finally sawdust -- HF mill

[grouch]

The HF mill can handle some useful sized logs. Here's a maple that was big enough I had to use the long log stops that come with the mill.

(This is commonly called a water maple around here. I think it's also called red maple, but not certain of that. It's not a sugar maple for sure).




























There are some 2x6s from a previous gum tree hiding under those questionable 1 bys on the left.

I think I got about all the wood that's useful out of that log. That rotten part was just like a sponge -- poke it and water came out.

[tnaz]

Is that an old hay rake in picture 1 and 6?

Your doing some pretty work with that mill.  Lovin' the pictures.

I know I want a mill but not sure that is my path right now.?.?
Keep up the good work/pictures.

[thecfarm]

Looks like an old dump rake to me.
Wife drove the small tractor and I was on the rake. Rake is 8 feet?? wide,tractor only about 4 feet wide. She headed off and was hugging the stone wall mighty hard.    I started to holler at her. Not a good sight to see that wall coming at ya.  :D

[tnaz]

Looks like an old dump rake to me.
Wife drove the small tractor and I was on the rake. Rake is 8 feet?? wide,tractor only about 4 feet wide. She headed off and was hugging the stone wall mighty hard.    I started to holler at her. Not a good sight to see that wall coming at ya.  :D

Wish I could have seen that!!!! :D

[grouch]

Is that an old hay rake in picture 1 and 6?

Your doing some pretty work with that mill.  Lovin' the pictures.

I know I want a mill but not sure that is my path right now.?.?
Keep up the good work/pictures.

Yes, that's an old team drawn hay rake. That belonged to my late father-in-law. He "loaned" it to my wife and I nearly 40 years ago; said he wanted to see it get some use rather than just rust away. We use it for gathering mulch for the garden after bushhogging about a 5 acre field.

[grouch]

Looks like an old dump rake to me.
Wife drove the small tractor and I was on the rake. Rake is 8 feet?? wide,tractor only about 4 feet wide. She headed off and was hugging the stone wall mighty hard.    I started to holler at her. Not a good sight to see that wall coming at ya.  :D

I've had a few adventures like that with this one. They don't like to jack-knife or even turn sharply. They also don't like moving fast.

This one is 10 feet wide with a 10 ft tongue and 4.5 ft diameter wheels. It dumps by stomping the peddle when the hay starts pushing the tines up and letting some get out from under.  It was originally intended for a pair of horses or mules to pull. I used a '39 Ford 9N for a few years and now use an '80 Long 310.

When the kids grew up to where it was no longer fun to them to ride and operate the rake, I rigged a rope to a lever clamped to the foot peddle so I could operate it from the tractor seat. Yanking that rope will keep you busy when trying to rake rows into piles of hay.

[grouch]

Here's a photo from 2005 of the old rake in use. The offspring agreed to work the rake just so I could get this picture.

The peddle she's pushing is not the one that dumps the load; it's there, along with that lever behind her, to assist in holding the tines down until full. The dump peddle is centered on the tongue under the seat.

[grouch]

Hit a snag while getting ready to saw a maple log.




That's with the carriage raised to its limit.

That log is not beyond the limits of the mill.


The maximum blade height is 17 inches above the bunks. Maybe I'm missing something, but it seems to me that the max height should at least equal the max diameter log the mill is rated to cut. That would be 20 inches. Looks like an unnecessary design limitation to save the cost of 3 more inches on each post.


Distance between the carriage posts supporting the head: 31-1/8 inches.


Distance between blade guides: 22-1/16 inches. (Less a fuzz. I'm sure "fuzz" is an international engineering standard unit of measure).


Distance between the blade guide mounting posts: 21-9/16 inches. There's the limiting factor. Some slice of a log has to fit between those mounts or you can't saw it. The length of the carriage support posts shouldn't be the constraint.

I'll be correcting that when I get some 2" round tubing and some 2" square tubing to replace those posts.

Now to the two minor problems...


That T-handle lock bolt interferes with the log clamp handle and the log clamp itself is too long.


