Thread: Water cooled chainsaw chain

Its not uncommon for orthodox mills to use water for cooling/lubing blades and washing away debris.

The PITA is that it encourages rust

How about some pics of your setup

Might be worthwhile to add a bit of that water soluble oil that's used in metal machining as a coolant/lubricant. This may avoid any corrosion problems.

Mick

Originally Posted by journeyman Mick

Might be worthwhile to add a bit of that water soluble oil that's used in metal machining as a coolant/lubricant. This may avoid any corrosion problems.

Mick

Here's my plan for a water cooling line. I already have 2 holes drilled in the bar nose for my aux oiler and only use one hole at any one time for the aux oiler. The other hole could be connected to a hose, or 2-3 L pressurised water container.



The problem with the metal machining oil is it really stinks when it goes rancid !

Cheers

Originally Posted by echnidna

Its not uncommon for orthodox mills to use water for cooling/lubing blades and washing away debris.

The PITA is that it encourages rust

How about some pics of your setup

Yep it promotes rust , Rp7 takes care of that problem , its no worse than cutting wet or green wood in the rain , which I have done . plus I still use bar oil as well , not just water . Cheers MM .............. pics coming soon I hope , lighting is a problem , the shed , the sawmill is in , is open ended , suns a real pain with digital camera .

Found a bit of brass rod to play with this evening and made up that water cooler connection to the CS bar.

My bar has 2 aux oiler holes, so that when I flip the bar I change holes. The water connection bolts to the unused aux oiler hole and squirts out over both side of the chain. Instead of holes for the water exit onto the bar I went for simple slots cut with a fine kerf metal cutting blade. Plenty of water seems to come through even though its only a 3/32" hole running down the middle of the bolt.



With Labels


With hose turned on just a touch.


Close ups


Another View


I can't really try it until Saturday - will report back later. If it seems to work I might make a more precise one on the lathe, maybe with on board flow control?

Cheers

Looks great Bob , It should work like a champion . Regards MM

Originally Posted by matildasmate

Looks great Bob , It should work like a champion . Regards MM

It does and I recommend it to anyone who is milling within hose reach.
Some benefits I can see are:
- Definitely reduces dust.
- Keeps the chain and bar very clean
- Seems to reduce strain on the engine - uses slightly less fuel
- Can touch chain and bar immediately after turning of engine
There's a perception that it cuts faster but I won't really know until I try some really resinous logs.

Some drawbacks
- Have to remember to turn off the water when finished or the side of the ground alongside log can turn into a quagmire. It's opposite to the milling side so is not that big a deal.
- Uses water - not much, just a slow drizzle seems to be as effective as a full jet, which then covers everything withing a 3 yard radius in wet sawdust.

Cheers

Originally Posted by BobL

...who is milling within hose reach.

Have been reading the thread, it's a great idea Bob

Occurred to me you could use other methods of delivering the water, depending on how much it uses and where/how you are milling.

Gravity fed might work from a drum suspended nearby.

A 12v pond pump powered by a car battery or one of those portable jump start units could help with the portability. What about a 12v car fuel pump?


Cheers..................Sean

Originally Posted by scooter

Have been reading the thread, it's a great idea Bob

It's not my idea, it's MatildasMate's, I've just run a little further with it than others for the moment.

Originally Posted by scooter

Occurred to me you could use other methods of delivering the water, depending on how much it uses and where/how you are milling. Gravity fed might work from a drum suspended nearby.

Yep - all darn good ideas! I reckon you could get away with as little as 100 ml/min (I'm using about 250 ml/min) so even a two litre placky bottle would be good enough for most cuts. A 20L drum on a vehicle roof rack would cut a lot of wood.

Originally Posted by scooter

A 12v pond pump powered by a car battery or one of those portable jump start units could help with the portability. What about a 12v car fuel pump?

Pond pumps probably deliver too much water but I like the idea of a small volume high pressure pump because I think the prime purpose of all this is to blast dust and resin off the chain. Too much water pooling around gets it pulled into the kerf and makes too much sawdust mud - someone on arboristesite who ran a full flow hose onto their bar reckons it slowed their saw down.

I guess I'm lucky I have a hose about 20 m away from where I'm milling.

Originally Posted by BobL

....I like the idea of a small volume high pressure pump ....

Like a windscreen washer maybe.

Originally Posted by Cliff Rogers

Like a windscreen washer maybe.

Yeah, but would a windscreen washer run OK continuously for 5-7 minutes?

Originally Posted by BobL

Yeah, but would a windscreen washer run OK continuously for 5-7 minutes?

Well, why don't you try it and lets us know , that way we won't start pulling washer motors out off our cars

Gravity feed works well on a bandsaw mill

Yeah I ran some more test's today , end result's were great , started off pretty crap though , I slabbed up some pine that was supposed to be done last year , not real good stuff , definitely not worth a photo , anyway I re-jigged the water system today , I connected it up to the hose this time , it's heap's better , to start with , I put the water flow on the chain at the power head end , on the return or cutting side of the bar , this was crap , ended up with a large build up of saw dust and crap going everywhere , I made a minor adjustment and moved it over to the other side of the bar the non cutting side , which made a huge difference , this worked really well , allowing the water to be dragged through the kerf , any excess just get's flicked off when it get's to the tip , I ran the water slow to start with , but ended up running the water quite fast , worked very well , can't say that I noticed any speed difference , well worth the effort . Cheers MM