Swingblade bed and bandsaw blade ideas

[AusLJW]

Hello
I'm new to this Forum thing so please excuse any gaffs I might make. 
I operate a Peterson ASM, a Woodmizer LT40HDD and a WM twin blade edger.  I have a JCB all terrain forklift to move logs and sawn timber.
I am located in Victoria, Australia.
Aussie timbers can be very difficult to deal with.  The boxes and iron barks are very hard and dense (I mean very hard) defeating normal bandsaw blade very quickly.
Smaller logs can have huge amounts of spring making them very difficult to deal with with a swingsaw.
Ideally I would have a set up than was able to turn logs as easily as the Woodmizer but under my swingmill.  Either that or band saw blades that could cope with those extreme hard timbers.
Can anybody offer any suggestions?

Look forward to hearing from you

[woodbowl]

Ideally I would have a set up than was able to turn logs as easily as the Woodmizer but under my swingmill. 

Welcome to the forum Ausl-JW

I would be very interested myself in seeing a fast deck under a swingblade. I believe it is comming soon and may already be out there somewhere. If not, you could be the first. I think your on to something.  ;)

[Furby]

I thought that's what Double Cut's mills did?

Welcome AusLJW!

[AusLJW]

I have looked at Double cut but I prefer the swing blade so that I can cut big end section beams (200mm x 100mm or 8 by 4 if you prefer) in the horizontal and with multple passes.  When I have tried to cut the big cut in one pass it stresses everything out and spring in the timber can pinch the blade.

Thanks for the replies

[Tom_Averwater]

Welcome to the Forum AusLJW.

[getoverit]

Welcome to the Forum !

When I was looking for a mill, I stumbled across this sawmill manufacturer BRAND-X

I quickly discounted them as a supplier because in my opinion they have an arrogant sales requirement that makes it mandatory to come to Colorado for 2 days of training before you could buy one of their mills.

With that being said, they do have something similar to what you are asking for... a swingblade on a bed.

[solodan]

I have always thought about this idea myself. A log deck with a loader and a log turner and toe boards under a swinger.  ??? ???

[jack]

Welcome to the Forum,
Sounds like a great idea,  i was thinkin of putting a chain deck under my swingmill, and making a device like a LAthe table for the logs on the swingblade.  a pivoting end point for both ends of the log,  mounted on a hydralic cylinder that way you could pinch the log,  and lift it with the extra cylinders and turn the log,  reset it and saw the tension out of the log.   Im sure with extra time, time, and more time, and some money it could be developed.

good to have you in the FF,
Jack
Dirtdoctorjak@aol.com

[woodbowl]

Jack, that is one of my secret ideas. How did you find out about it? The only difference is that the lathe ends are on arms that clamps the log and saws it where it lays.  :

[kabe1953]

G'day LJW,
I run a 9 1/4" Lucas in Qld cutting mainly forest red gum & iron bark big and small logs.
Mine is set up as a fixed mill with a rail and trolley system ( a very low 1, uses HQ hubs as wheels, whole trolley is only 80mm above rails)  running thru the mill, I load logs on the trolley outside the mill with a Cat 320 excavator and grab, roll the trolley in under the mill when loaded, I always load logs with same butt end orientation ( butt end toward saw) little end of trolley has ability to slew log 100mm left or right of centre. If I need to turn a log if its small I can with the help of a peevy bigger logs I roll trolley out and turn them with the excavator.
I have just located an 800mm portable band mill that I am negotiating to buy runs 4" stellite tipped bands & has 80HP Isuzu diesel to drive it also has twin edger in the band head but at the moment limited to 2" depth of cut, whole thing weighs a tad under 5 tonne.
When I get it will set it up at the head of the rails of Lucas mill and take my slabs straight off the band and into the lucas to cut to width.
How do you find the band mill in our hardwoods?
I need to do something to speed up my process( I work alone) and get better recovery and the band seems to be the way to go.
Regards

[woodbowl]

I need to do something to speed up my process( I work alone) and get better recovery and the band seems to be the way to go.

