Hydraulic Sawmill

[Ljohnsaw]

So realistically, how much wt. tension do you think it would take to keep the belts tight? Its a lot of hp and 3 belts, not 1.

I'm only running a 18hp single belt but my spring is a trampoline spring and is just *barely* stretched.  I'm guessing about 2 lbs of force but mechanical advantage is probably at 5 to 8 lbs.


 
That is a timing belt tensioner from a Toyota that I used for the flat pulley.

[rjwoelk]

Say just to throw a pipe wrench into the mix. You need to ask your self a couple of questions.

1.  Do i want to mill wood to sell.

2   Do i want to spend time building a sawmill and the time and money it will take to develop and cobble the whole thing into an operating system.

 How long is the availability of the log size you wish to mill. 
I would be looking at either using that 1000 on a by hire bases or buy one if you have enough sawing to justify buying one.
Have good self look at were your abilities lay.
Good luck and happy milling/building which ever it is.

[charles mann]

Say just to throw a pipe wrench into the mix. You need to ask your self a couple of questions.

1.  Do i want to mill wood to sell.

2   Do i want to spend time building a sawmill and the time and money it will take to develop and cobble the whole thing into an operating system.

How long is the availability of the log size you wish to mill.
I would be looking at either using that 1000 on a by hire bases or buy one if you have enough sawing to justify buying one.
Have good self look at were your abilities lay.
Good luck and happy milling/building which ever it is.

I like to build things. I get more satisfaction building something i can buy, even if it might cost me more to build it. BUT i can build a mill capable of cutting as wide as the 1000 for around $10,000 maybe a lil more, or lil less, depending how fancy i wanna go rite NOW. 
The guy with the wm1000 is went up on price and said he will be going up more pretty soon. 
Longevity of big timber, unk, but right now, i have, depending who i use, anywhere from $1000 if i do it NOW, up to $3000 for some the stuff i need milled. 

[rjwoelk]

I guess you have your answer. If you like building go for it. In the end you will always have a mill to be proud of.

[Crusarius]

I think a linear actuator is going to be to slow. going to cause alot of excess belt wear from slow engagements. if your just doing a tensioner like ljohnson did you may be way ahead. leave the engine stationary weld pins in place so when the belt is loose it floats off of the pulleys then pull a lever to put the idler against the belt causing it to tighten and begin to drive. If you get the geometry right it will cam over and lock in place won't take that much playing to get it to work right. Probably take more playing to make belt float.

[charles mann]

I guess you have your answer. If you like building go for it. In the end you will always have a mill to be proud of.

yes sir. i take pride in fabricating stuff. i gave up a welding scholarship to lamar university in Beaumont, tx to join the military as a cannon cocker. 6yrs later i decided i needed to find a job that would help me in the civi world, so i chose being a hooker. 13yrs later, still working on them 6 bladed beasts. now i i take pride in working with sheet metal, repairing our acft, keeping it mission ready. 
i built a gate for my pig pen and feeder for them. i could have bought some production line junk for less, but my pigs, feral or not, deserve something better than production line chunks of steel. 
I did though think about this build before jumping in it. i figure i can start building a log pile of pine to build me a shed over the mill now, and then start cutting boards for the house, something to get the family out of our double wide. 
it may take me longer, but i can set my own forms, backfill, pack and grade the foundation sand, dig my beams and set my plumbing. and if i felt froggy enough, drag my own mud and screed it with a motorized trowel. but i think i'll pay someone to drag and finish the mud for me. then sart framing and drying in my own house. 
its another project i can take pride in saying, i built most of that, cut and sawed the timber off my land and actually provided for my family. more so than being a slave to the government via taxation. 

[Southside]

Just be careful not to let that pine sit around too long in log form.  Sawyer beetles will get into it pretty quickly and when it is hot out it will stain very, very, fast, as in days, not even weeks!!  

[charles mann]

Just be careful not to let that pine sit around too long in log form.  Sawyer beetles will get into it pretty quickly and when it is hot out it will stain very, very, fast, as in days, not even weeks!!  

I'll hav to see if we have any of those beetles in central texas. if not, they may get transported with the logs and i may accidentally intro them to our area. something i don't want to do. i figure i could saw 6-8 logs in a couple days, mostly bc i think that is about all my trailer can haul at once. and it may be closer to 4-6 logs. i need to find a scale to put on my arch so i know how much each log weighs so i don't get 1 of them over wt. tickets and take a chance on loosing or getting my cdl suspended. my company would like that to much.
I do have a pine on my property in east tx that is a belt kill. been dead about 10-15 yrs and still standing. its about 40" across. 
any thoughts as to if the wood would be worth messing with? the beetle caverns may make for some nice ascetics to the wood. or it could be junk and won't know till it blows over or i cut into it. i could alaskan mill it as to not waist blade sharpness on a  junk log. 
whats your take on the possibilities of it producing some good wood?  

[Southside]

Been dead that long and still standing - I bet it will have some very unique features to it.  I would wait and use the band saw for something like that.  It could be good for ship lap, flooring, table top - that could make some awful fine material.  

