Learning Curve and Limited Real Estate: VB-Milling Small Suburban HM126

[Nebraska]

Good for you! Now it can really start.

[VB-Milling]

It's all here! Let's get to work! Jeep project put on hold for now. 

 

 

[btulloh]

Good deal. The jeep can wait when there's sawdust to be made. Glad you finally got all your hardware. Good luck with the assembly. You'll be sawing in short order.  8)

[VB-Milling]

Spent part of the morning getting the intake back on the Jeep so I can let the gasket maker set up for a day or two.

Spent the rest of the day on the sawmill!

After all the inventorying and waiting, I was still short a 12mm spacer. Luckily I have the means and materials to make one.  Everything else went pretty well.  There is a missing hinge latch block that was supposed to be riveted and threaded at the factory to accept the hinge latch. I'll figure that out at a later time.

As noted time and again, taking the time to dial everything in now is the name of the game. Tracks are perfect, carriage rolls with a light finger push. Blade is withing 1/32" of parallel to the bunks over the entire travel length. I need to address tracking and blade guide alignment tomorrow.

Moved it out of the garage finally and into the side yard. My wife helped me put on the new cover.

Oil and fuel and I'll making sawdust!

 

 

 

 
 

 
 
 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Magicman]

Congratulations !!!  Looking mighty mighty fine.  8)

[Nebraska]

Be sure to save your first board

[VB-Milling]

And we're off!



 

 

 

Cut up some elm (I think) and maple to start. Short pieces to get the hang of things!

[VB-Milling]

Started the day with oil and fuel. Verified the engine would run.  Also took the time to switch the recoil to the operators side of the mill head.  Went the extra mile and rotated the decal as well. Got the 6 levelers down and adjusted. Trailer is nice and stable and well balanced. Lucked out there.

Then getting the guides dialed in as well as checking blade tracking. I rechecked blade to bunk distance across the length and adjusted a little bit.  Also adjusted the guide arm to be parallel to the blade. 

Needed to tinker with the access door latches. Found some hardware that would work. Also had to tweak the sheet metal a little. Probably banged around in shipping.



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Got some observations to add to the thread, but Labor day picnic time is calling me to my in-laws.

[VB-Milling]

Some observations...

Glad I got the extension track. I'm going to install it at the front end of the trailer to make it a parking area for the mill head for easy access for maintenance and blade changing.

Reversing the recoil is genius. I can't remember who had the original idea to give them credit. Should come from the factory like that.

Mill trailer height is really good. Happy with the trailer overall.  Need to figure out how to attach the rail system to the trailer. Currently it's just clamped.

After I set the mill head height with the crank, as soon as I throttle up, the mill head drops a little bit. Will have to investigate.

[btulloh]

Glad you're up and running. You made quick work of that after you finally got your hardware. 

They've made a lot of improvements to that mill since i got mine. Looks good.

There should be a cam clamp on each side to clamp the head to the post after setting the height. Can't see that side in your pictures, but they have to be there otherwise the heads just hanging on the cables. 

Congrats on getting up and running!  The fun begins!

[DesertHobo]

Looking good, VB. Glad you're up and running. The fun and learning won't stop, so keep on letting the sawdust fly.

[VB-Milling]

There should be a cam clamp on each side to clamp the head to the post after setting the height. Can't see that side in your pictures, but they have to be there otherwise the heads just hanging on the cables.

I haven't seen anything and haven't seen anything in the manual. I'll take a look tomorrow and see what I see.
Feels good to be up and running, thank you

[VB-Milling]

Be sure to save your first board

It's already set aside in a safe place!

[VB-Milling]

Looking good, VB. Glad you're up and running. The fun and learning won't stop, so keep on letting the sawdust fly.

It feels really good to finally have logs on the mill and making sawdust. Lots of learning just today. Looking forward to much more sawdust and much more learning.

[Old Greenhorn]

Looks like you are doing very well. As far as the head locking thing goes: My manual mill is a cable lift and has no locks of any kind. When you set for a board size you want to drop below the target point and crank the head up to the mark you want. Lowering the head only to the next mark will always give you problems. Even the higher end hydraulic mills with computer setworks will do this same thing. Everything has some slop or backlash so you always set against the load of gravity.
 I notice you are real close to that wall and I get that you are tight for space and this is what you need to do, but pretty soon you are going to have to think about sawdust management to get that stuff out. Perhaps hanging a tarp on the garage wall and running it under the mill will allow you to drag out the tarp with most of the sawdust on it at the end of the day. Also, you don't want that sawdust getting beat into that wall, certain species will attract ants or other insects and having a pile that close to your sills may not be such a good thing. I only say this to save you some trouble down the road because I hope it is a long road for you with a lot of fun in there. ;D

[btulloh]

Well my curiosity got the best of me and went through the whole manual for your mill. It's really a completely different piece of machinery from my 2015 hm126. Really improved design. (Kinda sorry I looked!). 

No locks on the posts now (and that's a nice convenience), it says self locking via the crank arm.  Could be a matter of tweaking the cable assy and the guides on the posts.  OGH made a good point about raising to the final mark. That's pretty standard in machinery and certainly a good practice. Even my powermatic 66 has that in the manual for setting critical height adjustment. 

No doubt you'll get it ironed out. May just be a matter of getting the fresh cables to get settled in witha little stretch. New machinery always has a break in period, as I'm sure you've experienced many times. 

Carry on with the sawdust adventure on the new and improved hm126. 