Welcome to the forum Kabe.

I also work alone as well as portable, and am on a quest to be able to saw every size log, with as little support equiptment as possible. Using a swingblade or diminisional seems the way to go.

By far, I believe the biggest obstacle is the fast manipulation of the log, from the initial placement, reading, turning if needed, slabs going one way dragged or/gravity drop, finished lumber going another direction and imediately being able to enter the next log.

All this seems way too much to ask especially for a portable sawmill, not to mention working alone. However, I believe as time goes on, there will continue to be, as history has recorded, new innovations in the simplest forms, that make obsolete the old way of doing things.

Watching a circle saw is amazing in itself. When the log is rolled into the stops, they serve as the reader to subtract from. In short order the log has been dogged, the stops have disappeared and the circle saw is on it's way through the log. A flitch or two can also be cut in the shortest amount of time. The stops reappear, the log is turned to side #2 and the process is repeated. Side 3 & 4 is done, the cant can be sent or sawn on the spot. The stops that serve as the initial reader is a very important feature in eliminating the steps of log leveling on most logs.

I believe that gravity is my friend, not my enemy, as has been in the past .... oh my aching back! Using a multi dimensional blade saw such as th D&L/MD configuration, or a swinger, lends itself to the portable arena. I've not seen gravity used for the advantage in this application, rather the dragback instead. I would like to see those slabs cut off the side with a swinger or dimensional saw, gravity entering into the equation at this point allowing the slabs to drop, then sawing the dimensional material to be dragged back or possibly dropped to another device or the combination of both.

It's just a matter of time before circle guys, dimensional and swinger guys, fast deck guys and log/lumber manipulation new idea guys bring their minds together to form a truly, amazingly productive, one man portable sawmill.

If anyone has an idea, please post it no matter how ridiculous it may seem. I for one, will not laugh in my heart. Some of the best ideas have been born and nurtured from the simple and impulsive thoughts, of a seemingly foolish suggestion.

[BW_Williams]

Welcome to both Aussies.  Harold(Florida Deadheader) was working on somehting like this before he headed south, maybe he'll chime in, my main concern is a positive stop to not let the saw contact any part of the deck, as you probably know, a swing blade dips lower when you swing it.  Good luck, BWW

[Ron Wenrich]

I've thought of several different ways of combining either a band, swing or dimension mill with the log handling efficiency of a circle mill. 

With a circle mill, we want to get the log on a carriage that will hold the log with stability.  We use several dogs to hold the log in place and help prevent springing.  Unlike the smaller mills, we pass our log through the saw, not the saw through the log.  A big difference.  We don't have to index our saw to get our cut, we index the log.  That offers great speed and we do a lot of multitasking throughout the sawing process.  It gives us our efficiency.

My idea was to use an old sawmill carriage.  Take the wheels off if you like or use a short section of track like kabe's idea to turn and dog logs.  With hydraulics, you can turn your logs right on the carriage without the need of any type of log turners, for the most part.  There are some exceptions.

With the carriage indexing your logs, all you need is a head that runs back and forth in front of the log.  With the smaller saws, you will need a way to raise and lower the heads, but do not have to go in and out.  With swing blade mills, I think you could cut in both directions.  I'm not sure of that, since I have only seen a few mills in action.

Since gravity is your friend, you can run all your stock onto a takeaway belt.  Dust would be confined to a small area and run out the belt as well.  Seperation of dust is really an easy process and can be augered away.

I would think that a unit could be run with hydraulics.  A decent hydraulic system run by a small diesel could supply power to heads, carriage, belts and about anything else you need.  We used a 28hp Deutz to power our debarker.  If designed right, it could be made to be automatic and fairly compact.

