Useful sawmill mods

[caveman]

I looked through a lot of pictures in my gallery and did not find anything that would be of any help to you regarding a cover for the wires on the board return.  I'll try to take one tomorrow.

YH and others have mentioned that a flat table works better for them than the roller and if we had command control, we'd have a flat table too.  The roller was a simple mod and it is only 1/4" or so proud of the SS ramp.  It did take some abuse yesterday when I was sawing 4" thick live oak.  Thankfully, if I wreck it, we have a lot more rollers and the mount was a prototype that worked well enough to keep using.

I have a feeling a speed potentiometer is in our near future.

[TimW]

Thanks Caveman.  I might just cut out cardboard patterns and cut my panel into two pieces.

[TimW]

I think WM has no panel at all around the board return.  I made this cardboard pattern today, to replace the panel that was installed BEFORE the board return.  I'm gonna take it to my local welding shop on Tuesday and get them to cut it out on the plasma table.

[TimW]

Now that I got the board return table installed, after cutting a notch in it to fit my mill, I thought the table came up more over the hyd. box.  I now see were a smooth table, at least to the edge of the hyd. box top, will work.   Maybe with a roller on the end.

[PAmizerman]

I had a wood table for years . Finally built one out of steel this past winter.

[PAmizerman]

After building the table I moved the hydraulic valves up on the command control like the new mills have 

[TimW]

I like that table.  Do you have a photo of the underside?

[PAmizerman]

Here is the frame before I welded the plate on.
I have it on an air bag to incline on to my roll case

[TimW]

Thanks!  So your rollers are just held in by gravity?

[PAmizerman]

I screwed a plate over them after I took that photo.
Otherwise they bounce out.

[SawyerTed]

Here's the outfeed table I built, finally.  After trying several different things, none has worked better.  It's 58" long.  It has perpendicular cleats that lock it in place on either end of the hydraulics box and held in place with D rings and a ratchet strap. It has a temporary leg supporting the outer side.  I have to figure out a leg system for it.  

To transport the table I just slide it down the bed and strap it to the sawmill bed.  

An LT70 guide finger assembly will be a future addition.   

[TimW]

That is exactly the size I was seeing in my mind.  It's right at the end of the hyd. box, right?

[SawyerTed]

It's probably too long to reach the hydraulics levers on a walk along machine (as you observed earlier) UNLESS you move the landing ramp down the mill a foot or so.  

I've not looked at the ramp.  Can it be relocated?  If so, I think 58" is a good length especially if you plan some sort of additional table or rollers.  

It also needs a guide strip on either side that runs the length of the table.   Just a 3/8" or 1/2" tall strip to help keep lumber on the table.  

Mine is just red oak boards bolted together with carriage bolts.   Countersinks on the back allow the bolts through but they don't protrude out the back.  

If you haven't noticed yet, the narrow pusher on the drag back arm tends to push slabs off to the right.   Sometimes wider boards too.   The pusher catches them off center causing them to skew.  I may experiment with a wider pusher.  

[TimW]

Anything can be moved.   But it would take a little effort to move the ramp, as it hooks into the front support leg and just sits on the frame with some guides on the frame.

 I was picturing mine would end right at the end of the hyd. box cover.

[SawyerTed]

Shorter will work fine.  

[Magicman]

I now have a workable solution for filling the sawmill's fuel tank with my Diesel pump, so today I hopefully solved my Lube tank refilling.

I have been using a drill powered centrifugal pump that worked very well, so now I will try using an onboard pump.  The pump is an ebay item that cost less than $25 if I remember correctly:


A dip tube for the suction and a quick connect to the lube tank.


Disconnected, it tidied up quite nicely.  The power cord is the same cord that I use with the fuel pump.  The conductor connector is seen hanging below the lube fitting.

[Seachaser]

Just finished reading all 81 pages.  Y'all have serious skills. Now just deciding which portable mill to buy. Wondering, while reading the pages, how many of the contributors are still with us. Lost my uncle and cousin during this time frame. Both were serious sawmill guys. 

Free bump!

[Dave Shepard]

Hard plumbed the fuel tank on my edger and bent up a bracket so nobody tries to remove the tank.
I've also installed an Anderson connector. Everything gets an Anderson connector.

