DIY Scrap Iron Bandsaw Mill

Magicman · April 27, 2023, 07:42:29 AM

I really did not know how to explain it. On one cut you may notice portions where there are strings and then a few inches away there are none or a less amount. Look closely at the wood grain on those sections and you will see what I am talking about.

Crusarius · April 27, 2023, 03:09:37 PM

I find the fuzz is worse on softwoods as well. almost all of my spruce has fuzz.

RetiredTech · April 28, 2023, 08:20:20 PM

I never noticed it before on the milling videos I've watched or photos. It was probably there on some, but I guess it just didn't register until I did it myself.
I'm still not finished cleaning up the shed, so no progress on the mill. Today was wasted with another cardiologist appointment and shopping. I did pick up an ice maker kit with the plastic line to use on the blade lubrication/cooling system. I need to get the blade guards on first because I'm thinking about mounting the fluid tank on top of it. That should make it easy to service.

Hilltop366 · April 29, 2023, 09:30:31 AM

Watching a guy do a mill demo with a SMG mill cutting spruce, after cutting the cant into lumber he would flip all the pieces up so the fuzz was facing up and make another pass to trim off the fuss. (not cutting the boards, just the fuzz) It was quick and looked much better.

Crusarius · April 29, 2023, 09:12:18 PM

My first test cuts were in my garage. pretty sure I am still cleaning up from that mistake

RetiredTech · April 30, 2023, 01:50:48 PM

Unfortunately I 'll need to do a good bit of milling in this location before I can move the mill. It's not ideal, but it will have to do. I'll probably hang some plastic across the end of the shed and let it lay down across the ground to help in collecting the sawdust. I've seen some guys hang a bucket on the blade guard to catch most of the sawdust. I'll think I'm going to try that too. Since I haven't built my guards yet I can put a little diverter at the exit to angle the flow down slightly instead of allowing it to blow straight out.

Magicman · April 30, 2023, 03:16:32 PM

Yes, a bucket hanging on the sawdust chute will be OK except that you will have to empty it after virtually every pass on large logs. Still works.

Crusarius · April 30, 2023, 07:45:40 PM

I tried the bucket. MM is right, needed to empty after every pass. I also had it spraying straight out to the side which was nice for keeping my area a little cleaner but it made a giant pile instead of a line.

If you lay down a piece of steel roofing to blow onto that will make pushing it out into a pile easier. try to bend the steel roofing into a U and it would work great.

RetiredTech · May 01, 2023, 08:07:36 PM

Maybe I'll need a bigger bucket. :D Actually I had another thought. My chipper has a large bag that you can attach to keep the chips from flying everywhere. I wonder if anyone has tried using something like that to catch the sawdust?

RetiredTech · May 13, 2023, 03:14:55 PM

Since I'm still on light duty for a few more days I decided to see if I couldn't improve the pointer to my ruler. The old one is just a piece of wire screwed to a magnet out of an old hard drive that died. It worked, but was too easy to bump and knock the setting out. I found a one of those round super magnets in my stash and along with a guide rail from an old dot matrix printer and what I think was part of an old shock absorber mount I made one that should be less likely to knock around. The round magnet holds it pretty tightly to the frame. If it still tends to get knocked around I could remove the magnet and tack weld it in place.

Here's the old and lousy pointer.

And here's the new and improved pointer.

RetiredTech · June 16, 2023, 07:14:17 PM

I haven't given up on the mill build. There's been a lot going on down here lately. Health issues, jury duty, getting the firewood project done that I wasn't able to do in cooler weather all kept me off the mill project. Anybody ever heard of being on call for jury duty for an entire month, and for multiple cases? They've still got me till the end of this month.
Hopefully I'll be getting a little more time to work on it now that things are coming back together. A break in the heat would be nice though.
I needed to divert the exhaust away from the blade guards I want to build and the operator side of the mill. I know it's not much progress, but it's progress. A leg section from a destroyed corn feeder (thank you Mr. Bear) was a perfect fit. Just had to cut it to a 30° angle and weld it all up. Added a little hi temp flat black paint to cover up my amateurish weld. ;)

RetiredTech · June 23, 2023, 08:22:06 AM

Woohoo, Jury duty has been cancelled for the the rest of this month. It's back to work on on this project today.
Pecan Tree
Had to turn down a huge oak that blew down across my neighbors driveway. It's 45" up past the root flare. I couldn't haul it even if I could cut it. I may be able to get a log out of the top depending on what he decides to do with it.
I'd rather be working on the mill.

RetiredTech · July 01, 2023, 06:57:31 PM

I finally got to work on the blade guards for the mill. I had an old set of shelving out by the scrap iron pile. Trees had grown up through it and it was in pretty bad shape. I decided I could salvage enough straightish material out of it to build the frame for the guards. It's made out 3/4" thin wall channel and held together with very rusty spring nuts and bolts. Hopefully it will be strong enough after it's spot welded to sheet metal covering. I've got a sheet of metal that came off of an old cabinet. It's not enough for the whole job, but it's a start.

That's it for this week. Sorry for the poor photo. The guard is just hanging on a couple sticks right now. It's not quite where it will sit, just wanted a photo to show. My muffler was still too long so I removed it for now. I'll work that out after the guards are in place. Hopefully it won't be such a long time before I can work on it again.

