Old circle saw fix up/ Identification

[ryan_ande]

Hey guys,

    Long time reader and user of this sites info. First time posting. Little bit of background info. About a year and a half ago I drove about three hours and hauled home what was, at its place, what appeared to be a functional circle saw mill. The old guy I bought it from told me everything he knew and remembered about it. He said it had been in his family since the 60's. And from what he could recall it was manufactured in either 1923 or 1928 in Minneapolis. All great. Hauled it home on a flatbed in as minimal amount of pieces has we needed to load it safely.

    Since that time, as my schedule has allowed, I have been reassembling, testing, disassembling stuff that needed repair. It actually needed much more work that I anticipated. The idea was the mill was bought in running condition. This is not me saying I think the seller was pulling a fast one. I believe anytime you take something that is 100 years old, disassemble it, haul it, and reassemble, you're going to find issues. None the less I have been working through said issues and am now where I believe to be at a final testing point and should hopefully be sawing regularly soon.

    I have a couple questions that I am hoping some of you guys on here can help me with. I will figure out how to attach the best pictures I can. I would be happy to fill in any voids in information I can.

    First off, does anybody recognize this mill? Any idea of manufacturer name? Maybe it has been worked over too much over its life to tell?

    Second, the friction drive for the carriage. I have seen people list different drive styles but I have not found any other pictures online that look like this one. Both of the drive wheels slipped so bad on my first attempt to run the mill that the carriage would not drive. The first repair I made was the forward drive wheel. I used rubber baler belting after reading of this option online. Then a few weeks later after finding a little more info I had a local wood worker turn two oak wheels that I put together. The oak wheels actually seem to to a better job than the belting but I am going to leave that as is for now as I would like to get sawing after all this time.

    Thanks in advance. Again I need to figure out how to post pictures. Any help on that would also be appreciated. Pics coming soon!

[beenthere]

For posting pics, at the forum index page you will find this (linked)
https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php?topic=100194.0

Welcome to the Forestry Forum. Sounds like a great project. Hope to learn more from you on this rebuild.

Had a chance back in the 60's to operate a friction drive mill, but don't have any pics to offer. Worked well sawing logs.

[ryan_ande]

Thank you for the link beenthere. I got them to the gallery but when I attempt to get them to this thread it tells me they are to big. I'm pretty dense when it comes to this stuff so bear with me. I'll work on it more in a bit here.

[ryan_ande]

Operator station

[ryan_ande]

Some pictures of the husk

[ryan_ande]

Carriage

[ryan_ande]

Friction drive

[Gearbox]

the friction drive original was paper .I did one out of plywood that worked okay 

[ryan_ande]

I've heard of paper being used. Also plywood and masonite. The one I disassembled was masonite. I actually reused some of those disks to get the oak to line up where I wanted it to.

[moodnacreek]

I use leather discs hole sawed 5" round glued up to 5" wide. Also told untempered masonite or popple wood or leather board like used for old style shoe soles. The discs I made from old belting. Canvas belting can also be used.  The big problem with old mills are the mandrel bearings. the one at the saw must run cool.

[DanielW]

Keep posting pictures & updates - I'm going to be very curious to follow your progress. Nothing better than an old circular mill; I have six (though only three are set up and working at present).

Can't help much on the make. The carriage setworks look almost identical to one of mine, but I doubt it is. That one of mine was made by an obscure foundry in Peterborough, Ontario called 'W.P. Plant' that made circular mills to be disassembled and hauled from site-to-site. Unfortunately there were many small-scale foundries back in the day that were all making similar mills, so unless yours is one of the main manufacturers or has a nameplate it's going to be pretty hard to nail down.

