Thread: Portable bandsaw mill - Road registered?

Dean

I suspect a call to the Victorian Dept of Transport will be your best option. I would guess that whilever you tow wih a tractor you will be ok. Laidlaw mills were based in Victoria and for general towing registration was similar to a boat trailer complete with removable lighting board.

While Woodmizer mills seem to have been very popular with their set up and you mention that you have a largish FEL, I would still prefer the mill to sit on the deck or as close as possible (you always have to jack part of it onto chocks to level it). This would be most important if the shuttle is not powered. Imagine trying to push the bandsaw when it is at waist height.

The disadvantage of the mill sitting close to the ground is that it has to be winched onto the transporter, but the use of the FWD style winches makes that fairly easy. The original Laidlaws had 14" wheels with a drop axle, which made them really easy to load. I specified 16" wheels witha standard axle. This was to achieve more ground clearance, but loading was a little harder on the winch as the incline was steeper.

At the moment I don't have a road going trailer, but just to move the mill around the property I made up a similar transporter using an old truck back axle, but it is not road registerable.

Regards
Paul

Thanks for your thoughts Paul.

Did some more work on the mill today, but as I keep adding more steel, it keeps getting heavier Oh well, I read somewhere that weight is a bandsaw's friend.
I've done some measurements, without wheels but with 6" wood chocks under the deck to give ground clearence & allow for leveling / parallel the top of the log bunks from the ground will be 15".
With wheels added the log bunks will be 30" above the ground.
If I were to dig the wheels 10" in to the ground then the difference between wheeled or no wheels is only 5". So at this stage I'll go with wheels

I'll add a pic soon,

cheers,
Dean.

Sounds like good fun can you show us a fuw pics of your work?
Eli

If I remember, I'll ask Colin tomorrow when I see him, as he owns a couple of WoodMizer Mills and is the local agent for them, so I reckon he would know something.

But from the specs you put up, the "is not more than 3 metres long including the drawbar and any load on the trailer" might be a hurdle

I didn't look closely at the Victorian regs for ag vehicles. The length would be very restrictive. The Laidlaw bed was six meters with a drawbar of about one meter. John Laidlaw deliberately kept the length below 7.5m so that there was no need for side lights.

My mill has an extension bed of 2m giving a total of 8m. This is a practical size to manoeuver by hand as 200 x 100 RHS side rails get fairly weighty.

Regards
Paul

My mistake, I think I've included some conditions that don't apply to agricultural equipment exemptions but are general exemptions for trailers- trailers <3m including drawbar, <200kg without load, not used in the course of trade,

An example of the exemptions are the round bale trailers & feed-out carts on the road particulary in dairying regions, some of these trailers are heavily built & about 6m, with noy bales they look a bit like a log deck but a bit wider

Dean.

Originally Posted by spray-tech

I like idea of keeping the deck as low as possible such as the Laidlaw bushmill but the trailer to carry it will be quite long,

The Laidlaw transporter is less than 1500mm long. The bed itself comprises the "chassis." The suitability of your bed will depend on what you have used for the rails. As I mentioned before, mine are 200mm x 100mm RHS, which has significant strength. The cross members are 100mm x 50mm.

Regards
Paul

Ended up be too busy today but I will be back there in the morning and will follow up with him.