Ljohnsaw · July 01, 2023, 08:50:16 PM

Do yourself a BIG favor. Line the inside, front panels with some plywood. WHEN, not IF, you have a blade walk off the front, it will hit the wood and possibly be salvageable. I had trailer tires in version 1.0 and did a "powered dismount" ;) a couple times. :-\

Also, make sure you have enough clearance around the wheels to get your hands in there to change blades. My whole guard comes off my version 2 mill. Works great. I also made my v-belt pulleys/wheels very close to my frame. If the blade tries to walk off the back side, it can't and won't get damaged.

RetiredTech · July 02, 2023, 07:57:42 AM

Good idea. That should help to keep the metal doors from vibrating too. I was thinking about leaving the back open so I could see through the framework when the saw head is down low. I recently saw some post where Woodmiser had placed a small block of wood 1/16" from the top of the blade centered between the band wheels to help dampen vibration there. It sounded like a good idea so I was thinking about adding that to mine.

Ljohnsaw · July 02, 2023, 01:14:21 PM

Yes, the back side of my cover is open. When I was making my cover, I blindly cut out four ¾" plywood half circle/large D-shaped pieces and drilled a big hole for the axle to pass through. Did all the finish sanding, smoothing out the cut edge.

Was very happy with how they came out.

Then took them out to fit on the mill. That's when it dawned on me that there was no way to put the back panels on and still have it be removable to change blades.

RetiredTech · July 03, 2023, 06:10:31 AM

Quote from: ljohnsaw on July 01, 2023, 08:50:16 PMMy whole guard comes off my version 2 mill. Works great.

Isn't it a little cumbersome to have to remove the whole guard? How did you attach it?

Ljohnsaw · July 03, 2023, 01:52:36 PM

Actually works quite well and easy. It's ¾" ply fronts, a piece of 1" or so x 4" cedar connecting and wrapped in some ½" plastic from a playground tube slide. Mounted on each end is a T-shaped chrome bracket from a store clothing display. That lays on some unistrut of the saw frame. A couple bolt heads hange below the chrome to key to the unistrut. That is locked in place with a couple over center clamps.

So, flip up two clamps on each side, lift and remove. Easy Peazy.

RetiredTech · July 03, 2023, 07:34:05 PM

I gotcha. Except for the 1x4 cedar block. Is that on the back side of the plywood to back up the mounting bolts? That does look like it would be easy to remove and get back on without a lot of fuss trying to line everything up again. Plus the guard is completely out of the way for blade changes and maintenance.
I was working towards hinged doors on this one, but I'm gonna keep that in the back of my mind.

Crusarius · July 03, 2023, 07:41:21 PM

I have one cover hinged and one removable. I like the hinged one much better. it is always a challenge to find a place to set the removable one and not have it fall on the ground.

RetiredTech · July 03, 2023, 08:06:54 PM

I'll probably use the hinged doors on this one. At the end of the day I'll need to let the air out of one tire to relieve the blade tension. That way I don't mess up my tracking. If I could start over there's a lot of things I'd do differently. It's a learn as you go project. That's probably why ljohnsaw is on v2.0. He's way ahead of me. Even with hinged doors it would be nice to easily drop the whole cover off.

Ljohnsaw · July 03, 2023, 09:20:36 PM

The 1x4 (probably more like 1.5x4) is in a flat orientation and the green plastic is screwed both to the top (for consistency of the curved part going all the way around) as well as the front to cover the blade teeth. Yeah, it is a little bit of an issue as to were to set it but that is more than offset by how easy it is to do blade changes and adjustments.

The chrome T parts have the top of the T in a vertical orientation. The tail of the T is what is laying on the mill head that the toggle clamps hold down on to the Unistrut. You can make out the two bolts holding the plywood on to the T. They are countersunk on the inside of the plywood so there is no metal available for the band to bite into should it try to wander off.

I was going to cut off the extra part of the T (making it an L) but it makes for a great handle to lift off the guard. Also, the chrome remains intact and, so far, has not rusted.

RetiredTech · July 08, 2023, 04:39:00 PM

Not much progress on the mill itself. I got another section of the sheet metal in place. But the bigger news is my new Echo cs-620p came in. 8) And I tried it out today on the Pecan fork that fell a few weeks ago. All the limbs were cut for firewood and the rest is going to my house to be run through the sawmill. Here's some photos.

I've got to get that mill going. Logs are piling up. Can anyone suggest the best time to debark a pecan log? I'm guessing it loosen after a while? Right now it looks like it would have to be chopped off with an ax.

Magicman · July 08, 2023, 04:53:39 PM

I would not be concerned about the bark, but I will caution regarding sawing Pecan limbs or any limbs for that matter. Limbs ain't logs. They spend their lives holding up a side bearing load and when you start sawing you will release that energy. Don't be surprised when they start moving as you are sawing and the boards don't lay flat after they are sawn.

RetiredTech · July 08, 2023, 08:39:22 PM

Thanks MM. That's exactly what happened with the elm limb I tried to saw a while back. This was actually a fork of the trunk that was fairly vertical, but did lean out some. We spent the better part of two days cutting splitting and stacking the firewood from the limbs. I don't know if you'd call it a log or a limb? I don't really have any use for the wood. It can always be firewood if it ties itself in a knot. I just can't see letting it rot.