If you've been hanging around these forums and reading online, you've probably found out about all the critical things to look for when setting up: Collars matched & machined with the correct hollow and taper, setting the lead, ensuring your blade is hammered for the correct hand and RPM, running it at the correct RPM (most first-timers with circular mills run them too slow in my experience). But I'll offer a few additional tips if I may:

i) It looks like your mandrel is on babbitt, and that someone's replaced the oil cups with grease fittings. A lot of folks did that with babbitt boxes/bearings, because they figured greasing was easier than constant oiling (a PO did that on one of my shingle mills too). Unfortunately it doesn't always end well. Babbitt really needs a constant supply of oil to draw around the shaft and create that boundary layer between the babbitt and shaft. Grease is just a little too viscous to do the job properly. If that's how the previous owner had it and if you really keep the grease to it you'll probably be ok for quite some time - especially if you're not running 8 hours a day, 6 days a week like the old timers did. But you may find it heats at t some point and the babbitt wears down. If it gets bad, you might even melt the babbitt out of the box. As Moodnacreek pointed out, you have to make especially sure that bearing at the saw runs nice and cool. A little heat from a bad saw-side bearing will really throw out the tension and cause the blade to dish and/or behave pretty wacky.

ii) Speaking of heat on one side of the saw, it looks like you have it set up outdoors. Nothing strictly wrong with that - lots of old headsaws were and still are being run out in the open. But Keep an eye on what the sun's doing,. If it sits with the sun beating down on one side of the saw, that side will heat and it will dish and behave wacky, just as with a bad bearing. It's hard to believe until you've seen it a few times. Just a little difference in temperature from one side of the saw to the other will cause nightmares. For my little portable Belsaw that I drag around to shows, I sometimes run a wet rag over both sides of the saw before running it to cool it down and make sure everything's at the same temperature.

iii) Make sure you don't over-inflate that drive tire. Lots of babbitt bearings have been wrecked with that type of drive conversion with tires that have been over-inflated and put too much force against the driven pulley.

iv) Keep an eye on that roller chain coupling on the mandrel. That style of roller chain coupling (without the centre bars) was pretty popular in the 1930's through 1950's: Lots of tractors used them between the engines and tranny. But In the 1950's when tractor manufacturer's really started putting more HP through them, they sometimes flew apart, and the rollers would act like shrapnel and could really do some damage. Roller chain couplings are still popular and made to this day, but now they use standard double-strand roller chain with the centre bars. I think you'll probably be fine: Even though you might be putting a lot of HP through there, you're probably only turning at about a quarter of the RPM the tractor engines were when they caused issue, so even if the chain does break, it probably won't have the centrifugal force to do any damage.

Those paper pulleys are pretty common - lots of old tractors used them for their belt pulleys and there are a few places that restore and rebuild them if you ever feel so inclined. It looks like yours has seen some re-work and modifications over the years: The babbitt boxes imply that it's probably pre-1920, but some have been swapped out for newer, self-aligning pillow blocks. That's good: At least it means the pulleys have [probably come off the shaft at some point, so they won't be too seized on if you have to convert more.

It looks like you have some sort of a blower dust system? I'd be really curious to see more pictures of that. A good dust control system is the real key to making a circular rig work efficiently. With good dust control you can produce more lumber in an hour than a bandmill can in a day. Without a good dust system, you'll be stopping every 15 minutes to shovel out dust and cursing your head off.

[DanielW]

Further to my last post and looking at your pictures, I'm thinking it might be a Howell #1 or #2 (or a similar Howell). They were a big manufacturer of mills in Minneapolis around that time, and it certainly looks like one of them. See an old catalog of them at this link: http://vintagemachinery.org/pubs/1092/20767.pdf

[moodnacreek]

Howell was my guess also.  Their catalogs come up on e bay sometimes, also I may have one somewhere. They where known for selling any of their sawmill parts for repairs, updates or self builds so there would be half breeds out there.  On a babbit mandrel I would consider converting to roller bearing pillow blocks if you have an unworn spot for them [on the shaft]. If this is attempted don't clean the bearing mount much. If the fit is just a hair loose 609 loctite can fix that but if worn a hair more the project will be a failure as the shaft will spin in the bearing. I never liked holding an oil can in one hand and the crowd stick in the other.

