Crusarius’ sawmill build - started with Linn Lumber basic kit

[Crusarius]

Closer picture of the backstops




Triangulation on the frame rail to resist twisting. I did a total of three locations just like that. Sure made a big difference when jumping on 1 corner of the frame and when trying to flip it over to weld everything.


Of course now the bed is to heavy for me to move with my tractor :( Going to be interesting do all the finish welding. I may get some good practice welding upside down. I don't want to get good at that. Owwy.

[Crusarius]

Now that I have the trailer in tongue first I decided it was a good time to make the storage box. This box will most likely be used for blades and other random items. The box is roughly 48" square. Currently I am planning for an aluminum bottom but I am starting to reconsider. I think if I put a piece of plywood in there it will be much nicer to the blades. That way sharp blades can be teeth down and dull ones teeth up. Make sorting at the end of the day a little easier.




I boxed in the opening with angle iron along the bottom. The cross piece is a piece of 3" channel I had leftover from another job. The square piece is a piece of 2 1/2"x.188 wall square that the 2" tongue will slide into and get pinned in place. The front piece of the trailer is bolted on to give me access to all the wires that will be run through the rails. The rear bumper is also bolt on.

[Crusarius]

It is starting to get pretty cramped in the shop now. But I can still mostly walk around it. I have found if you throw a piece of plywood on the trailer that you have lots more space. Of course this means that you have to constantly move it out of the way. I just can't win The backstops are tacked on and in the upright position.





This is how I am able to keep everything in the shop. It's not pretty but it works.

[Crusarius]

ooh its christmas again. I was expecting the linear actuator today but not the wheelchair motor. Should have all the jacks on monday.

Sweet. I am happy. Now I may have to brave the cold tomorrow and go make some chips.

[Darrel]

Come spring, your biggest problem will be what to do with all the sawdust.  Looking good! 

[Crusarius]

Thats what I am hoping for. Right now the plan is to mix it into the pile of horse manure

[Crusarius]

Actually, I think the biggest issue I am going to have come spring is how to take all those trees down. I am not a logger. Not even close to one.

[btulloh]

Sawdust and horse manure should make a good combo as long as you have enough horses.  Keep it well mixed.

[Crusarius]

I have friends that have a bunch of horses. should be easy to keep a ready supply. thought about mixing and selling bags of it. seems that bags go for about $4 a piece. and when ppl buy them they typically buy 10. I dunno. have a second kid on the way now I need to find a way to afford it.

[btulloh]

If you let it cook for a month or two it will compost.  Better to figure out the amount C and N contained and get the ratio right.  Close works pretty good too.

[Crusarius]

So this is what the pulley looks like on the wheelchair motor I have for my raise and lower setup.

The left is the drive gear for my threaded rod and the right is the pulley that was on the wheelchair motor.


The ID of that hole just happens to be 3/4" on both of them. I am trying to see if I can find a gear with that whatever you call it shape on it. or wondering if I should tune up my machining skills and try to machine that shape on the bottom of my gear? Anybody have any thoughts or know what I could search for to find the right part?

[Kbeitz]

You could just drill the shaft and put a drift pin in it.

[Crusarius]

this actually has a disconnect so I can use the hand crank if I manage to kill my battery or the motor stops working. Trying to keep that feature.

[Hilltop366]

Could you cut that part off the pulley and fasten it to the sprocket?

[DbltreeBelgians]

Looks similar to a "Lovejoy" coupling. If it would match up to one you could possibly turn down a coupling halve and get a sprocket from some place like TSC and weld it to said coupling and install with correct insert. Just a thought if I'm reading this right.

Brent

[Kbeitz]

You also could take both parts to a machine shop and they could mill
the slots into your gear to mach what you have. What I would do is buy
another sprocket that takes the tapered hub. Then you wont need any
keyway or anything. The tapered hub just squeezes down on the shaft real
tight.

[Crusarius]

I am thinking I may end up just putting it in the mill and trying to match the slots. unfortunately I think trying to get it off the pulley then centered on a sprocket is not going to be very easy.

The sleeve part on the sprocket mimics the coupling perfectly.

[Crusarius]

so I rigged up my wheelchair motor to just get an idea on speed. I went 45" and it took 108 seconds. That is .416" per second. unloaded. I guess I need to get some more sprockets and try it loaded. I don't know if it will make much of a difference with the gear box on the motor.

[Crusarius]

I counted the teeth on my sprockets. they are 12 with #40 roller chain. I am wondering if I can get to the sweet 1/2" per second mark by going to a 9 or 10 tooth sprocket. Looking at ordering from amazon since everywhere else is about $30 for 1 sprocket.

[Kbeitz]

Also check E-bay.

[JRWoodchuck]

Surplus center is great for sprockets. That is where I got all of mine.

[Crusarius]

So I needed to get the mill out of my shop so I could get my broken snowmobile in. I didn't take any pictures but I put the tongue trailer jack on the front of the mill. I was able to roll it out of the garage and into the driveway far enough out of the way to work around it getting the sled in the garage. My 2 year old was helping push the trailer. I cannot believe how easy it moved. I am very happy.

Why is it when you are working on one big project all sorts of other smaller projects keep jumping in front of the big one? Looks like I need to replace the entire bulkhead on my sled :(

[Kwill]

I watched a u tube video where a guy had thee same sliding spring type log dogs you made. Looks like they worked out good on his mi!!.

[Crusarius]

So I left off contemplating the meaning of backstops. I have an idea I have not tried yet. But while I was at a loss there I chose to continue on the raise and lower setup.

I started with a 12 volt wheelchair motor I got from ebay. The wheelchair motor had a quick disconnect for disengaging the drive and also a brake. Since I am using Acme threaded rod for raise and lower I felt the brake was unnecessary, so I removed it. The motor spun easier after removing the brake.

Here is a picture of my ghetto mockup to make sure the motor had enough power to do what I wanted it to do.
 

 

 
I still have the stock pulley on there and you can see the release lever.  The rest of the stack of parts was what I could find to make it work for mockup. It's not pretty but it worked.

[Crusarius]

After testing to make sure it would work I moved on to permanent mounting. The gearbox had those 4 bolts very convenient for mounting a plate. The slotted holes are for tensioning the chain.
 

 
 
The motor came with a v-belt pulley on it. Since I am using #40 chain I needed to adapt to chain instead of the pulley. The challenge here was keeping the quick disconnect feature in case I needed to raise and lower manually because of battery issues or whatever. The pulley had a coupler on it similar to a lovejoy. The sprocket that was to replace the pulley needed some work.
 

 
I tried many different ideas on trying to adapt to the sprocket. In the end I finally just put the sprocket into the mill and machined the mating coupler into the thick shoulder of the sprocket.

 
The funny threaded rod was leftover from my mockup. I think I replaced it with the correct nut. I will have to check next time I am in the shop.
 
During mockup testing the carriage moved about .416" per second. I have not checked how fast it moves since it was reassembled.
 
I think I need to add a chain tensioner or a guide to keep the chain from rattling around. It is spanning a very long distance. For now this works.