Here's the clamp on that maple log. Measuring from the log backstops to the outside of the log where the clamp is engaging, it's 19 inches. That's still an inch less than the stated max diameter log, yet the clamp handle is overhanging the outside of the track rail and will interfere with the carriage.


You can see in this picture how much thread on each is used. The clamp is an M16x2.0 and the lock bolt is M10x1.5. Since I have yet to use the telescoping aspect of the clamp post, I replaced that T-handled lock bolt with a hex head bolt about 1/4 as long.

I don't have a big collection of metric bolts, but a 5/8 inch rod is just a fuzz or two smaller in diameter than a 16 mm bolt, so a little pointing and tapping and hammering and welding and hammering again...









That hammered handle fits my hand better than the window-crank plastic knob, too.

I still have to figure out the best way to saw that swaybacked whale looking log, though.

[derhntr]

Looks like you have the cure, you could have leaned the clamp down to bite lower on log. that should have given you more room to run the threads in further.

[grouch]

Looks like you have the cure, you could have leaned the clamp down to bite lower on log. that should have given you more room to run the threads in further.

That's where that lock bolt problem showed up -- when I layed the clamp over to run the threads far enough in to get the handle out of the way of the carriage, it started hitting that T before engaging the log. I expected to have to fine tune some things.

[fishfighter]

Just do away with that tee handle. It is there just to hold the insert top piece in place. You don't need that. Once you screw the top piece that into a log, it's not going to go anywhere.

Cool old hay rake. ;D

[Kbeitz]

To bad you cant rotate that bottom tube 45% so the bolts sticks out the side.

[plowboyswr]

If you relocate the push handle it will gain you the extra head height without new uprights. I had to pull mine off for one of the bigger ones I did. ;)

[grouch]

Just do away with that tee handle. It is there just to hold the insert top piece in place. You don't need that. Once you screw the top piece that into a log, it's not going to go anywhere.

Cool old hay rake. ;D

If it interferes again, I'll move it to another side of that tube. It's just a hole, a welded nut and a bolt. HF should've tested it for interference.

I'd almost trade that hay rake for some of the logs I've seen you post in the Whatcha Sawin' thread!

[grouch]

To bad you cant rotate that bottom tube 45% so the bolts sticks out the side.

The clamp has to stay where it is but that locking bolt doesn't. ;) Putting a hole and nut on another side of that bottom tube would effectively do what you suggest.

Actually, I could just toss the locking bolt like fishfighter suggested, but I worry about Murphy taking advantage with some weird hang-up that causes the blade to yank the log and pull the sliding tube up and out and flip the sawmill and kill busloads of puppies, nuns and orphans. Probably far-fetched.

[grouch]

If you relocate the push handle it will gain you the extra head height without new uprights. I had to pull mine off for one of the bigger ones I did. ;)

Thanks! I'll have to look into that tomorrow. I didn't take note of *what* was hitting first at the top, only that it was stopped. If that's all it is keeping it from raising another 3 inches, that push handle has got to move!

Putting 2 rear posts on the carriage and connecting the tops to the 2 existing ones would stiffen the whole thing and provide lots of options for mounting the push handle.

[grouch]

If you relocate the push handle it will gain you the extra head height without new uprights. I had to pull mine off for one of the bigger ones I did. ;)

Excellent tip! Thank you!

Rain finally let up so I could go check that out.



Lots of post still available above that push handle bracket.







Lots of cable still available, too. (Operator side has the round tube carriage post; off side has the square one).



With the push handle out of the way and the head crank handle just starting to hit the head, there's about 21-1/4" of space under that blade. Almost a full turn of the crank still available. That puts the blade height very nearly equal to the distance between the blade guide mount posts mentioned earlier.



Still room to mount the push handle bracket. The bracket takes up about 1-5/8 inches on the post.

The higher mount might start making the flexibility of that carriage show up more. This one's gonna have 4 posts any way before I'm done. It was always intended to be a quicker way for me to get started sawing than starting from scratch.

