Need advise on my sawmill project

Ken Malone · March 04, 2025, 04:16:38 PM

Lots of great ideas there, thanks for the pics.I think I might start again.

fluidpowerpro · March 04, 2025, 10:59:10 PM

Ive got my mill in the shop for mods. Its a Hud-son HFE-36.
I took some pics of how its done on my mill for you to look at.

Ken Malone · March 05, 2025, 05:19:43 AM

Thanks for all the pics, I appreciate the input.

Ken Malone · March 15, 2025, 06:01:37 AM

Ljohn. Does this look right.if so I'm going to build it today.Thanks

Ljohnsaw · March 15, 2025, 11:06:03 AM

Wow! Looks like my drawing in my head!

Yes, that will do it. Think long and hard about getting it in the right place before welding. Mine is attached to an adjustable plate that provides tracking adjustment as well as coarse tension adjustment. I have about 3/4" travel on the tension adjustment. An inch would be better to ease getting the blade on. Getting the blade off, not so hard 😉

The tracking adjustment doesn't need to be super easy to do. You'll do it once and probably good for years. But releasing and tightening the tension for blade changes will be a daily occurrence. Maybe 5 or 6 times a day 🙄🫤

Not noted on your plans but you probably want your pillow blocks on the bottom so the wheels hang as far below your frame as possible. Unfortunately, I have a small bracket that hangs below my engine. That limits me to just shy of 14" between the blade and the frame. I was cutting a lot of 4x7s for my rafters. At one point I was cutting them from a 4" x 30" flitch. I couldn't cut more than one at a time before having to move MHE in to extract it.

Ken Malone · March 15, 2025, 11:48:35 AM

Thanks for the input,I built my bunks so the blade is 1" above at lowest and 32" at top. Thanks again,Ken.

Ljohnsaw · March 15, 2025, 01:30:07 PM

Not what I meant. I'm talking about throat depth. How thick you can cut something. Typically, you whittle down a log to a beam you need. But if you are slicing up some flitches, you need enough space between your cutting part of your blade and the lowest part of your head, the throat. Mine is limited to just under 14". So even if I'm cutting up a big cant into 2x boards, I can cut 6 boards before I have to stop and remove them.

I typically work alone and don't want to stop and remove each board after each pass. I'd rather make a stack and then slide that onto some forks.