The Forestry Forum

It pays to check the tightness of headblock mounting bolts,especially if you have a wood set beam,alot of mine were loose must be the hot dry summer.Any part of the mill that bares weight will settle with time and movement,especially with wooden foundations.I would not be surprised if even concrete and steel will settle.Myself I use a good carpenters level that I've calibrated with a precision machinests level.Frank C.

Vibration and temperature changes, the bane of anything that is supposed to be tight. The millwrights where I do electrical repairs from time to time swear by locktite of some sort. I think they keep a couple of different strengths depending on the seriousness of something vibrating loose. Nothing like a large piece of steel going through your headsaw or chipper to ruin your day.

You'll get settling and metal fatigue in the all steel mills.  We had some of our metal tubing collapse from turning logs.  We had it rebuilt. 

loctite and self locking nuts are great but those wooden parts shrink and they will have to be tightened up from time to time. i dont think there is any way around it.  pc

I had mine on 6x12 I beams tied togather by 6x12 I beams, then the mandrel box which I made out of 6 x12 H iron was tied by 5/8 inch bolts solid to the rails which was bolted to cement pilers. But one late summer when the ground got real dry the pillars did rock a little when turning logs but never had a problem sawing.