Thread: Transporting Portable Mills

Ok, I'm with you now.

My rails will still drop right down as the tube that slides over the pipe has the bottom notched out at 45° to get around the lug. I'll take some more pictures in the next day or two when I have a chance.

You're more than welcome to come up and have a look at mine in the flesh if you like, even bring yours out here and we can see if we can do the same to yours as well. Or I can come to you and look at yours. Whereabouts in Melbourne are you?

Thanks very much for the offer DJ but I have a mig and arc cutoff wheel lathe etc, as I used to have to do a lot of repairs and modifications to my machines when I was an Arborist (well I still are but I don't remove trees any more) but you are welcome to come around any time you can see the house I built with the Lucas, I live in Williamstown so it's not close for you.

Sigidi I have had a few I couldn't lift. Sometimes you can drop the trunk on a couple of logs and you are set, but this doesn't always work other times they can be rolled with the truck and kant hooks high lift jack etc. The sugar gum I made my floors from comes to mind we put logs down and as the tree was fallen the trunk lifted 6m in the air came down on the logs and drove them into the ground. The base log was 8m long to the first branch and 4' dia at the little end I cut it to 6m as that was all I could mill. It was perfect both ends but as I was milling a dark line appeared next board a hole it had a hollow about 1' wide that wasn't even straight. I still got 1100m off floor boards out of it nearly all fiddle back . I wasted a lot as it was too wide to get the mill over I also cut the 2m log into firewood as a result we had to have tiles in the bath room. (this was mainly due to bad machining of the boards)
I cut as low as I could them lifted it up with a high lift jack and did the rest.
sorry I wasn't going to woffle

Glenn that sounds like a great story not woffle. I can only think you laughed when your supports where driven into the ground by your descending log, am I right? Probably not!! I think it's funny hearing about it now, bet you didn't on the day?

i was a little worried about my wellfare at the time watching 5 tonne of log fly 6m into the air right in front of me,well not far away.

Glenn, I had the mill set up yesterday, so I took a couple of pics showing the cradle set up on my mill, she's over 4 years old now, so not sure if it's new enough, but hope it helps

Thanks to everyone who contributed to this thread. It has allowed me to transport my mill again. I sort of copied my front rack off Burnsy except I made mine with 1 1/2" pipe sleeves so the rack is lift in lift out. I also added a rubber boat roller to help get the rails and timber up, it seems to work well.
I was wishing I had taken DJs over for help converting my mill as I had some problems but it all worked in the end.

here is my rig.

it fits best with the blade in the verticle position

Originally Posted by weisyboy

here is my rig.

it fits best with the blade in the verticle position

It doesn't look all that well restrained Carl

if it stays on coming up our drivewat then it aint going anyware.

but you right i should put some steel bolsters and stanchions.

Originally Posted by weisyboy

if it stays on coming up our drivewat then it aint going anyware.

A better test might be getting out on a quiet back road and hitting the skids full on at 100 kph and seeing if those rails stay put.

the rails aint going noware.

tied deon with 2 telstra ropes looped around the rails and tightend so you can play a tune using truckie knots. the frame at teh back has a rough ribed surface and i cant pull tehm off it when the ropes are untied.

they also have nuts sticking down that hook on the frames.

im sure it aint going noware.

Originally Posted by weisyboy

the rails aint going noware.

tied deon with 2 telstra ropes looped around the rails and tightend so you can play a tune using truckie knots. the frame at teh back has a rough ribed surface and i cant pull tehm off it when the ropes are untied.

they also have nuts sticking down that hook on the frames.

im sure it aint going noware.

All goot - anything with nuts hanging down hooked onto something sounds pretty secure to me

Looking at some of the photos folks have posted, thought the following may be useful information for Queensland folks who are carrying mills (or any other long objects...)

Section 34 of the Transport Operations (Road Use Management—Mass, Dimensions and Loading) Regulation 2005 which can be found at www.legislation.qld.gov.au has the following requirements

Limits on projection of loads—motor vehicles other than motorbikes
(1) This section applies in relation to loads on motor vehicles other than motorbikes.
(2) A person must not drive, park or stop a motor vehicle on a road if any load on the vehicle projects—

(a) for a motor vehicle without a trailer—

(i) more than 1.2m in front of the motor vehicle’s headlights; or

(ii) more than 1.2m behind the motor vehicle; or
(iii) more than 150mm past the outer extremity of the motor vehicle on either side; or

(paraphrasing the next bit...) if you have a trailer then the load still can't go more than 1.2m in front of the headlights or 1.2m behind the trailer (so a load that projects over the top of the car is OK so long as it doesn't go more than 1.2 m past the headlights).

The next bit shows what you have to do if you have to carry a load more than 1.2m longer than your vehicle

(3) Despite subsection (2), a load may project more than 1.2m behind either a motor vehicle or a trailer if—

(a) a brightly coloured red, red and yellow, or yellow flag at least 450mm by 450mm is fixed to the extreme back of the load; and

(b) at night—

(i) a light showing a clear red light to the back, visible under normal atmospheric conditions at a distance of at least 200m, is fixed to the extreme back of the load; or

(ii) at least 2 reflectors, capable of projecting a red reflection of light from the headlight of any following vehicle, are fixed to the extreme back of the load.

In my case, my trailer is about 2.4m long and my rails are about 5.5m long (I'd have to measure them again to be more accurate). When I load the mill, the rails project out over the car (I use two drop in H frames in the trailer to keep the rails horizontal and above the car) but I still have a fair bit of overhang out the back of the trailer which I can limit to about 0.6m thus eliminating the need for the red flag. I also use chains and ratchet straps to hook into the front of the rails (to ensure a pass mark in the 100kph to 0 kph test suggested by BobL ) and a similar set up at the back to give the front strap something to "pull" against. The rails are also secured to the H frames seperately as well to stop them sliding across the trailer. Even without securing the rails I can't pull them off the H frames (the angles, height and weights are against me), but I figure for the few extra minutes work to secure them, I have a lot more confidence in the load secrity should something go wrong. I'll post some photos next time I load up.

I have seen a small aluminium extension ladder slide off a trailer (with H frames), bounce of the roof of the towing vehicle and land about 2 - 3 metres up the road when the traffic did the "stop-out-of-nowhere-for-no-reason" thing that happens on the Gold Coast a fair bit. Fortunately, the vehicle (and ladder) were beside me and the car in front of the ladder had creapt forward to avoid being speared. I can't comment on how the ladder was secured to the trailer other than to say insufficiently...

Not criticising anything or anybody and not wishing to get into a long debate, but I thought the legislation may be useful to avoid the nasty penalty units (ie. fines) that also get mentioned in the legislation.

actualy a load on a trailer can project as far as you like so long as half is infront and half behind the center of gravity. and u have a flag. you can also paint the end of a log with bright paint. we do this witht eh cutting edges of the dozer blade when we get a low loader to cart it as it is 3.6m wide and flags take adges to put on.

i investigated this wile getting my log trailer made.

http://www.transport.qld.gov.au/reso...s_brochure.pdf