[VB-Milling]

Looks like you are doing very well. As far as the head locking thing goes: My manual mill is a cable lift and has no locks of any kind. When you set for a board size you want to drop below the target point and crank the head up to the mark you want. Lowering the head only to the next mark will always give you problems. Even the higher end hydraulic mills with computer setworks will do this same thing. Everything has some slop or backlash so you always set against the load of gravity.
I notice you are real close to that wall and I get that you are tight for space and this is what you need to do, but pretty soon you are going to have to think about sawdust management to get that stuff out. Perhaps hanging a tarp on the garage wall and running it under the mill will allow you to drag out the tarp with most of the sawdust on it at the end of the day. Also, you don't want that sawdust getting beat into that wall, certain species will attract ants or other insects and having a pile that close to your sills may not be such a good thing. I only say this to save you some trouble down the road because I hope it is a long road for you with a lot of fun in there. ;D

I had read about not letting gravity to the work and to go past and the crank back up. I had tried that yesterday and it didn't seem to work.  The head still dropped a little. I'm wondering if I didn't adjust the post nylon bearings correctly or if I need more silicone spray on the posts. 
As far as the wall goes, you're absolutely spot on. I need to get away from the wall. My plan is to work through the stockpile of logs I have currently so I can move the mill towards the center of the side yard and access both sides.  At the very least, I would like maybe a 4ft walkway between the wall and the trailer. I don't like the idea of the sawdust hitting the siding either.

[VB-Milling]

Well my curiosity got the best of me and went through the whole manual for your mill. It's really a completely different piece of machinery from my 2015 hm126. Really improved design. (Kinda sorry I looked!).

No locks on the posts now (and that's a nice convenience), it says self locking via the crank arm.  Could be a matter of tweaking the cable assy and the guides on the posts.  OGH made a good point about raising to the final mark. That's pretty standard in machinery and certainly a good practice. Even my powermatic 66 has that in the manual for setting critical height adjustment.

No doubt you'll get it ironed out. May just be a matter of getting the fresh cables to get settled in witha little stretch. New machinery always has a break in period, as I'm sure you've experienced many times.

Carry on with the sawdust adventure on the new and improved hm126.

Overall I'm happy with the improvements they've made in their various iterations. I'd love to get on the phone with a couple of their engineers and talk out a few items for their next version.
It's certainly a well designed and built mill for the price. No real complaints so far.  

[Old Greenhorn]

I don't like the idea of the sawdust hitting the siding either.

It could be worse. You could have this;


 
Thats a 30' high rock wall. It ain't fun cleaning that sawdust.

[DesertHobo]

VB, did you spray your pulley cables with cable/chain lube? Not suggesting that's the final solution, but it should help them ride smoother and prevent binding. As noted previously, they need to break in a little too, you might find them riding different after a couple days of sawing.

Does the carriage/sawhead shake or jerk when you throttle up?

[VB-Milling]

Thats a 30' high rock wall. It ain't fun cleaning that sawdust.

That's some serious space constraints! I bet the rock would hold up better than my vinyl siding

[VB-Milling]

VB, did you spray your pulley cables with cable/chain lube? Not suggesting that's the final solution, but it should help them ride smoother and prevent binding. As noted previously, they need to break in a little too, you might find them riding different after a couple days of sawing.

Does the carriage/sawhead shake or jerk when you throttle up?

I did, but I could spray more. I might have been too stingy.
I just rechecked my blade to bunk dimensions and I've gained a 1/16th of an inch so something is stretching or giving.
I wouldn't say the sawhead shakes anymore than expected.  I've watched a ton of videos over the last year featuring Woodland Mills HM126 and HM130 mills and I don't see mine acting any differently regarding vibrations.

[VB-Milling]

The afternoon started out promising. I added the extra section of track to the front of the trailer.


 

 

 

 

Needed to trim down the plates a little bit to not interfere with the trailer cross braces.

Then I realized I never made certain the track was straight and true. Ran a tight string line to double check the full length including the new section.



 

Double checked the bunk to blade height in several places and adjusted accordingly.

[VB-Milling]

After all work, I figured it was time to actually run the mill and cut something. Apparently the mill had other plans.

I followed the required break in time to run the mill without lubricant (30 mins) Monday. Filled the lube reservoir for Tuesday's work, changed to a brand new Kasco blade, verified blade tension and that the autolube was working correctly when throttle depressed and I was ready to go.

Took a shallow pass to start squaring up a small maple log, everything seems normal. Rotated the log 90 degrees, clamped it down and throttled up for the second pass and disaster struck.

I didn't even actually cut the log, just made a couple teeth marks in the butt. Loud bang, throttle off, shut the engine down.



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The blade didn't break. I'm not sure what happened. I think the blade guard guide within the mill head worked loose in shipping and was pulled into the blade.  There are lots of broken/damaged parts and I'm not a happy camper.

The blade guard guide is broken, the yellow blade guide is gouged, both belts are cut and shredded in places. The inside of the mill head is scored all over from the blade.

Somehow the drive side belt managed to rotate, while tensioned on the pulleys, so the cog side of the belt was facing out instead of in.

I took the tension off the drive side to fix the belt, cleaner out the head of all the rubber shavings, ran the engine with no blade and the drive side at least appears to run true.

[VB-Milling]

Problem is something is very wrong with the rapid change system. Even with all the tension off the follower wheel, it feels frozen in place and won't move inward enough to get another blade on.



 

 

 

I'll be calling Woodland Mills is a bit to get tech support on the phone and hopefully we can sort this out in a way that doesn't take another month.