpowerpro]

Actually I added height marks also and yes, no doubt I will eventually saw into them. They are 1" square so I should be able to hit them a few times before I have to rebuild! :D

[Ljohnsaw]

When I pack up my saw for the winter, I take the head down to the valley and put the backstops and dogs in the shed. The backstops are not perfectly square and will bind if not reloaded correctly. I used the saw marks on the front of the backstops to tell me which way they get put back on in the spring.😉

[TimW]

Pre made alignment marks.  I like it!!
       hugs,  Brandi

[Southside]

Not really pre-made, more custom fab.  :D

[Parrott]

I am looking to add my own power feed and saw this on one of the face book groups.  Does anyone know what they are using?  Cable, chain, wheel drive on rail.  No list of parts so I can only guess.  Not really any indepth info for a $1700 product.  Most likely I will be making my own from older posts here.  After 93 pages I see there are a few mods I may be adding  


EpicSaw Power-Lift & Feed ? Epic-Saw

[SawyerTed]

@YellowHammer the first few times I used my board return/drag back, I was "suffering" but I knew it!  That was thanks to one of your YT videos.  :D

My tail gunners weren't pulling the lumber quick enough so boards were dropping before they got to them.   Without a table this presents a problem because the boards sometimes dropped on the cant.  If the head was still returning, boards would hit the blade - once knocking it off.  Suffering indeed!  

Today because it was raining, I took the time to add the bottom lip on my drag back.  

Disclaimer - do I own a welder?  Yes.  Am I welder?  Obviously NOT!   :D :D  Maybe the orange paint will help?