Thread: The BIL mill (WIP)

luv ya pimped mill

wating to see it in action.

Good to here your surviving lowly, uninteresting Italia Bob .

Hows the coffee?

Originally Posted by martrix

Good to here your surviving lowly, uninteresting Italia Bob .

Hows the coffee?

Coffee quality is mixed. The best coffee I had was in a small village in the mountains south of Napoli. Smooth and creamy. The worst has been in this very fancy hotel I'm staying in here in Turin, no crema and over extracted. Had to work Sat-Sun but now have 2 free days before heading back to WA. I had a couple of hours to look around for hardware shops last friday and had to make do with a very interesting "locks, hinges and handle shop". There is a HUGE market in restoration type stuff here so there is a need for replacements of old fittings. The stuff they make is fantastic, wrought iron, copper, brass and even SS made to look old. The other thing you quickly notice is design style, whatever "it" is the italians have "it" in spades, furniture, buildings, clothes etc. Can't say the same about their TV - not that ours is much to crow about either.
Cheers

Today I managed to get into BIL's yard and use the BIL Mill. There was lots of bolt tightening and retightening and checking and rechecking and even triple checking.

Unfortunately I did not have my own digital camera and had to wait till I was well into it before being able to borrow one for a few shots and very short movie.

The log I tried it out on was a 800mm diameter x 1.2 m long log of liquid amber. I cut 2 x 50 mm thick slabs and 5 x 82mm plus a few experimental cuts

Firstly the rail system.


The rails are made from 6ft lengths of 19mm (3/4") SHS steel I picked up out of the skip at work. I converted half the lengths of SHS into channel and welded a length of converted channel to another length of SHS to form 19 x 38 mm thick rails. The rails are held together by all 5/16" all thread and two bits of adjustable steel angle that have tapped holes in which pointy ended bolts a threaded to grip the long at each end as shown here.


I arrange about a foot of excess rail to hang over the ends of the log so I can place the mill onto the rails and start the engine.


Another view:


Some Observations:
1) the mill is still pretty heavy but glides very smoothly on its HDPE runners. Just like any decent mill with a sharp chain, minimal pushing is needed.
2) The vibrations are significant:
- 3 nuts and assorted wasters and a bolt from the mill disappeared into the sawdust during the slabbing - more locktite needed by the look of things
- one hex head exhaust cover bolt worked its way loose.
- the Brass auxillary oiler filler cap (is kept loose to allow the tank to breath) worked its way off and hit the moving chain and ricocheted into my Face Mask making a significant dent in the mask.
3) the cams used to lock the height adjustments worked really well. Obviously more testing is needed but not a sign of these working their way loose. The all thread height adjustment also worked as expected.
4) Aux oiler seems to work OK but my need more flow/pressure when working in dry wood.

All in all, not quite as exhausting as I expected and very very satisfying satisfying. More shots in the next post.

Cheers

As I said there was a lot of mucking about stopping and checking, chain tension, oil flow, etc.

After a couple of slabs I decided to try sloping the log - a method I got from the Aboriste site and in a way similar to FrankandEarnest's idea of a vertical mill.



As this picture shows, it's a bit more awkward to start being higher up like that.



WOW! it works! The mill slides down the rails on its own at one piont I was only holding the CS trigger with my left hand and not holding back or pushing at all.

As the mill reached the wider part of the trunk the engine bogs down a bit probably because there were too many cutters in the cut. In the end I needed to hold it back - not very comfortable. Conclusion : Some slope is good but not too much.

A short quicktime movie of me and BIL_MILL in action can be viewed at the Arborist site.

Next week, hopefully a sheaok.

Off to celebrate at BILs.
Thanks to his yard proprietor (Jeff) who gave me the logs.

Cheers

Fantastic result Bob , video looked good.

Got a close up of the cut on the timber?

Great work Bob, love the video. Would be interesting to see the difference with a skip tooth chain, it may stop the bogging and allow you to take the easy route of the sloped log without holding it back. I noticed the Westford guys were using skip tooth on their mills last weekend.

Wil get in touch over the next few weeks and arrange a visit and play still interested in seeing your old mill and if possible trying my saw on it to see if it copes before I go building one.

Cheers,
mike

Bob, that is way cool.

Brilliant to see it in action....Will have a look at vid later and shoot you an email, hitting the town tonight.



...................."its aliiive"

Originally Posted by djstimber

Fantastic result Bob , video looked good.

Cheers DJ.

Got a close up of the cut on the timber?

Nah, unfortunately only had the loaner camera from BIL for 5 minutes and he left me with the memory card. BILs yard is about 20k's from my place so a bit far to go back for the camera. Will take one next week.

Yo Mike,

Originally Posted by Burnsy

Great work Bob, love the video. Would be interesting to see the difference with a skip tooth chain, it may stop the bogging and allow you to take the easy route of the sloped log without holding it back. I noticed the Westford guys were using skip tooth on their mills last weekend.

I was using full skip chain (3/8 rip profile).

Wil get in touch over the next few weeks and arrange a visit and play still interested in seeing your old mill and if possible trying my saw on it to see if it copes before I go building one.

No worries.
Cheers

jeez it looks like a hot rod, great work make and you look like a handsome dude in those shiny red chaps....;-)

That is one great looking mill!

I downloaded the video, but I can't seem to play it. Have tried to play it in the 2 video playing programs I use, Windows Media Player and DivX, but they don't want to know about it!

Originally Posted by Big Shed

That is one great looking mill!

I downloaded the video, but I can't seem to play it. Have tried to play it in the 2 video playing programs I use, Windows Media Player and DivX, but they don't want to know about it!

BS you need to use Quicktime to play the vid

Originally Posted by reeves

jeez it looks like a hot rod, great work make and you look like a handsome dude in those shiny red chaps....;-)

I think it feels more like a sports car than a hot rod

RE: Shiny red chaps:
Once I have gathered some more "milling-cred" I plan to make a real spectacle of myself by matching them with some bright orange Stihl braces.