New guy wanting to buld a sawmill.

[Gundog]

Hi my name is Mike and I am a retired power lineman. I now run a small machine shop at my house making parts for the sport fishing industry. I have been thinking about making myself a sawmill. I have watched several youtube videos of homemade sawmills and they seem fairly simple to build. I have a fairly complete fab shop welder, sheet metal brake, shear, metal & wood bandsaws and machinery, lathe, CNC mill, CNC router etc. I have built many things over the years and making a sawmill is of interest to me.

I do not plan to cut wood for sale or make sawmills for sale I am just trying to mine the forum for needed information. I have never even ran a sawmill so I know I have a learning curve. I would like to mill some wood on my place to build some out buildings and projects.

On youtube I saw quite a few mills using rubber tires rather than steel wheels for the bandsaw blade but looking at a few builds on here I have not seen one built with rubber tires. I have an old Wards garden tractor that is missing the mower deck and I was thinking of using the 16 HP cast iron Briggs and Stratton motor and possibly the rear wheels for the saw wheels. I have also thought about machining some steel or aluminum wheels. I have a lot of misc parts laying around bearing blocks shives etc.

Anyway at this point I am just mentally planning the sawmill so I am just looking for guidance and maybe a place to read more info on mill design.

I hope this was an OK place to post my first post on this forum.

Mike

[Czech_Made]

Welcome, Gundog.

I think you want to check out Kbeitz built:

https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php/topic,82853.0.html

[fishfighter]

Welcome aboard. There is so much info here by using the search.

Before building, kind of know what avg size logs you planning on sawing. Also, how you would move those logs. Support equipment makes things way easy when using a manual mill.

The band wheels, rubber tires. Reason of them is the size. One has to set things that there is a set speed of the saw blade moving, X amount of feet per second.

[Gundog]

Welcome aboard. There is so much info here by using the search.

Before building, kind of know what avg size logs you planning on sawing. Also, how you would move those logs. Support equipment makes things way easy when using a manual mill.

The band wheels, rubber tires. Reason of them is the size. One has to set things that there is a set speed of the saw blade moving, X amount of feet per second.

I did not mention but I have a forklift and a Kubota tractor with a backhoe that has a mechanical thumb for lifting logs. I cut a fair amount of firewood to heat my home. I would like to be able to cut logs up to about 40" in diameter. I have a nice fir log down right now that is about that size. My tractor is 33 HP so it can't lift a log that size but I can drag it to where the 5000 LB forklift can pick it up. Do the rubber tires hold up to the saw blade running on them?

Thanks Mike

[Gundog]

The one thing I will need to purchase is the steel for the bed so I figure I will make it 20' long overall hoping to be able to make 16' long lumber. I would like to also make it mobile so I will be putting an axle under it.

Thanks Mike

[larrydown60]

Welcome gundog, I am building a mill now and I did buy a set of plans to help me get an idea of how to get going Texasben5 on youtube is what mine started as with lots of reading here on the forum and watching lots of videos My dream of having a saw mill is happening now, I have received lots of advice and ideas from the members of the forum. I have only seen 1 bandsaw mill 1 time and the bug bit me good luck with your build Larry

[tnaz]

Welcome to the forum Gundog/Mike, lots of good info to be had here.

Good luck with the build,

Terry

[Magicman]

Hello Gundog, and Welcome to the Forestry Forum.   8)

[york]

Hi,

Good luck on your build,but do yourself a favor and forget about using rubber tires for Band-wheels,you can not bring your Band up to proper tension....

[Gundog]

What diameter do most mills use for the band wheels?

[Kbeitz]

You can also run your blades right off the drive pulley like this saw did.



 

[thecfarm]

Gundog,welcome to the forum.
Do you mean 40" across? And the turning part will be hard on the frame work too. Will you have any hyds on the mill? Or turning the log with some of your equipment?
If you can afford it,make the rails long. I can saw a 20 foot log. Makes it very easy to put a 16 foot log on my mill. I have four feet instead of 6 inches to spare.

[fishfighter]

Mike, this has info as to how much weight a log can be. Down all the way to the left, you will see a red tool box. Some good info.


https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php?action=toolbox

[paul case]

What diameter do most mills use for the band wheels?

A lot of them are 19''. Nothing more than a pulley with a belt around it. Some go with a tight belt and some with a loose belt. I have had both and they each have their own merits. The wheel size not only has a lot to do with speed of the blade but also with blade life. A larger circle of bend should make the blade last longer. Too tight of a bend will cause premature breaking of your bands.

PC

[WmFritz]

I built mine off this design. I fabricated the frames and bought most of the components from them.

http://www.linnlumber.com

[Gundog]

Thanks for the info. I bought some old lumber from a guy today who is selling out and moving away he had a couple trailer frames probably from a travel trailer I may be able to score one for cheap that will give me my main frames they were 23' long + the tongue. He also had some 5000# mobile home axles I don't really like mobile home axles but if they are cheap enough I may buy them also. I gave him one of my business cards he is supposed to get back to me on a price for the frame he had 2. He has to be out of the property by the 30th so I have some leverage he has a mess to get rid of.

Mike