[ryan_ande]

Great info. Thanks guys.

    DanielW, I will be sure to keep you guys posted as the project continues. We had a great day yesterday as the mill is back together. I recently had a different saw hammered as the 48" the mill came with was cracked in the collar area. I think that story could be a thread in itself. But I will fill in those blanks another time. To summarize, I have a 50" a 48" (cracked, and also a Disston), and currently I am running a 42". Those mandrel bearings you see are freshly babbitted. I'll get to that in a minute.

    So we got to do some sawing yesterday. The good news is she's cutting straight as an arrow. Something I am struggling with is that friction drive does not seem to allow very much feathering. So at times the carriage was a little jumpy in the cut as I was trying to feather. But I feel like if no changes are made in the near future I can probably develop a better feel for that and maybe get it to smooth out. The other issue is the IH 460 we are currently using appears to be under powered for this mill. With a little more HP I feel like I could run the log in without feathering. From everything I have read, my saw speed and feed rate are right on (I was able to get a tach on the mandrel). Just shy on HP at about 50.

    As far as the collars blade and bearings go. I brought the mandrel in and had it checked, collars cleaned up. I had the 42" hammered at 500. We looked into new bearings but long story short, it would have ended in a new shaft. Too many steps and low spots to get new bearings on this shaft. There is a gentleman in Fargo ND that does babbitt work. He fixed us up good and that part is working great. I see what you are saying about oil vs grease. The previous owner converted to grease. The gentleman that did the babbitt seemed to think it would be totally fine as long as I keep it cool and grease. Time will tell I guess.

    You are correct, the saw is outside and will have to be for sometime until I can build a structure around it. But that is good to know about the sun heating the blade and causing issues. Maybe I can build some sort of temporary sun shield in the mean time. The saw is facing south so in this situation, probably the worst direction it could be in haha. But I will make do.

    The drive wheels are actually on modern bearings so I do not believe I will have to worry about over inflation. But I will keep an eye on it anyhow as I'm running it will just enough to slip if need be. And as far as the chain coupler goes, Maybe I'll just go ahead and swap out to a chain with a center bar. Especially since I'm looking to up the horse power.

    The friction drives have been off recently. The previous owner Installed pillow block bearings on the carriage and cable system. Also some of the bearings on the husk. I had a gentleman turn some oak for the friction drive and actually it seems to work better than the rubber belting on the forward side. I think if I do anything else I might just convert to hydraulic. But I have not decided on that yet.

    I do have a Blower for dust control I just have not put the belt back on and hooked up the piping. On my initial tests I stuck one of the other blades a couple times and it kept throwing the dust control belt so I just left it off until I could get the saw right. I will be sure to add some pictures and comments on the dust blower soon.

    Lastly. Thank you for the info on the possible Howell identification. I will be digging into that sooner than later to see if that turns out to be a match. Again, great info guys. Much appreciated. More to come!

[moodnacreek]

Regardless of power The feed speed should be variable right down to hardly moving for bad spots in logs. I assume one friction wheel is iron and the other something softer. Ireland mills had wood frictions as did others but my mills where leather and worked well unless wet or after sitting they would go out of shape and run bumpy but not for long.  Oak may not be fibrous enough to grip well. If I am right it would take too much pressure to get started and then take off so the control would be difficult.    Love to hear about real sawmills and hope you keep posting.

[DanielW]

Sounds like you have it well set up and know what you're doing. I'm glad to hear of one more 'real' mill (to borrow Moodnacreek's term) being saved & used.

Once those pulleys get a little more polished you may find they allow for much better feathering. A little bit of surface rust can really cause them to grab aggressively. Some folks (including myself) have lagged them with used baler belts in a pinch because all farmers have loads kicking around, but the rubber surface on them grabs too aggressively. Looks like you have canvas/friction-back belting on yours, so I think it should be ok. Back when everything was leather, guys put neatsfoot oil (or similar) to keep the belts supple. The drive belts only had it applied on the non-contact side, but the feedworks belts had it applied on both to help it feather.

