Your mills origin, the beginnings

[D Hagens]

Great posts, sure helps hearing that it doesn't really matter how big or small the companies are they seem to really be there and stand by their products. That's a positive thing as I'm leaning towards a smaller manufacture as the re pore seems to be working well between us.
As for the one man circle mills does anyone have a pic of one? I'm kind of curious about these saws.

[paul case]

d,
go to page #3 and look at the thread called sawmill project, pictures and you will see a picture of an m-14 belsaw. pc

[D Hagens]

Thanks paul case I looked at the page and checked the guys profile.

I guess in many ways the mill is like a big table saw.

It sure looks like fun but I would hate to fall on that blade.

[Meadows Miller]

Gday

Hagen heres afew pics of an Aussie style one man circ called a Tabletop or Rackbench Mill it gets used for remilling sleepers/ties most of the time now  ;) but its been a great mill for the $5500 it cost to build back in 98  ;) ;D ;D ;D ;D 8) 8) 8)













The last pic is boards cut from 40 to 60 yo Redgum ;) ;D sleepers

Regards Chris

[Magicman]

Now, thats a "bad news" saw.  Talk about beefy..... ;D

[D Hagens]

Thanks  Meadows Miller

I'm going to assume that these were pretty much stationary mills because of the size of them, am I correct or incorrect?

Were they all hydraulic feed?

Were there any disadvantages to these saws, asking as I was wondering why they don't make them anymore.

[paul case]

yep,
blade is expensive to maintain,requires much more hp to operate , wider kerf, the one i had loved to chuck chips directly at you no matter where you stood, not to mention many men who used them  cold no longer count to 10 . dont get me wrong the will make lumber and lots of it if they have the rite opertor. most work like well oiled machines. im certain that my band mill is much easier to maintain  and some safer.  pc

[Meadows Miller]

Gday

Now, thats a "bad news" saw.  Talk about beefy..... ;D

No bad news here Magic And D Hagensi think its a light weight Mate  it weighs about 4500lbs and whenever i want to shift it ive just used the chamberlain loader in the pic and a couple of chains It origialy had an axle under it with a tow bar as the 28' center section had ben my 2nd csm  ;) :D ;D and we made up acouple of 6' extensions when we converted it over  a wet week back when we where building

we just had a 3'6" by 2" 1/4" mandrel with 8" colars and the feed works drum 7x24 and got the Hyd parts of the shelf at the local hyd shop and a pto slip clutch ;) ;D ;D 8) 8) all up it measures 3'6" wide and 40' long the table runs on a set of 2x2" square tube with a c section under the table with the 1" angle welded to that so trash will fall through onto the ground  ;) (usually they used a piece of plate steel on each side of the saw with acouple of guides welded to the underside to keep it inline  ;) ) I just use alittle sump oil to make it slide smoothly and keep wear to a minimum  ;) ;D ;D ;D 8) 8) 8)

Some Rack benches are on Rollers also  ;)

The sizing on mines alittle diferent from when i first built it as there was a 2' long pin gauge on the operator side  ;) The fence thats on it now was put on about 6 years ago to runn a large lot of 12x6" warf decking into flooring and its stayed that way since  ;) :D :D :D ;D ;D

The Last manufacture building these mills for sale  that i know of was Varteg in NZ  and i think they stoped building them in about 99 but they built a nice pto powerd hyd feed one for about the $12k mark with a new 48" to 56" insert and sharpener and hyd dust drag chain ;) they also supplyed a sawmill package with the Rack bench and a power feed Breast bench with a 36" saw and trolleys for about $24k with dust chain as well  ;) ;D 8) 8) 8) their mills measured about 4 wide and 40 long and could saw a log upto 20' x 3' they where desingnd to be towed behind a car or tractor as they sold a fair few in NZ,Aust and the Pacific  Islands


I think the Rack bench is still a good idea for sawing cants and Ties/Sleepers but it has been around for 250 odd years with Frame,Circ and Bandsaw saw centers on timber frames with Arm strong (Manual  :D) Belt and Hyd feed works the idea was when you wanted to shift  the mill you just milled enough timber for  a new frame then took all the hardwhare of the frme took your power plant and shifted to the next site and basicly built a new Mill   ;) ;D 8) 8)

I ran one of the later Varteg settups on electric with 20' by 4 strands graity rollers beteween the rack & breast benches  for a sawmiller up in the hills on pine two to three of us could saw around the 3000 mark He did double shift it with a 5 man crew each shift for the first few years he had it and said they regularly hit the 20 ton (8000 bft ) Mark sawn n stacked in the yard per crew back then  .that was sawing pallet and fencing timbers in 6x1" 5x1" 4x1" 4x2" and 4x3" 4' to 16' in length  which is moving but i could se how it could do it  ;) as the beauty of it it just Worked and Worked Well   ;) ;D ;D ;D The problem these days Is the labour aspect these types of mills not many young ones want to do a real days work  : some try but soon leave  ;) :D :D

Paul You hit the nail on the head The works hard you get coverd in sawdust and theres a chance you might loose a finger or two if you dont keep you mind on the job But thats why I love this Game Mate  ;) ;D ;D ;D 8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8)

I think the latter can happen with anything with a blade on it    ;) :D :D :D

Regards Chris

[bandmiller2]

Paul,the reason many circular mill manuf. went out of business is liability.There is different type of person now that hasen't grown up around machinery and think everything is squeeky OSHA safe.Also changing times ,bandmills,and swing mills are a compact neat package that require minimum space and setup.Frank C.