[Dave Shepard]

As with everything at the sawmill, the edger got a group 31S battery. The edger came from Wood-Mizer with a smaller marine deep cycle battery. I have no idea why. I have my solar charging setup with an inverter running off the edger, so I got another deep cycle battery. I had to make up a battery tray for the group 31. Wood-Mizer equipment comes with auto parts store bolt on battery clamps, which I'm calling BS on. They can afford the $250 crimper to do it right. Today you can get a hydraulic crimper for $100.  I use tinned marine grade connectors, and adhesive lined shrink tubing. Half-baked wiring is a poor reason to have downtime.

[doc henderson]

I love those and can jump or be jumped (electrically ) from both the front or rear or my truck, and to or from my log splitter and conveyor.   Lots of batteries to maintain.

[We]

You may remember back a few pages on this post where I took on the task of linking in the manual back supports on our Wood-Mizer LT40HD Super mill.  I got the more forward one done and I'm happy to report it's working well and we've had no failures or problems with it.  It's been a big help – even when sawing 8' logs that sometimes load a little too far back.

   
Here is the link to the earlier post on how I modified the first manual back support.

But the job was only half done.   To be able to make better time sawing short – 5-7' logs,  the other back support needed to be powered too.  Well,  after much thought and planning and a few heartbreaks,   I've done it.  And here is how I did it.

First off,  I want to say I think there is a better way.  And I don't think how I got it to work on our stationary mill will work on a mobile mill with an axle assembly.   I'm still thinking on that one.



I started by "reverse engineering" the lever on the standard powered back support.  I sent a CAD drawing to a friend and customer who teaches at a technical school that teaches robotics, automation, etc.   He cut me out two samples to try on a CNC milling machine.   This one was almost done when the tool broke – leaving about 1/32" left to cut out.  He sent it along just in case.



I next cut the friction stops off'n the manual back support and ground off the paint in the area to be welded.  I also pulled the grease fitting as it would be in danger of being welded over or at least too close to the lever to use.



I then used the best fixturing I could rig to position the lever to the back support – square and aligned to the back edge of the support.  I tack welded the lever to the back support and went out for a dry fit.

At this point my little heart broke.  All the planning and measuring and figuring and it wasn't going to work.   It was clear there was no way to fit the tie rod I'd planned to put between the existing tie rod and the main frame tube.  Just too tight.   Mary and I brainstormed a bit.  She said to put the manual back support back and think on it awhile.  I was about ready to agree,  then I realized,  there was plenty of room to put the tie rod on the outside of the existing tie rod.  But ... how to get the transfer of push/pull from the outside to the inside?  I  came up with an idea to "saddle" the main tie rod.



Here is the part I fabricated.   (Now you know why I wouldn't think of building my own mill.) 



It started out as 4 pieces of  1/4"x 1-1/4" x 2" bar stock, and 1/4"x 1-1/4" x 4" bar stock.  I notched the 4 short pieces so I could set the head of a short 1/2-20 machine bolt into them and welded the bolts in place.  The two formed the right and left side while the 1/4"x 1-1/4" x 4" bar made up the top.   By trial and error,  it was trimmed and ground until it fit over the tie rod and missed everything on it's swing.



Here they are welded up but before the top chunk was welded on.



Here are the modified parts – after many tries and adjustments here and there.  There is just not any room to spare.



Here is a shot from overhead without the saddle and tie rod in place.  You can see the is scant room for movement. The existing tie rod runs right through everything like a water pipe under a tree.  It not only moved forward and back,  it also moves up and down as the levers swing.  As it is now,  the tie rod rubs in places. 



The cylinder would have cleared but the extra long pin WM used could slide an inch or more left and right – easily blocking the travel of the lever.   I replaced the factory pin with a shorter one of another design that I happened to have on hand.  It is pin retained by a snap clip in a groove.  Alas,  I had only one retainer clip and had to go to town and get another – plus a short stack of 1" washers to shim the pin as far to the outside as possible.



After much dry fitting and checking,  I made up the tie rod.  Two 1/2" ball ends,  14" of 1/2"-20 threadall and 12" of 1/2" heavy wall pipe.  I used the two ends with just the threadall until I was happy with the length adjustment.   Then I took it off the mill and measured the distance between the ends and cut the rod to that length.  Then assembled the pipe over the threadall and screwed the ends down tight.



Here is a shot from the inside.



Here is the "4-up and 4-down" shot.  Looks like it's going to work.   I'll update you after we've ran with it a while.


 8)

[Magicman]

This mod was adopted by Wood-Mizer and is now available as an add-on kit which I added to my sawmill a couple of years ago.  I should have done it sooner.