Thread: Bandsaw / Swingblade all in one mill - can it be done?

Interesting looking setup, the length of the driveshaft raises my eyebrow, may have potential to give problems being as thin as it looks????

Also mate, Turbo Saw are not Peterson, they are two separate business's

Originally Posted by Sigidi

Interesting looking setup, the length of the driveshaft raises my eyebrow, may have potential to give problems being as thin as it looks????

I thought that too, maybe of a specific tensile/hardness, I guess weight reduction would be the overiding objective as it runs on only one rail and unlike a 2 rail system such as a lucas there's no support in the middle. blade bolts to the arbour with 4 bolts, wouldn't 5 or 6 be better? but I guess its only 6" cut.

cheers,
Dean.

My largest head scratcher is with that many holes in the blades how do they tension them? looks like there isn't a solid 'ring' in them????

Originally Posted by spray-tech

Now that my bandsaw carriage build is nearly completed I've been thinking why not build a swing blade carriage to run on the same track, then I started thinking why cant a swingblade cutting head be mounted on the same carriage as the bandsaw head? By combining the 2 I feel I would only need a 6" cut on the swing blade as anything larger would be cut by the band. Also a 6" doesn't need a lot of power to drive so therefore may fit onto the bandsaw carriage without being too cumbersome

Cheers,
Dean.

The main disadvantage is the amount of room it takes up, but another problem would be the extra weight on your carriage. You would be need to be able to raise height of the two saws independently. As soon as this becomes a requirement, you might as well make a separate carriage so you can completely remove one or the other.

With the Laidlaw the carriages were around 300Kg. You needed machinery to lift them off, although I did make up a "parking" bed which I never used.

On a few occasions I did leave both carriages (I used to call it a shuttle) on the bed at the same time but it was a nuisance and it also restricted the length of log you could cut. A circular saw can't cut as long a log as the bandsaw on the same bed.

Still an interesting concept. I'm not convinced that a chainsaw motor in that application would have sufficient longevity. I think I would go with a small B & S or Honda type motor in preference although there would of course be more weight.

I will look forward to seeing your bandsaw or have I already missed that ?

Regards
Paul

Originally Posted by Bushmiller

The main disadvantage is the amount of room it takes up, but another problem would be the extra weight on your carriage. You would be need to be able to raise height of the two saws independently. As soon as this becomes a requirement, you might as well make a separate carriage so you can completely remove one or the other.

With the Laidlaw the carriages were around 300Kg. You needed machinery to lift them off, although I did make up a "parking" bed which I never used.

It's not the extra weight thats the problem, but the change in weight distribution. For good clearance it would have to be mounted either in front or behind the bandsaw cutting head not under it, this means the lifting points are not centrally balanced and this could cause the head to bind on the posts when raising. Putting 2 cutting heads on 1 carriage certainly complicates what is currently a fairly simple setup

Still an interesting concept. I'm not convinced that a chainsaw motor in that application would have sufficient longevity. I think I would go with a small B & S or Honda type motor in preference although there would of course be more weight.

If I built another carriage the weight of 9hp 4 stroke would'nt be a problem as it would be built to suit. I agree a chainsaw may suffer longevity, but they need to be correctly tuned for milling. I once ran an 80cc husky (a tad small) on an alaskan mill and it took everything I threw at it, i made sure the H jet was running rich, kept the revs down, little extra oil. the advantage of a chainsaw powerhead is it will operate in any position.

I will look forward to seeing your bandsaw or have I already missed that ?
RegardsPaul

I posted some pics of the mill last year early in its construction, I'm still working the log deck, extending it capacity from 16' log to 22'log, building a sub chassis with removable wheels, plus extra log grabs too. I expect this to be done in a few months, will post some working photos then.

cheers,
Dean.

Dean

I will look forward to that. Let me know if you require any information on how the Laidlaw mill was made, although it sounds as though you have most of it under control.

Regards
Paul

I set the slabber up at one end and the swing mill at the other.

I have plans to build a bandsaw to run on the Lucas rails but it would Have atleaste a 3" wide band not the pissy little ones you see on those American pretend sawmills that run the same band as my 16" shop bandsaw.

It would run off a 20hp motor and 30" wheels.

Production will start in the next few months once I finish off a few other jobs.

Will be looking forward to seeing this bandsaw weisyboy. I've often wondered why the portable mill manufacturers dont build both swing blade & bandsaw heads to run on their rails / log decks.

The carriage to run a 3" blade will be quite heavy if using mild steel & cast wheels, are you considering using as much aluminium as posible? I've built my mill to accomodate a 2" blade but only using 1 1/4 at the moment to learn & test with, also they're relativly cheap. A 3" blade requires a lot of force to tension it, if it were an 0.045 it would need about 6000 pounds of force but it will probably be thicker thus needing more force to tension, premium bearings will be needed.
I realy like hydraulic tensioning instead of using a screw or spring because you can accurately "see" the tension on the gauge.

Running a bandsaw on the rails to simply slab logs from the top down will be quite easy & much faster than the chain & bar. If your planning to cut 4 sided cants, etc then you'll be needing to rotate the log / cant, this means the log bunk will need to be exactly parrallel to the rails, How will you do this? I once saw a frame built for this & it was sold on ebay but unfortunatly I didn't save any photos.

cheers,
Dean

Was planning on just using it for slabbing, boards I can cut on the swing blade.

Will be heavy but not to bad, made from rhs. Still deciding on wheel design

Originally Posted by weisyboy

I have plans to build a bandsaw to run on the Lucas rails but it would Have atleaste a 3" wide band not the pissy little ones you see on those American pretend sawmills that run the same band as my 16" shop bandsaw.

It would run off a 20hp motor and 30" wheels.

Production will start in the next few months once I finish off a few other jobs.

Carl

That will be quite a beast. I wonder if 20HP will be enough. To give you some yardstick, my bandsaw with it's 800mm max cut runs a 14HP V Twin. Laidlaw made another larger model called the Supermill which had either an 18HP or 20HP motor (I can't remember which and I may be confusing the 20HP which was on my swing blade mill.) The Supermill had a 1300mm cut, but still the same "pissy" little 1 1/4" blade .

The shuttle on my machine weighs about 300Kg including the motor and that's with aluminium band wheels.

I'll look forward to seeing what you come up with.

Regards
Paul

I figured a 25 pulls a slabber threw removing 10mm of materials band taking 4mm should use less hp

Originally Posted by weisyboy

I figured a 25 pulls a slabber threw removing 10mm of materials band taking 4mm should use less hp

Carl

It's a fair reasoning. You may be right with that. As long as you haven't had to fork out a heap of dough for the motor you could certainly give it a try. There is no substitute for grunt. The enemy of the horizontal bandsaw is heat. The band will cut straight while ever the tooth side is slightly shorter than the back of the blade.

If the blade heats up, it expands and becomes longer than the back. Then it wanders all over the place.

I am still looking forward to see what you come up with.

Regards
Paul

Chinese motor $1000