[charles mann]

Been dead that long and still standing - I bet it will have some very unique features to it.  I would wait and use the band saw for something like that.  It could be good for ship lap, flooring, table top - that could make some awful fine material.  

i am hopping so. gonna have to find the roofing nails that used to hold a 10" stop sign onto it, and just deal with the lead bullets from people shooting the sign and embedding into the tree. 
what exactly is shiplap? kinda like half of a tongue and groove, where it overlaps a 1/2" or so and is toe nailed, or glued together? 

[Southside]

Don't worry - you will find the nails... :D and the horse shoe that was hung there, the kids bike handle bars, the old plant hanger, the fence insulator.....

Yes, ship lap is a style of tongue and groove that is used for interior paneling applications where there is an intentional gap created between the boards where they come together due to the tongue being extra long.  

[charles mann]

Don't worry - you will find the nails... :D and the horse shoe that was hung there, the kids bike handle bars, the old plant hanger, the fence insulator.....

Yes, ship lap is a style of tongue and groove that is used for interior paneling applications where there is an intentional gap created between the boards where they come together due to the tongue being extra long.  

copy on shiplap. 
I hope i don't run into a bunch of that. we have owned that property for the past 35 yrs, and before that, who knows. the land was just old timber land, so shouldn't be much of those items in there. when we bought the land, the fence had just been strung, but who knows if the tree was used as a fence post when it was younger. only thing i KNOW for sure is bullets and roofing screws with the rubber washer. the tree did start to grow around the sign, but my dad took the sign down with a bit of whittling from his old eye brand folder. 
the sooner i get the mil built, the sooner i can share how many blades i went through sawing these trees up. unfortunately, some trees have been down for a good while. if i had help I'm ny area, i could get it built in a few months. but 7-8 days a month off doesn't leave much time to build and keep up with land chores.
I have neglected my pasture, got grass over 6' tall in places. my new shredder is gonna get worked hard once i finally get around to mowing it. been spending time either gathering trees or getting a pad built to set my conexes on so i have a place to work out of the rain or boiling sun once i get the roof atop of them. get a good overhead light and work well past dark once this mill project starts. 

[Southside]

It's downright amazing what you will find in logs, generations of fence, rocks that are completely grown in 10' in the air. My most interesting find is a civil war headstone in a cedar. Stopped right where I was, still don't know how to get it out of there without risking destroying the cedar or the stone.  

[charles mann]

It's downright amazing what you will find in logs, generations of fence, rocks that are completely grown in 10' in the air. My most interesting find is a civil war headstone in a cedar. Stopped right where I was, still don't know how to get it out of there without risking destroying the cedar or the stone.  

cut enough of the cedar away from the stone, just to expose the name/date. clean it up, mill around the stone, leaving some good character of the cedar. varnish or epoxy coat it, and try to find the family and present it to them, considering what they ancestor died for, regardless which side of the union he was on. 
If it was me, i would go to end of the earth to find the family, and hope they welcome the stone. 

[charles mann]

12345678

So after mapping your location, it seems back in 2016, nov, at least over turkey day, i was about a 2hr drive from you. We were held up in Wise, Va working a fire in the area, then moved down to the lunchburg area, then eased on out of va and headed to florida to work a few fires down in that panhandle area. 

[charles mann]

A backside belt power take off will need a full wrap on the pulley and will only work with a flat serpent belt.  I dont know how much horse power you can get that way or if using backside skews the power formula ratings, i suspect it does.  Power is taken off the ribbed side of serpents or veed side of vees.  Backside is for tension and redirects.  

You can backside a vee belt but the smaller the radius the quicker the failure.  A 2" diameter backside tensioner pulley has been on my truck for 2 years and its only maybe 15 or 20 degrees bend into a straight chord.  I had a 1.25" diameter pulley backside previously and it shredded belts in about 2 months until i deleted it and went with the 2 inch.  Basically vee belts need generous radius for a sharp backside wrap.  Mower decks are typicaly 3 to 5 inch.




Are we talking about belts to run your band wheel?

I would consider having a flywheel to long keyed shaft hub adapter made then put a 3 sheave pulley on it with a lovejoy after it at the end of the shaft.  The belts run the bandwheel takeoff power, the jaw coupler runs the hydraulic pump.  Have your drive belts on a spring loaded idler setup to kick out when no power.  When the machine is running you could rotate a bellcrank (boomerang shaped) double idler to engage or disengage the main drive.  In one position it lifted the belts off the drive sheave so they dont sit there burning up.  The other position it lays the belts onto the drive sheave and engages the band wheel.  I guess itd be a sort of slack tender, ive seen it on old machinery.  

The issue is youve got too much power for a centrifigal clutch and old school hand clutched sheave housings are hens teeth nowadays.  I guess a car trans could be cobbled but thats extra weight.  

