2019 Sawmill Adventures

[tylerltr450]

Hoping to record and add all the fun I am having in my 2019 sawing adventures. Hoping to start recording some more videos of the mill and all the places I am going to take it during 2019

Last video of 2018 was me testing my new chain drive system and cutting some Hickory and Maple
Timber Harvester Sawmill Log Processing - YouTube

First video of 2019 will be sawing beautiful cedar during the snowy afternoon.
Snowy Sawing Cedar - YouTube

I will have the black walnut video posted soon. The black walnut took forever and was a pain since it was so short and wide. People wonder why the short logs take the most amount of time to cut.
Black Walnut Crotches - YouTube

[tylerltr450]

Been busy at the mill had a customer drop off logs and its finally dried out enough that I was able to get logs from a job over the fall. Had to make 2 trips with the goose neck trailer in order to get them back to the house good think the drive was only 7 miles.

My neighbor was the one that dropped off logs some old pine hopefully its not all punky and gone



The last log is a monster 30 inch in diameter and 22 ft long.




This was the first trip to get logs from the guy down the road



I forgot the grab a second picture of the second load sorry.

And of course no post can be complete without a sawing picture



some of the fresh cuts, was surprised how dry the Ash logs were.

[WV Sawmiller]

  Good pix. Yeah, my ash tends to be real dry when I saw it. Smells like old honey from an old bee tree (back when there were still wild bees around) to me. Ash still tends to gum up my blades. 

   Depending how old the pine is it may still be solid but around here it would have grubs in it. Okay for sheeting and some people like it for interior paneling but not strong enough for framing. Keep us informed.

[tylerltr450]

 Good pix. Yeah, my ash tends to be real dry when I saw it. Smells like old honey from an old bee tree (back when there were still wild bees around) to me. Ash still tends to gum up my blades.

  Depending how old the pine is it may still be solid but around here it would have grubs in it. Okay for sheeting and some people like it for interior paneling but not strong enough for framing. Keep us informed.

Thanks WV its hard to get pics when your trying to cut and move around as quickly as possible. I never noticed how dry it was but I guess you are right. We always used to run water but switched to diesel and maybe that is why I noticed it now.
I told my neighbor if the pine is bad I would let him know, now time to just break into it to see. He wants to use the pine to fix a roof on one of his buildings, it will only be used to screw the tin to not for framing or supporting.
Also my uncle is logging is property next door might have to swing over and try and get some cast away logs. HUMMM 8)

[tylerltr450]

Well we have been very busy at the mill but now we are down and might be for a little while.

Unfortantly the amazing Timber Harvester decided that the gear drive the raise and lower the head wanted mesh itself on the worm gear and the gear teeth. Currently we are taking the unit apart to find a replacement

As you can see in the picture the brass gear ate itself.




Good news is I found out the original part needed, problem is getting that part. Part is a MOTOVARIO NRV 050 WORM GEAR REDUCER 20:1 however finding one with a 5/8s input shaft and a 1 inch output bore is being tricky. I believe I found an alternative which is easier to obtain which is a Lexar Industrial RV050 Worm Gear 20:1.

One problem we are having now is getting the darn 1 inch shafts out from the bore holes. I might either just keep the shafts in the worm gear and mount a sprocket to the shaft and put a pressure reducer on the hydraulic motor or try and get the shafts out.

[tylerltr450]

I am creating this post for the timber harvester owners out there that might need to replace their head gearbox for the up and down for the sawmill. After looking around I have identified the parts on my mill is a

MOTOVARIO NRV 050 WORM GEAR REDUCER 20:1

after looking around I found another similar replacement called a

Lexar Industrial RV050 Worm Gear 20:1

I called Lexar Industrial and talked to one of the workers and he stated that people with Timber Harvesters replace the head gearboxes with the Lexar unit. He did state that he sold a couple to a gentleman in Peru who owns a couple of Timber Harvesters. I did ask where the units are made and he said they are made overseas which is probably why its so much cheaper than the Motovario. He did state that the worm gear is steel and the main bear is brass. I asked him if he has all steel and he said no one makes an all steel due to wear and heat on the steel, however he said I should get a couple years out of the new unit.

If you are looking to replace your head unit please note the below
Input Shaft is 5/8" diameter x 1-9/16" long keyed shaft.
Output is hollow 1" diameter x 3-5/8" long keyed shaft.


The lexar guy also said that most Timber Harvesters had a 50:1 and he wasnt sure why mine had a 20:1, I am looking to see if others have the same ratio or not.

I will be posting pics of the tear down and replacement process hopefully I will be able to do this in a timely fashion.

What we did was take the unit down as an assembly for easy of working on the head gearbox without being on top of the mill.

Below is a pic of the head gear after eating itself.

[Dewey]

My Timber Harvester which I bought new in 1994 Was Pre Gear Box...  It has the steel worm gear and brass gear made to put grease on it daily... I've replaced both gears a few times.. the last time I boxed in the area around both gears and partially filled it with 80/90 oil and has been working fine since...
I've been running this mill fulltime since "96" it saws 6 days a week every spring through fall..
I will say due to increased business I'd like to upgrade but not sure which way to go..

[tylerltr450]

My Timber Harvester which I bought new in 1994 Was Pre Gear Box...  It has the steel worm gear and brass gear made to put grease on it daily... I've replaced both gears a few times.. the last time I boxed in the area around both gears and partially filled it with 80/90 oil and has been working fine since...
I've been running this mill fulltime since "96" it saws 6 days a week every spring through fall..
I will say due to increased business I'd like to upgrade but not sure which way to go..

Dewey,
I am not sure how yours is setup but for mine I think I am going to go with the Lexar gearbox because of the ease of access since they are only about an hour in a half north of me. 
Below is the link to the gearbox
Lexar Industrial RV050 Worm Gear 20:1 Coupled Input Speed Reducer | eBay|parentrq%3A0359fa7616a0ad782c16e5bffffc03bf|iid%3A1

[tylerltr450]

Finally got the gearbox installed.

Lexar gear box with 2 couplets and 2 shafts, we went this route to help us in the future in case the worm drive craps out again. Which it will, we went with a 50:1 since there was known issues running a 20:1 (the head wouldn't stay at the height and would creep down). Also another reason to move to 50:1 was to not have a lot of jaring action on the head and worm drive when trying to get close to a inch mark while in high throttle.




Since the lexar shaft is longer what we did was flip the pump bracket and we were able to have enough room to mount everything properly.




First pass after being put back together




Biggest pain about this job was having to re-calibrate the head chains to be cutting perfectly level with the bed. That took quite a bit of time to make sure we are cutting good lumber all the time.

[jrsloan1]

I know this is an old post, but I also had to replace the gearbox on my TH36HT25.  My set up looks to be slightly different than yours as everything is operated by the shaft that goes thru the gear box.  I also had a hard time getting the head back level with the deck/bunks.  Since I did the replacement, the scale seems to work it's self out of calibration.  It appears to only show up on the last board and it is always thick.  I have not noticed it past 1/4 of an inch too thick, but it does vary.  Anyone have thoughts??  Thanks