Of course, I have this all in my head and haven't really designed it out on paper.  Some of my other "designed in my head" projects have worked real well when put to development.  Then again, some haven't. ;)

[getoverit]

I'm glad to know that I'm not the only one that goes to bed each night with the designs of a better saw in my head.... one day I'll remember what it was that I was designing the night before :D

[solodan]

My problem is, I wake up at 3:00 a.m. and start thinking about this stuff......one day someone will make something better and I'll get a few nights of sleep. ??? :

[woodbowl]

It's the first thing I think about in the mornings and the last thing I think about before going to sleep. This has been going on for several years now and I'm getting rather tired of it. If I could just decide which configuration and which components to have, I would commit to buying the steel and start building. About the time I get my mind made up, another great idea skates past my brain and puts a halt to all future plans. Does anyone else have this problem?  :-\

[getoverit]

I think I know what youre talking about Olin. Its a sickness gift to be able to dream up all of this stuff :D :D

[fabrik]

Equipment to help control tensioned logs and to bring up the best face to open for swingblade sawmills has been in production since 2002. Go to www.fabrik.us/sawmillsupportequipment.html

[LOGDOG]

Fabrik,

   Good to see you here at the Forum. Somehow I've missed you and your site amongst all of my searches and conversations here. All I can say is WOW!!! You've finally come up with the system that's been needed for swingers regardless of what brand they're using. I only wish I had known about your products before I spent thousands of dollars trying to get to where I had a decent mousetrap. Yours on the other hand is the "better mousetrap". Clearly designed by a man who understands operating a sawmill as well as fabrication. You and I will definitely being doing some business together. Do you intend to make that chain turner spoken of in the video on your site available for swingers as well?

Looking forward to seeing more innovation from you in the near future.

LOGDOG

[AusLJW]

Thank all you blokes for the replies.  Fabrik gear looks very interesting.  This forum works well.  I had no clue that Fabrik existed, I was about to go down the road of re- inventing the bloody wheel.  Now I don't have to.
How are you going Kabe?
Thanks again

AusLJW (Pommy)

[woodbowl]

Here is something I want to throw in the mix. I've been wondering about this for a long time.

I'm pretty sure that Lucas has direct metel to metal coupling of the gearbox to the spindal, maybe Peterson does too.

There is a fellow around here that has built his own homemade electric diminisional mill. He did not use direct coupling in this area, rather a shock type coupling like "lovejoy" only stronger.

As you can see in the picture, the shock coupling is between the motor shaft and the spindal.

My question is, what is the advantage/disadvantage of one over the other?

[beenthere]

I'd suspect the biggest advantage would be to tolerate any mis-alignment of the motor to the shaft being driven.

[Fla._Deadheader]

Can't imagine that. My Peterson uses v-belts. Think Lucas does too. Peterson shaft is long down where the hub is fastened for the blade. ???

[woodbowl]

I know Brand X has a rigid coupler and I think some others may have the coupling socket as part of the spindal.

I probably should have said, does the flex of the shock type coupler interfere with performance, when driving a circle blade?

This could apply on any circle blade I suppose.

Any of you circle guys ever seen a shock type coupler between the blade and motor?

[Ron Wenrich]

My circle blade might be too large to be considered in the discussion.  But, every operation I've seen has used belts.  That's mostly because we have to reduce the speed of the saw in relationship to the speed of the motor.  The belts eliminates the need for any type of shock reduction.

We did use some lovejoy connections on a hydraulic operation one time.  It was used on an edger.  They got destroyed in short order due to the shock of the board hitting the saws.

On our mill feed motor, we do have a shock reduction coupler.  The feed motor goes from forward to reverse and acts as a brake for the carriage.  The coupler has rubber washers on the bolts.  If it isn't aligned quite right, those washers get destroyed pretty quickly.  They need to be replaced every couple of years due to wear and tear.

How much of a shock load do you think you're going to get?  The shock is mainly when you start up, enter the log, or hit a knot.  The worst would be when you hang a saw, which would really mess things up with a direct connection.