Blade tracking

[Magicman]

Maybe this is an isolated incident because there seems to be many satisfied Woodland Mills owners here on the FF.   ???

[Jeff]

To retain sanity it may be better to sell the mill as you have lost all confidence in it and it likely will continue to be a festering sore. Buy a brand name mill and enjoy yourself. Frank C.

Woodland mills IS a brand name mill with a whole lot of satisfied customers. My next remark I m sure is not going to go over very well with the original poster, but having been in sawmilling my entire life, and running this website for almost 2 decades now, and seeing and hearing and witnessing a lot, there are times when the problems are created BY the operator simply by the way they do things. I can't say for sure that is the case here, but dang, we have members here that have built mills out of wood and made them saw.

I will agree though, this may not be the mill for this person.

[sawmilljoe]

Woodland mills IS a brand name mill with a whole lot of satisfied customers. My next remark I m sure is not going to go over very well with the original poster, but having been in sawmilling my entire life, and running this website for almost 2 decades now, and seeing and hearing and witnessing a lot, there are times when the problems are created BY the operator simply by the way they do things. I can't say for sure that is the case here, but dang, we have members here that have built mills out of wood and made them saw.

I will agree though, this may not be the mill for this person

Well said Jeff
I have offered to try and help and have never got a response. Just hate seeing woodlands get trashed over this have heard nothing but great things about them. They have always gone above and beyond for me.

[Ben Cut-wright]

I have had a woodland mills HM126 for 2 years now, warranty was up last week. Since day 1 have had nothing but problems with blade tracking. The follower side (non drive side) would always throw the blade back no matter what I tried & whatever suggestions their tech people gave me would not work. It is really frustrating when you have so much time & money invested to make no progress. Anyhow today I think I have finally found the problem, the threads of the tracking bolt & nut that it screws into are flattened & stripped (not sure why they didn't use a higher grade nut & bolt). The nut is welded to the carriage & cant be fixed without major fabrication. Anyone ever have this problem & if so how did you fix it? I'm gonna call woodland mills in the morning to see if it will be covered by warranty since it only ran out last week & that this has been an ongoing problem since day one. My last question is should the blade be sitting level? Mine has always had a backwards tilt to it. Changing the vertical tracking has no affect on the blade. Since I have had the mill I have had to replace wheel bearings, throttle cable, clutch, on & off switch, rollers & guides,  several drive belts, & way too many blades for very little saw time.

There have been several comments and questions regarding where the components you picture and write about are located and how you are attempting to use the adjustments. 

Has anyone attempted to address the "Blade Backwards *Tilt"?   

The "vertical tracking" adjustment you mention is on the drive side ONLY, correct?  There is no vertical tracking adjustment provision on the other bandwheel, right? 

Then, if I understand correctly, *after the weld repair of the one stripped tracking adjustment, another stripped thread problem was discovered?  Your info is a bit fuzzy as to precisely where these damaged threads are.  Perhaps both drive and idler side tracking adjustments were damaged all along?  If so that would answer why the vertical adjustment had no affect, and why the horizontal tracking adjustment would not maintain its position.  Have ALL these tracking adjustment components been inspected for damage? 

"Band wheels not spinning true" is too vague a description to even guess about. 

"Name brand" or no, problems occur with some mills, any brand.  Whether these adjustments were abused or they failed for other reasons, these should be easily repaired. Encouraging any fairly new owner to "sell his problem" to someone else would be a big red flag and poor advertising, IMO.   

[btulloh]

If that bolt is tightened without slacking the one on the opposite side it would be easy to cause that problem.  With blade tension reduced these bolts adjust with minimal torque as long as the opposing bolt is slacked before tightening the othe bolt.

Just my experience with my mill. 
BT

[Southwood]

I'm away for a few days so can't get any more pics or videos now. Your right I'm fairly new at sawing, but have worked on my buddies woodmizer for a few months before purchasing my mill. My neighbor has been milling for a decade now & he can't figure out my problems, after 2 weeks of trying to figure it out, he told me good luck. He couldn't understand what was causing my tracking & cutting problems. I did my research before buying my mill & had read many good things about woodland mills, that is why I bought it. I just wish my experience with this mill was a good one. I bought a mill that was designed to do a job & after replacing so many parts, & still not to be able to get anything done or have the mill do what it was designed to do is very frustrating. None of the replacement parts fixed my problems. Maybe the new bandwheels will fix it, I'm trying to stay optimistic. The tracking housing on the drive side that the horizontal bolt goes through has bad threads on the inside housing. I already replaced the follower side that was bad. The threads on that side were messed up on the nut & bolt. When I spin the drive side bandwheel by hand with no drive belt or blade on it, it looks as if the bandwheel is not spinning true. When I get the follower side tracked, the blade sits even with the back of the bandwheel at the bottom, but sticks out past the bandwheel on the side & top. When I spin the bandwheel by hand on the follower side you can feel the blade dip in & out on the back of the wheel. It does it every time it hits the same spoke. No matter how much I mess with the vertical tracking, the blade will not sit level. I went through the whole tracking adjustment with the tech people on the phone for an hour & we were unsuccessful at getting it level. He told me to run it & see if it corrects itself. I have been patient & have worked with the tech people for 2 years & have made no progress. This post was not intended on trashing the company. I just stated my problems & was looking for new advice that the company didn't think of. I do believe it is possible that a mill could have been poorly built or have internal problems that were not caught when being made. No company in the world has a 100% success rate at producing a defective free product. All I want is what I paid for & that is a mill that works, I don't think that is an unreasonable expectation.

[Crusarius]

Just a random thought. when you are playing with tracking have you shifted the blade to a point that the set could be removed from the blade? I noticed when I was trying to align everything on mine that I did that. I have not cut anything but am wondering if I did remove the set while trying to align it.

[Southwood]

Not sure what you mean. It is a brand new blade & teeth are set. The blade will not track evenly with back of bandwheel. It sits even at the bottom & that's it.

[Jeff]

If your band teeth somehow run up on your guides, it will take out your set

[Southwood]

Ok understood. I always have my guides away from the blade so it does not interfere with my tracking adjustments when I set the tracking. I have gone through this process with woodland mills probably a dozen time in the last 2 years.