Thread: First boards cut with new mill

Nice work, got some pictures of the mill in action?

Originally Posted by burlboy

Heres some pics of the first boards Ive cut with my newly aquired portable horizontal bandsaw mill. The log was WA sheoak, and was cooked and dry. boards cut measure 1400 x 500 x 25
Went pretty well all things considered.
Now to get stuck into the 19 tonne of green sheoak out the back
These pics dont do this timber any justice at all.
Yesterday I cut some birdseye lace sheoak too....mmmm
Pictures pending!

Really nice stuff

How about posting some close ups of the cuts so we can see how smooth the bandsaw cuts are. How are you finding controlling the blade drift?

Heres some pics of the mill. It can cut up to 900mm in width.
Also some close up pics of the lacy birdseye sheoak I cut so you can see the saw marks. I just splashed some water on to highlight grain...
Im pretty new to this Bob...what do you mean "blade drift"?
Blade hasnt moved at all yet...touch wood!!!!

Finshed cut looks great, amazed that the blade does not want to wander off the tyre. What is holding the log in place, surly it does not just balance on the scissor jack like in the picture while being cut?

Originally Posted by burlboy

Heres some pics of the mill. It can cut up to 900mm in width.
Also some close up pics of the lacy birdseye sheoak I cut so you can see the saw marks. I just splashed some water on to highlight grain...
Im pretty new to this Bob...what do you mean "blade drift"?
Blade hasnt moved at all yet...touch wood!!!!

If it was happening you would know what I mean.

There are two kinds of drift, one is a constant drift or bias. Typically the band dives (or less likely rises and so the slab is thinner or thicker at one end than the other. The way to see if this is happening (even slightly) is to measure the thickness of slabs all the way along the slab with a micrometer and see if they vary in a systematic manner. It happens more when the blades get blunt. The yanks demo this by cutting a pile of 1" boards from a cant (square or rectangular beam) and let the boards sit on top of each other if there is a variation after 10 or 12 boards you will really see the effect magnified compared to just measuring one board.

The other is the blade wandering up and down, this happens when the blade is not tight enough or twisted but you would really see this pretty quickly.

Anyway your setup and the wood looks real good - did you make it yourself? What HP is your motor? Are you sharpening your own blade? Have you hit any metal yet? What is the cutting speed in mm/min?

Burnsy the tire setup is pretty standard for the home made BS rigs I have seen on the aboriste site. Burlboy if you haven't see the arboriste site it really is work checking out.

With some of the nice big logs around margaret river you are gonna sometime or other get annoyed with that 900 mm wide limit even though you can peel slices off the sides to make it fit? I hate turning big logs in a limited space. I did it once and then went a bought a bigger CS bar.

Fantastic!

Sheoak is such a good looking timber

Thanks for the responses guys
Bob...yes there was a very small amount of drift. The boards are 2-3mm thicker in the middle.
I bought the mill of a retired engineer who spent the best part of 10 years perfecting and modifying it, before using it for 2 years and selling it to move east. It has a 17hp Subaru engine. I get blades sharpened at the Saw Dr in Bunbury. Havnt hit any metal as yet thank god!!!
Cutting speed on those boards in the pics was about 300mm/minute or thereabouts? Havnt cut anything green yet. I love the look of cooked sheoak, so started with that.
Bob I also have an alaskan cs mill with a custom made 1950mm bar for doing the bigger stuff...hooked up to a Stihl 090av, but thats bloody hard yakka and prefer the ease of pushing the bandsaw mill.
I mainly bought the bandsaw to cut up the large dry quarter sawn jarrah burls I have lying around into draw fronts, slabs and boards, and for sheoak which rarely gets bigger than 1m.

Originally Posted by burlboy

Bob...yes there was a very small amount of drift. The boards are 2-3mm thicker in the middle.

That's a bit of a nuisance - is that over a width of 500 mm? Dips in the middle are consistent with the blade tipping slightly when it first touches the timber. You might want to ask the blokes on the arboriste site how to correct that - there are plenty of guys on that site using band mills.

I bought the mill of a retired engineer who spent the best part of 10 years perfecting and modifying it, before using it for 2 years and selling it to move east. It has a 17hp Subaru engine. I get blades sharpened at the Saw Dr in Bunbury. Havnt hit any metal as yet thank god!!!

Sounds good. Do you have a metal detector? Not that it always helps. I had one with me one time and I was slabbing a tuart for a guy who assured me that even though the tree had come from a suburban block there were no nails in the log. Half an hour later I hit a 3/8" coach bolt!

Cutting speed on those boards in the pics was about 300mm/minute or thereabouts? Havnt cut anything green yet.

Yeah - it will be interesting to see what you get with that.

I love the look of cooked sheoak, so started with that.

Me too!

Bob I also have an alaskan cs mill with a custom made 1950mm bar for doing the bigger stuff...hooked up to a Stihl 090av, but thats bloody hard yakka and prefer the ease of pushing the bandsaw mill.

That sounds like a really serious bar - do you have any pic of it being used and how do you stop bar droop over a length like that? if you have any pics I'd like to show that to the fella's on ArboristeSite - or you could do that yourself. The problem with big bars is they soak up a lot of the CS energy in just driving the chain around and they are a pig to physically move around. I took on CS milling with great trepidation because I heard how much yakka was needed, but with a few simple mods on my mill I don't find the CS milling with my 42" blade anywhere near as hard as I thought it would be especially when milling on a slope where the saw mostly pulls itself through the wood. The hardest part by far is moving the slabs which is a problem for any mill.

I mainly bought the bandsaw to cut up the large dry quarter sawn jarrah burls I have lying around into draw fronts, slabs and boards, and for sheoak which rarely gets bigger than 1m.

yeah - perfect for Burls.

how do u get quater sawn burls?

you wont know yourself with that bandsaw after usign a chainsaw mill.

Cool set-up and great looking timber. Nice looking burl slices on the side too.

Originally Posted by weisyboy

how do u get quater sawn burls? :

Maybe he means radially saw versus flat saw? Some Burl can look different cut in these orientation. When I cut up my sheoak burl for wood work tool handles I plan to cut it up radial sawn.