60" portable mill

[fmccoy63]

First off I am glad I joined this forum, my brain has been running wild with the little feedback I have gotten from my post. For now I believe it will stay a circle mill and I will try to market some oak timbers. Does anyone use woodplanet? What would be a smart way to get some income flowing pdq? I really still think that vertical is the way to go with a big bar, or even no bar, why not have a sprocket on each, with the right tension, and eliminate the bar all together? As to the slab coming off, I am leaning towards an I beam, parallel to the mill with elec winches on rollers so that when the slab is about 2 ft past the bar you could put a clamp on it and pull a little tension with the winch. a couple3 hooking them up as the slab comes by the chain. Maybe a coil spring in the winch line so it could even have a little flex in the line. It also crossed my mind to take everything off the setworks stuff that is above the carriage base and the bar could be horizontal. As far as putting easy pressure on the cut, I was playing with it and I can move it with very precise pressure and speed the way it is designed, I think I can push with less pressure than a person would exert on the carriage pushing it down the rails by hand. if I run the chainsaw with an elec motor and the carriage with elec motor, I think it would be the cat's meow.  If big money wouldn't have put Tesla out of favor, we would all be driving/flying around in elec cars that didn't have wires. lol Once again, thanks for letting me join and I look foreward to feedback and hope I can scroung a living out of this mill. If not it will be for sale and I will go back to peeon at some factory.

[Ron Wenrich]

Too much work.  For the time and effort you're going to take to redesign and tear things apart, you could build a dedicated slabber.  And, you won't lose the circle mill in the process. 

The slabber works on the same principal as a small band mill.  You move the saw through the log, not the log through the saw.  That allows for less movement in the log.  And, you're not trying to steer a several ton log with precision and then try to catch a very heavy slab off the other end.  Those mills that use the vertical method are heavy duty.  You can also do shorter length logs when they're laying flat, then when you put them on a carriage.

You can watch a dedicated slabber here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXtcjUUj0aY

As for cutting for a cash flow, there's other factors to consider.  How much experience do you have in sawing?  What are you doing for a timber supply?  You should be able to start out with low quality logs and produce ties and pallet stock for a start.  High quality logs produce high quality lumber, but I wouldn't recommend you starting with that.  There's a learning curve you have to master in sawing logs. 

[DMcCoy]

My experience with cutting timbers with large logs (over 2 8" timbers wide) on a circle mill was large blocks of concrete to counterbalance the carriage to compensate for the weight of the overhang timber and downward pressure created by the saw.  The dogs held but the carriage started to lift.  Your carriage looks heavier than mine so you might be ok.  Make sure your out feed rollers are stout and level to your carriage.  Beware internal stresses on dog leg logs.  I have cut a 12 x 12 into 6x12 and the wood pinched the blade so tight it killed the motor and I had to winch the carriage off the blade.  After cutting and wedging, cutting and more wedging it popped apart in the last 2 feet.  Horrible beams, 5" of curve in 12', the logs were rejected by a big mill, never again.  Some logs should be firewood.
I think you are getting some really good advice from others.  That mill was built for cutting lumber not slabs. 

[Ron Wenrich]

You could put a piece of angle at the husk area and on the carriage that would interlock and prevent your carriage from raising any amount.  They use them on the front side of the carriage when you have a log turner.  That prevents you from throwing the carriage off the tracks when you're turning a log.  Not needing it is the best approach, since it would cause unwanted stress on the blade.

[Tree Dan]

I, 2nd that It will be too much work.
I would like you say now keep the mill as Is.
If you want big slabs you need to build or buy a slabber ....This Is just my oppion.
There no way on earth that I would try to slab logs with a vertical bar and chain. ;D

[Alligator]

Here is a video that may be instructional on how a big log acts and moves when being moved and sawed. Also big slabs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0TjmFu4vWc

[york]

all please check this short vid.....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cF_BR1Cf-9c

[Magicman]

   Too short.   ;D

[Ron Wenrich]

That carriage is just a might bit bigger than the portable one that started the thread. 

[york]

Ron,that is the point i am trying to get out-that carriage in the vid.is huge and has powerful hyd. dog`g bet even on the bottom too.....His mill is too small-what is wrong with having two mill`s? He need`s a slabber....

[Joe Hillmann]

The idea of using an overhead hoist to support the weight of the overhanging log and slab would sure help.  But the cost of steel and parts to build the hoist as well as the time it takes to make it would be as much or more than building a slabber such as a peterson slabber. 

The overhead hoist would have to support the weight of the largest slab or half log you plan to cut and would have to be over twice the length of the longest log you plan to cut.

A slabber just has to be strong enough to support the weight of the saw head since the log sits on the ground or blocking.

I doubt you could run a chainsaw chain with just two sprockets and no bar.  The bar guides the chain.  If you stretched the chain tight enough to run without the bar it would wear very quickly(I doubt you would be able to make an 8 foot cut before having to adjust for wear)

As everyone else has said with a horizontal cut the slab doesn't go anywhere once it is cut and the most support it may need is to put in a couple wedges hand tight to keep the weight of the slab off the blade.  Once a slab is cut you can safely remove it from the log rather than letting it drop like it would if it was upright.