Inside My Swingers Swingframe

Firebass · December 03, 2007, 11:59:43 PM

I had promissed some of you photos of how I made my gearbox. Here's some photos of how I made my swingframe. I use 2" Timing belt to drive the saw Arbor.

Firebass

Dave Shepard · December 04, 2007, 01:21:54 AM

Wow! That looks really good. Do you have an engineering/fabricating background?

Dave

Firebass · December 04, 2007, 02:04:46 AM

As far as education I took one night coarse on hydraulics and quit the second night because the instructor didnt have a clue. I spent my carrier in a industrial manufacturing environment and I was fortunate to get be around some really talented people. (like ff member "Gilman") . Not to mention Dad and Grandpa who taught me everything they could.

Firebass

tsodak · December 04, 2007, 10:14:44 AM

Anyone played with using hydraulic motors to run the blade??? Seems to me that using hydraulics makes the mechanics of power transmission on differnt planes much easier, although I wonder about efficiency of power transmission.

When I was on the farm we had an old thirty inch circular blader that my dad mounted on the front of our skid steer to saw firewood. It had a hydraulic motor on it wiith a chain drive and could really make the blade sing.

It was also the most dangerous cutting implement int he owrld and almost killed me.

Literally.

But I digress...

Seems to me you could maybe then isolate the power from the carriage and make the whole thing a little lighter.

Tom

Ianab · December 04, 2007, 01:09:58 PM

QuoteAnyone played with using hydraulic motors to run the blade??? Seems to me that using hydraulics makes the mechanics of power transmission on differnt planes much easier, although I wonder about efficiency of power transmission.

Yes, some of the early Petersons were hydralic. They were run from a farm tractors hydralic system, but you needed a large (80hp) tractor, mostly to get enough flow from the auxilary hydralic system. Alternatively you could mount a big diesel and hydralic pump on a trailer. I have also seen one that was 3 phase electric powering a hydralic drive.

But once you have gone to all that trouble and expense, it was just cheaper to put on a smaller 4 stroke gas engine and gearbox.

But if you had access to cheap hydralic parts and already had an engine or big tractor - then yes it does work.

Cheers

Ian

scrout · December 04, 2007, 04:29:45 PM

Now I see, nice design, VERY beefy.
Other designs i have seen attach the blade/shaft directly to the output of the gearbox, and I was wondering about strength, but the way you did it looks bulletproof.
Cool.

Tom · December 04, 2007, 04:41:09 PM

One thing to consider with running the blade with a hydraulic motor, especially if you are portable and will be on other's property. The amount of fluid flow that will be required and the difficulty with stopping the flow if a line bursts could have many gallons of hydraulic fluid all over someone's house or yard before you could get the thing stopped. There are safety valves that are built to stop catastrophes like that. I guess they work, but it sure would behoove you to look into them.