A hydraulic motor to drive the saw loses efficiency but it sure is an easier way to turn the blade on and off. Just flip the detent lever on your motor spool to on.

what is a lovejoy you are referring to above? i finally found some shelves/pulley for the ratio i need. at 2500 rpm on the eng, i need a 4.75" pulley mounted to the flywheel, then a 18.75" pulley mounted to the drive wheel shaft. the pulley are rated well with the rpm range for what I'm throwing at them. here is the 18.75" pulley. its 4 groove. https://www.grainger.com/product/TB-WOOD-S-Quick-Detachable-Bushed-Bore-10Y263
i figure i can attempt to run on 3 belts initially, if they hold, cool, if not, go to all 4 belts. 
I think i may try the lever actuated drive engagement for the time being and move to linear motor later. 
I am going to have to buy 2 of those 4.75" pulley right? 1 for engine and 1 for lever engagement? 

[rjwoelk]

Something to keep in mind on belts if you are going multiple belts make sure they come as sets. I believe they are 2 or 4 to a set. But may come in any number. I allways delt with 2 or 4.

[Southside]

It's downright amazing what you will find in logs, generations of fence, rocks that are completely grown in 10' in the air. My most interesting find is a civil war headstone in a cedar. Stopped right where I was, still don't know how to get it out of there without risking destroying the cedar or the stone.  

cut enough of the cedar away from the stone, just to expose the name/date. clean it up, mill around the stone, leaving some good character of the cedar. varnish or epoxy coat it, and try to find the family and present it to them, considering what they ancestor died for, regardless which side of the union he was on.
If it was me, i would go to end of the earth to find the family, and hope they welcome the stone.

It has nothing to do with which side, pretty sure the soldier would have been Confederate given the location and having a stone.  The problem is I am 100% blind on this one, the stone is completely surrounded by the tree, and has been for a while.  So there is no indication of what the stone shape looks like, what angle to the tree is it at, anything.  I visited the church yard where this stone came from hoping to find others to compare it to and give me some guidance on what I was dealing with but there are no stones that had a similar base to them.  
Part of the problem stems from the history of the burial ground.  This church sits about 1/4 mile east of the Ft Pickett line and has been there for a very, very, long time.  Camp Pickett was created in the '40's to serve the needs of training WWII GI's.  About 40,000 acres of farm land was acquired by the govt and all the known graves on those lands were moved to this burial ground.  It was WWII so things were a bit hasty and many of the graves are both unmarked and contain unknown residents.  There is a historian who has spent quite a few summers marking off grave locations and when possible identifying the person, but those are few and far in between with relatives gone from the area by multiple generations.   
My concern is that if I am off by 1/32" of an inch then I can easily destroy any evidence that may still remain to identify the stone as I suspect both the stone and wood might be needed to fully read what is on there.  Feels like an archaeologist who found the missing link but noticed it's sitting on a landmine - what to do?  
I need to get someone with a portable X-ray to shoot the log and provide a look inside to figure this one out, used to have access to that technology but not these days.  The way I see it this situation took a long time to happen so if it takes me a little while to figure it out and do it right then that is a better avenue than permanently destroying the history due to to haste.   

[Southside]

Oh and yes, Lynchburg is about 90 miles west of us.  You do get around for sure.  

[mike_belben]

Lovejoy is a brand of jaw coupler.  They have a dog clutch looking jaw at the end of each shaft (say PTO output to pump input for example) and a rubber star held captive in between to dampen the pulses and allow for slight rock and misalignments.  Theyre pretty critical to machine building. I have buckets full and still sometimes need to order one.

I have no idea how youre planning to arrange your stuff or what youre really building anymore so i cant be much help in selecting the smaller pieces. Sorry. 

[tacks Y]

I have a Logmaster LM3 with a 30+ hp cat. Would you like me to measure my pulleys? It has a auto clutch on it, and I like it. Speed up engine and saw away.

[charles mann]

Yes sir. That would help out great. 
Pulley center to center too if you dont mind. Thank you. 

[tacks Y]

On the engine is a single pulley that runs the hydraulic pump. After that is a 4 3/4" double v pulley on the centrifical clutch. It runs a single belt, 2 v.  37" to a 19" pulley on a 2" shaft. The band wheel on the 2" shaft is 30". So 37" between engine shaft and band shaft.

[charles mann]

Tacks, 

I wont have a clutch system on the mill unless i opt for a clutch sys like whats on a car/tck or some kind of manual xmsn piece of equipment. 

Intially, i didnt have enough power with the 2 lawn/garden engines. Now i have to much power for regular style centrifugal clutches. 

[Wintergreen Mountain]

I have a 36" Turner sawmill that I purchased without the engine in 2011. I built a hydraulic drive for the saw with a 51 HP VW RABBIT diesel engine @ 2200 rpm. The engine can be 50 feet from the mill via 1" hydraulic hoses. All you hear at the mill is the saw..         15 gpm @ 1800rpm Vickers pressure compensated pump, 18 gpm hydraulic gear motor, 5 1/2" pulley driving a 15" pulley driving the 20" band wheel.      I have sawed about 24000 BF with no problems at all.   I haven't sawed for 5 years but just got it fired up again last week. Hope to saw some sticks to build a cabin with next summer.                        Also just bought a new Cooks Cat-Claw sharpener + dual tooth setter   I've sharpened 12 blades so far and they are sharpened better than any I have paid to have sharpened . I am very pleased with them. Still learning though.   Leon