Hey, been a while. Mostly a chainsaw miller but was helping a friend with a big chestnut oak on a Timber King and some how bent one of the log stops so bad they will not retract now. Anyone ever done that? 1.5 x 2 steel bent. Figure maybe a local machine shop may have a press that might be able to get it back into shape?
If you have a hydraulic log splitter you may be able to use it as a press.I have used mine several times to straighten different pieces of bent steel.
When I bought my TK-2000 it came with four log stops. I seldom saw anything that I need four log stops so I took one off as it slowed me down on short logs. So....I somehow got a log with a knot hole on one and bent it. I could not imagine bending such a heavy piece of steel but I did. Replaced it with the one I had taken off earlier and put the bent one in the too be fixed stack.
Winter came and sawing slowed so I got the bent log stop out. Its so heavy I didn't think I could straighten it in my 30 ton home shop press without causing other kinks. Got the acetylene torch out and heated the bend to bright red. Put it in the press and managed to bend it out perfect. It really wasn't much of a problem and took maybe 20 minutes with most of the time spent heating it up to red.
Heat it and bend it back is the first option. Otherwise it's probably not rocket surgery to fabricate a new one, but check if TK sells them as spare parts. May be cheaper then custom making one if you don't have the tools to do it yourself.
That's hard to believe. But sounds like it's happened. So when it happened did it get it out of adjustment of being square with the adjustable bolts and nuts underneath. They need to make the flat piece of steel that the chain attaches to an angle or rounded off because that likes to catch
Great replies all and thanks for the advice! It is bent, i'd guess about 10 degrees. I think the log splitter has a shot at fixing it. We were talking about moving the 4th post to the 3rd to get him back to sawing. I agrree the flat iron the chain attaches to could be adjusted. That chestnut oak bark was definitely catching there.
When I bent my stop it did not effect the alignment at all. Sorta hard to believe as stout as that backstop is.
I would really be scared of bending it cold. To easy to put a kink in it and it needs to be perfectly straight. When I had it red hot it bent easy and it was right at the bend.
Keep in mind that if your mill is still under warranty this would be replaced at no charge.
If not, the part is ~ $200 if memory serves. So up to you to decide if it make sense to repair or replace.
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Good job Jeff--- Boss. ;D
Those back stops are so massive the only way they can get bent is if the user does something stupid. :-[ :-[ Says a lot about TK that they would replace that part under warranty.
It is good that TK would replace something damaged by misuse or error for sure. The saw was bought uses to no warrantee. As stout as those things are, it is hard to believe we bent it, but it was a max capacity log with deeply furrowed bark and irregular shape. Now that we know it is possible, we will be more careful and do things differently.
Also, to TK's credit, when I googled "bent log stop" for that model saw, I didn't see any posts specific to it so it does not seem to happen often.