blade guide ideas please

[ammonbarnes]

I am on the process of building myself a mill and I am curious if any of you who have built mills could post some pictures of your adjustible blade guides and ideas for improvements. I am curious to see what preferences everyone has. thanks

[Ljohnsaw]

Take 2.  My computer rebooted just as I finished.  So...

Do yourself a HUGE favor and go buy Cook's Saw blade guides as a starting point.

My first version used tube-in-tube to adjust the guide in and out.  Worked but not real accurate.  So, version 2, as suggested by others, is a copy of how WM does it and maybe others.  You get V-grooved rollers and they support a 1" square steel tube that is rotated 45° - diamond shaped from the end.  I welded that to a piece of 2"x¼" tube.  Inside of that is a 1" solid bar that the roller guide is bolted to the front of.  This 1" bar floats in the 2" tube and held in place with 3/8" grade 8 bolts, 2 per side.  You can see both in this picture:



The V rollers need a very precise adjustment as well.  You can see a 12-24 screw on the top and bottom of the second picture that are threaded into a block (with a lock nut).  That screw protrudes through the block and hits the next block.  That block has a pivot bolt on the far end, not seen here.  In the middle is a long 3/8" bolt that passes through the V roller, through a curved slot in the 3/16" plate and threads into the middle of the long block.  The 12-24 screw pushes the near end of the long block to pinch the V rollers on to the 1" bar.  With it set just right, it will roll and be very stiff, holding the blade roller firmly against the blade (providing the 1/4" to 3/8" down pressure).  Once set, you tighten all the bolts down firmly.

 

[JoshNZ]

I think most of the designs are the same up to the point where they connect to the frame. Will be a wheel with grooves and a shoulder, spinning on bearings on a shaft that is suspended inside a tube by bolt ends, for adjustment.

There's a few ways I've seen the adjustable guide sliding bit done, mine is tube inside tube as mentioned above. I also have a vertical support going to a sliding tube above it as well so it can never change height, it works well on mine I've never noticed any issue with accuracy.

It would be nice to be hydraulic or adjustable on the fly, that's what I'd change! There's a bunch of photos of mine in my gallery starting at about the 115 mark. I've since gone bigger with the wheels too