Depending on the log type/size, the feed speed, and the sharpness of your bits, you may find your 460 a little lacking in power. But I think you'd be fine for smaller/softer logs with sharp bits, and possibly larger. That series of Farmall/IH had great lugging capacity (my favourite haying tractors), so I think the 50 HP of it would probably perform as well as many newer tractors with 60+ HP at the PTO. But that's just a guess. If it's got a thick plate & wide-kerf bits and a high feed speed, it could really suck the power. I can put on a show with my little Belsaw with a 35 HP Fordson Major just fine in softwoods. For my mid-size one it wants at least 60 HP in decent wood. Our larger one has a 170 HP Detroit on it, and sometimes it's still wanting. Your blower might not help on your HP either: It takes a lot more HP to move air & chips at those kind of flow rates than you might think. An 18" blower can easily suck 5-15 HP, depending on how its built. Some folks lacking HP swap the blower out for a drag chain. The drag chains are messier, but use a lot less HP.

Once you get everything running beautifully and really start cutting intensively, I also recommend the hydraulic drive conversion. It allows you to dial it back to consistent, slow feed rates, which makes a big difference on HP and surface finish. I have hydraulic feed on one of mine and it's great. The only problem with mine is it's a simple circuit, so you get the same feed speed cutting as gigging back (quite slow). I set up a hydraulic conversion for a friend one time, and for that system we used a checked/directional flow control, so it moved much faster gigging back. He later added a second valve that he could operate in parallel with the original, which really lets it fly back at warp speed. If I were setting up a stationary mill near power, I'd probably avoid the hydraulics and just use an electric motor on a VFD

[thecfarm]

Sounds like you are doing good!!!!

[ryan_ande]

Moodnacreek, you have me thinking maybe I should put a little more time into the friction drive. I think everything could use a little "trueing up" to make it run smoother and I might get rid of that jumping. Would you mind elaborating a little more on the 5" leather disks? So your punching out 5" leather disks with a hole saw and then gluing them together on the drive. On my drive wheels there is a center shaft, then six lengths of redi rod encircling the shaft. So in total I have to make 7 holes in the disks. There are end plates on both sides of the disks. Then that all needs to line up and sandwich together. I've done that with the oak but it did not come out as square as I would like. How are you truing up all the disks or getting it all square when its assembled? Or is the leather more forgiving in that aspect?

    As far as HP goes. If I can get by with the 460 for a while that would be great. Last year I bought an old 471 detroit power unit that I intend to power the mill with. I just have not taken the time to set it with the mill as I have been focusing on getting the mill cutting. I intend to run the mill off a flat belt from this motor once I get that far. From there I'll have about 120HP to play with.

    I appreciate the enthusiasm gentleman. It's been a consuming project and I have been loving every bit of it. I feel the same way about seeing these "real mills" continue to live and produce. My wife would tell you I have an affinity for old stuff. And she's not wrong. My current wood hauler is a 49' international KB5 and it's as road worthy as our daily drivers. DanielW it sounds like you should probably start a museum if you're at a half a dozen mills!!! lol I'm not there yet but I do run a smaller band saw and we also have a couple alaskan mills. 44" and a 72". So I keep saw dust flying but honestly I think I'd rather drink warm beer than run that 72 all day.

[moodnacreek]

On the leather I was able the mount a small hole saw inside a big one, put that in a drill press and cut big leather washers. These where keyed to a 1 11/16" threaded end shaft. I cut the key ways with a wood chisel .  It was easy because I had old 6" belting for stock. If you have stock wide enough you can cut it out any old way, drill it , put in your through bolts and turn it down on the mill itself if you have no lathe. Over time everything should polish and make full contact. Friction drives do work well enough and are said to take the least power.   When you get that 4-71 screaming perhaps on a quite morning I could listen to you saw, from here.  Keep posting, Doug