Linn lumber build question

[Lefty57]

I'm finally starting to build my first bandmill.  After reading several build threads I decided to buy plans from Linn Lumber.  I'm realizing how much weight is out front and am thinking about making a mirror image of the mill head so the engine would be reversed and sit back further.  
Any thoughts about pros or cons of doing this?  Has anyone done this?
Anyone with a Linn mill have any thoughts about the weight on the front of the carriage frame?

[Crusarius]

I built one. After getting it done and using it I would have totally reversed everything to make the blade spin the correct direction. Right now all of my blades need to get flipped to go on the mill, then flipped again to go on a sharpener. 

I definitely had issues with the raise and lower using my wheelchair motor and the acme threaded rod. The primary issue was the poor balance having everything in front of the 2 post mast that I made. If I had made that a 4 post or something different it may have worked better but I did not want anything in front of the blade.

There are alot of things I would have done different now that I have built one and used it. In fact I am ready to start from scratch building a new one and eliminating all of the stuff I ended up not liking.

If you have any questions or need any help at all let me know. I be more than happy to help however I can. You can check out my gallery or my build thread for alot more details.

Happy building.

[Lefty57]

I built one. After getting it done and using it I would have totally reversed everything to make the blade spin the correct direction. Right now all of my blades need to get flipped to go on the mill, then flipped again to go on a sharpener.

I definitely had issues with the raise and lower using my wheelchair motor and the acme threaded rod. The primary issue was the poor balance having everything in front of the 2 post mast that I made. If I had made that a 4 post or something different it may have worked better but I did not want anything in front of the blade.

There are alot of things I would have done different now that I have built one and used it. In fact I am ready to start from scratch building a new one and eliminating all of the stuff I ended up not liking.

If you have any questions or need any help at all let me know. I be more than happy to help however I can. You can check out my gallery or my build thread for alot more details.

Happy building.

Thanks, I'm sure I will have lots of questions.  I did read through your build thread and was very impressed.   I have not decided if I am going to use the acme thread lift or a cable lift initially.  I'm trying to keep the cost down and figure I can upgrade it along the way.

[Crusarius]

I tried both ways. in the end I went back to the acme thread. primary reason for doing that is it will not drift up or down when the motor is powered off. With the cable I was always worried about it breaking and dropping of not lifting evenly.

If I was able to balance the head better the acme rod probably would work much better. but with all the weight hanging off the front I would get bad binding.

I do have some torsion springs I kept threatening to put on to help lift the head. For now its working so I will probably leave it like that till it gets sold and I build v2.5.

[JRWoodchuck]

I have acme rod on mine and it does a good job. My biggest complaint is lifting speed. I believe wood mizer and other big outfits use chain to lift there heads which is something I'll be looking into more once I get down to redesigning mine. 

[Crusarius]

I definitely agree with lift speed. It is slow. If I had a more powerful motor I would gear it up. But my motor barely lifts it as it is.

[Iwawoodwork]

On my older (1985) mighty mite mill the head is raised by a hydraulic ram and the travel drive (chain) is a hydraulic motor.  The mill is powered by an 18 hp Honda and has plenty of power and speed.  The belt driven pump is about the size of some of the older (1970-1980 ) style power steering pumps. The Honda has a 3 sheave pulley to drive the saw and pump.