[plowboyswr]

Same here. I have a few more mods. in mind also. The only drawback back is you lose your scale mount also. But if I get the scale remedied I will let you know.  ;D I'm thinking  a flat strap or angle mounted to the carriage and top just behind the head with a pointer coming off the head at blade hight would be great. Similar to Kbeitz's mill. But tractor repair is taking my time right now. So the mill got back burnered.  :D

[grouch]

Same here. I have a few more mods. in mind also. The only drawback back is you lose your scale mount also. But if I get the scale remedied I will let you know.  ;D I'm thinking  a flat strap or angle mounted to the carriage and top just behind the head with a pointer coming off the head at blade hight would be great. Similar to Kbeitz's mill. But tractor repair is taking my time right now. So the mill got back burnered.  :D

I got the push handle moved yesterday. It's now at the top of the post. That keeps the scale, except the scale is useless when the head is near its lower limit because the square rod the pointer mounts to is too short. There's always a domino effect, eh?

Best I can tell with sketching and scratching, this should allow up to a 26 in. diameter log to be handled on the mill. That's a hypothetical perfect cylinder log of course. ;)

[plowboyswr]

Yep that's what I was talking about on the scale and the reason I haven't relocated  mine yet. But can't complain too loudly about the little mill I knew what I was was getting when I bought it. Just watch out for the head shimmy on the extra height /width.   ;D

[grouch]

I ran into some shimmy while cutting some maple today. It was mostly due to a dull blade, but partly due to the lack of rigidity of that carriage. It really needs 4 posts.

What about swapping places with the pointer and the scale? I'm thinking of mounting an aluminum yardstick where the pointer rod is right now and a pointer fixed to the push handle where the scale is now. Or maybe do both -- mount the yardstick behind the square rod holding the movable pointer and have a fixed pointer on the handle. If only one is useful in practice, the other gets dumped.

[grouch]

It's growing.

First, making some brackets:






Here's where the brackets go:


Those are 2 W beams I bought some years ago with the intention of building a bandsaw sawmill from scratch. They were going to be the track, and they still will be.

No power there except by generator, so a cordless drill for pilot holes and a cordless impact driver with a step drill bit to finish. Hacksaw and chisel for miscellaneous fixing.



Outside to outside track measurement -- 30 5/8 inches.
Extension has to be the same:





After some grinding of a couple of old lumpy welds and moving one of the carriage stops and much fiddling with leveling and blocking...





13 ft 6 in added.



Those brackets may not make the two 11-1/2 x 6 beams act as a single piece of steel, but they'll DanG sure minimize the disputes between 'em.

Don't really think it needed grade 8 bolts. That's all I had on hand.

Maximum log length before: 9 ft. 2 in.
Maximum log length now: 22 ft. 8 in.

Still have to block up midway along the extension. Those beams were not built to lay down like that. There is some visible deflection as the carriage rolls by so they would move too much with the weight of a log.

Also have to saw some bunks for the new section.

Next up:

[grouch]

After moving the push handle up, I couldn't stand the fact that the head could be raised a little bit higher if only that crank handle wasn't hitting the guard.

New 1/2" hole drilled 2-1/4" higher up the crank arm, arm hacksawed off, handle put in the new hole:





Result -- another 3/4" of blade height:



That's 1/2" more than the distance between the blade guide support posts, so it'll do for now.


Also trying out a mod that appeared in the Useful sawmill mods thread started by Bibbyman. Moved the lube tube to the side where the blade exits the cut (drive side). Just zip-tied in place for now.



Had to lengthen the hose and re-route it.



The blade has been cleaner since moving that, but soggy sawdust piles up in front of the guide. Need to move it and see what effect it has.


Next job is taking care of this aggravating thing:

[Magicman]

Am I seeing your lube tube on the exit side of the log?

[grouch]

Am I seeing your lube tube on the exit side of the log?

Yessir. The blade was always covered in gunk -- sawdust, sap, material from the belts -- and now its clean!

Here's the first mention of it I saw:

Reply #72 on: September 09, 2004 by ElectricAl