[paul case]

frank
all true,all true,
those big blades are dangerous. but there are still many of them used in big mills around. they can make cuts fast.
i used to grow chickens lost contract then found out i cannot buy the same insurance if i dont have birds.had to cover them under a farm policy. they wrote a bussiness exclusion for my custom sawing business that is now housed in one of those chicken houses. turns out they wrote a liability policy on a guys farm that had a sawmill and a visitor got hurt. no more insuring sawmills for the company . my bad luck   
   i think it is a big step forward to find a more economical, easier,safer even greener way to do things.  pc

[Meadows Miller]

Wel I'll just say You cant IDIOT PROOF Everything in the World There Will always be some Nuff Nuff who will do em sefs damage    ??? ??? ??? ??? : :

[ljmathias]

I agree with the "two sides of the equation" statement- working as hard as possible to make things more economical, evironmentally friendly and energy efficient on one hand, and as simple and user friendly as possible on the other.  More and more complex technology battles simplicity and ease of use and humans get caught in the middle; when that's a big circular saw blade or pieces of a band blade flying through the air, metal wins and flesh loses.

I do some stupid things occasionally; we all do, and it seems the smarter you are, the stupider you can be at times (just an observation on my fellow workers).  As the saying goes, you can make something fool proof, but you can't make it da*n fool proof, and there's always a lot of da*n fools out there working harder then you.

Lj

[paul case]

well educated idiots?
common sense escapes the classroom . most of the time common sense is inherited and so is the lack of it.  pc

[paul case]

d hagens,
those m- 14 mills were not usually hyd driven. the original was a hand push feed. the one i had was power feed . 1 lever withv belts and pulleys  and a gear reduction for the cut. it went forward 1'' for every rev of the blade and went back 3 times faster than forward. pc

[D Hagens]

d hagens,
those m- 14 mills were not usually hyd driven. the original was a hand push feed. the one i had was power feed . 1 lever withv belts and pulleys  and a gear reduction for the cut. it went forward 1'' for every rev of the blade and went back 3 times faster than forward. pc

So Paul case, in a way that I can understand the gear reduction thing worked like a manure spreader? Like it goes click, click then grabs and works like that?
When it moves is it a slow move forward or is it a sudden jerk? If so does it slow things down?

[DanG]

  As the saying goes, you can make something fool proof, but you can't make it da*n fool proof, and there's always a lot of da*n fools out there working harder then you.

Lj

Or as Mark Twain said, "Nothing is foolproof for a sufficiently talented fool."  :D

[Coalsmoke]

D Hagens, what are your plans for the mill? Depending on this answer, you may find your selection narrowed down some. One builder I would stay away form is the one local to you and I, I have had a bad experience with them and it cost them my purchase.

I don't know about my mill's origins (other than what is on the Norwood website), but one thing I like about it is that most of the wearable parts like belts and bearings are available locally.

[Meadows Miller]

d hagens,
those m- 14 mills were not usually hyd driven. the original was a hand push feed. the one i had was power feed . 1 lever withv belts and pulleys  and a gear reduction for the cut. it went forward 1'' for every rev of the blade and went back 3 times faster than forward. pc

So Paul case, in a way that I can understand the gear reduction thing worked like a manure spreader? Like it goes click, click then grabs and works like that?
When it moves is it a slow move forward or is it a sudden jerk? If so does it slow things down?

DH with the feedworks the m14s had a simple v belt drive with no gear reduction the reduction was done through the size of the feedworks pulleys that the belts run on as the backing belt runs strait of the mandrel onto the feedworks cable drum  ;) with  gear reduction was 1to1 usually two cast cogs about 6"to10"dia and  on larger mills like the Meadows,Frick and American and the like  and was used to change the direction the shaft sins in so when you pull the handel it feeds and when you push it returns ;) thats why you see some of the older mills it works the other way around as they run a strait settup w/o the gears Mate  ;)

Regards Chris

[D Hagens]

Had to read that twice Chris But with the explanation and looking at a few pics I understand it now.

Here I sit reading about the old mills and I just remembered that in Ft. Langley they have a farm museum that has an old steam powered mill set up that they run every summer.

The funny thing is that I lived in a heritage house for a year that was right across the street from the museum.