Toe Boards - types, methods, substitutes

[John Bartley]

There was a thread recently about "how do we level logs to get to a cant"?   I responded with a photo of my toe boards and several other stopped by with comments about ways and means to accomplish the levelling.

I'd like this thread to be a photographic thread (mostly) with images of toe boards or other ways to accomplish the same.   If taking pictures or posting them just ain't your thing, then please describe to your hearts content, but like they say .... "a picture is .... etc".

Here's my toe boards :

- basically a frame that sits in the saw mill frame
- has a small hydraulic jack to operate a:
- scissor type lift with a:
- HDP top on it for easy sliding and log rolling

These are factory built to fit my mill, so credit for the design to SMG (Gilbert SawMills)
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[RAYAR]

Mine are simple and quick to use. They are a scissor jack with a piece of rod bent and welded for a crank handle. There is currently a piece of flat bar welded to the top for log support (not my build). No loose parts to lose or keep track of. There is one mounted (welded) near each end of the bed. So far, they've worked good for me.
(edit: they are bolted down, not welded)







Added two recent photos of toe-boards:

Front






Rear

[Wudman]

I have a totally manual homebuilt mill.  I stick a shim under a bunk.  8 feet of steel pipe for a lever and an assortment of shims accomplish the task for me.  For the occasions that I can't lift, I use a floor jack.  I do plan to do something different at some point.  At least that's what I told myself 15 years ago.

Wudman

[Ljohnsaw]

I started with a digging bar and shims for the small stuff.  The big stuff I needed my SkyTrak to lift to get a shim under it.  Then I found this:



It fits on the 4" channel of my log bunks.  Slow but works pretty well.
 

 
Then I picked up a bucket load of bottle jacks.  A little easier and a little faster.  Works good for me.

[kng]

Here's mine.  Just a Harbor Freight floor jack held by some angle iron.

[John Bartley]

Here's mine.  Just a Harbor Freight floor jack held by some angle iron.

Great solution !!

[kelLOGg]

My manual mill came with scissor jacks but I found they couldn't lift much so I replaced it with 2 manual hydraulic jacks. They are on bases welded 8' apart on the main mill rails. Much later I needed to saw a short fat sycamore so I added 2 more bases 4.5' apart. Each set of bases has a tool tray between them. So far that has covered all I need.