Thread: The BIL mill (WIP)

Looks good Bob.

I did wonder about the nuts and bolts - quite a few - bugger to find in a pile of sawdust - gone - know the feeling. Would nylock nuts work better?

Great to read the adjuster works fine. I don't mean to be critical but I prefer something with least amount of moving parts possible cuz when you are way out west the most basic is the most reliable.

I did find the milling of timber on a 15-25 degree slope worked pretty good - very little effort just let it poke along - you could tell cuz if I pushed it the saw laboured a bit and the cut was slower and if it fed itself the revs were high and the sawdust was abundant.

The only other thing I found a real factor was wind direction - made a huge difference being upwind to the dust and exhaust as opposed to down wind - big time

What would you say is the weight of your mill - on it's own? Might just weigh my Westford - be interesting.

I like your rails. I just use an aluminium scaffold board - they are stable and light and won't twist at all. Also when out there they make a handy work top or table for setting up and servicing etc. In the bush put something down turn around a few times and be sure it has jumped under a leaf or piece of tree or sawdust and gone - and if it is critical - damn frustrating looking about for it in the heat with flies all over you. Will keep my timber collecting to cooler months in future.

Good effort Bob

Good to see that it works as well as it looks

I think my first will be a lot simpler ... bit like your first

Talk soon

Originally Posted by Big Shed

Have you thought about getting one of those Stihl or Husqvarna helmets with the earmuffs and mesh face shield. That plastic one seems to attract a lot of dust.
They would also match the chaps better

Yes I have seen the units you refer to and they look pretty good.

The plastic visor I use in the video looks much worse than it really is and just needs a good clean. I was very glad to have it on when the chunky brass Aux oiler cap hit me full on yesterday. Someone suggested I change it for a plastic one.

When using a CS (not on a mill) I usually use a Triton helmet/muffs/visor, without the cloth shroud and battery pack. The visor is crystal clear and only fogs around the mouth area in cold weather (we don't get too much of that here in WA). I sometimes use the full shroud and battery pack if the timber is dry (ie generates a lot of dust) and it is not too hot.

For straight milling I don't think a helmet is as critical. I am pretty religious about swapping PPE as required no matter what I am doing. ie need to trim off a branch, pop on the Triton helmet etc. Where the CS engine is running continuously for 5+ minutes at a time, I prefer using my Peltor H10 muffs which are amongst the best in the business (significantly better than the muffs on the Triton Helmet). I have tried using the Peltor muffs with goggles but I find goggles a bit too uncomfortable since I also wear glasses.

I also wear gloves with soft palm and finger pads and the main handle on my mills have soft-rubber mountain bike handle bar grips on them. This really helps to keep vibe effects to a minimum.

I like the idea of a mesh face shield especially when it is hot so I might give just the shield a go some time.

Cheers

Thanks Teejay,

Originally Posted by TEEJAY

Would nylock nuts work better?

I have a few nylocks on my mill but the problem is I put it together and pulled it apart so many times that all the nylocks lost a significant bit of their locking ability. In the end I put brand new nylocks with spring washers on where I could. They all stayed put. The nuts that I lost were either UNFs or Dome nuts that I could not find nylocks for. I used loctite on these but clearly not enough. The bolts that I lost were from the CS exhaust cover.

Originally Posted by TEEJAY

Great to read the adjuster works fine. I don't mean to be critical but I prefer something with least amount of moving parts possible cuz when you are way out west the most basic is the most reliable.

Sure I understand - horses for courses.

Originally Posted by TEEJAY

The only other thing I found a real factor was wind direction - made a huge difference being upwind to the dust and exhaust as opposed to down wind - big time

Agree 100%. I also don't like milling when there is no wind at all and the exhaust and dust hang around in the vicinity of the mill.

Originally Posted by TEEJAY

What would you say is the weight of your mill - on it's own? Might just weigh my Westford - be interesting.

It's 13.7 kg which from memory is about the same as the big Grandberg mills. I estimate at least 3 kg of this weight is in the over engineering such as the, all thread height adjustment, locking cams etc, and in the pretty fruit eg brass nuts, the Ally Aux oil tank, etc.

Also keep in mind that BIL
- is designed to cope with blades up to 52" long
- can cut a 20" thick slab
- has a substantial amount of metal in the direct bar bolt mounting mechanism making it very strong. The blade cannot turn and cut the bar clamps - it has only one bar clamp.
- up to 39.5" of width cut from a 42" blade
- is a touch more difficult to mount the engine to, but the chain can be easily removed without removing the engine from the mill. This is VERY useful.

Originally Posted by TEEJAY

I like your rails. I just use an aluminium scaffold board - they are stable and light and won't twist at all. Also when out there they make a handy work top or table for setting up and servicing etc. In the bush put something down turn around a few times and be sure it has jumped under a leaf or piece of tree or sawdust and gone - and if it is critical - damn frustrating looking about for it in the heat with flies all over you. Will keep my timber collecting to cooler months in future.

All Good points, I also looked at using an Ally scaffold board but new they are a bit too exy for me so am keeping my eye out for any second hand ones. The BIL mill has 3 brass feet so if I do have to place it on the ground the blade/chain don't sit in the dirt. I also generally take a pair of low and medium saw horses with me when I'm milling and set one pair up as a table to be able to attend to the mill as required.

Cheers

Originally Posted by BobL

Yes I have seen the units you refer to and they look pretty good.

The plastic visor I use in the video looks much worse than it really is and just needs a good clean. I was very glad to have it on when the chunky brass Aux oiler cap hit me full on yesterday. Someone suggested I change it for a plastic one.

When using a CS (not on a mill) I usually use a Triton helmet/muffs/visor, without the cloth shroud and battery pack. The visor is crystal clear and only fogs around the mouth area in cold weather (we don't get too much of that here in WA). I sometimes use the full shroud and battery pack if the timber is dry (ie generates a lot of dust) and it is not too hot.

For straight milling I don't think a helmet is as critical. I am pretty religious about swapping PPE as required no matter what I am doing. ie need to trim off a branch, pop on the Triton helmet etc. Where the CS engine is running continuously for 5+ minutes at a time, I prefer using my Peltor H10 muffs which are amongst the best in the business (significantly better than the muffs on the Triton Helmet). I have tried using the Peltor muffs with goggles but I find goggles a bit too uncomfortable since I also wear glasses.

I also wear gloves with soft palm and finger pads and the main handle on my mills have soft-rubber mountain bike handle bar grips on them. This really helps to keep vibe effects to a minimum.

I like the idea of a mesh face shield especially when it is hot so I might give just the shield a go some time.

Cheers

Bob, I have the Husqvarna helmet/muffs/mesh shield combination, as well as the Triton helmet/respirator.

For outside use with the chainsaw I much prefer the helmet/muffs/mesh combination, it is surprising how strong the mesh shield is. At one stage had a branch kick up and hit it and it didn't even dent!
The mesh shield is also very easy to flip up if required and visibility with it down is extremely good. Think I paid $75 for mine.

Not much time for milling today, chores to attend to and spent about an hour rebuilding the rails to suit a a longer log.

Nevertheless managed to get to BILs work and here is what was on today's menu
A 7ft long, ~18" diameter Western Australian Sheoak (Casuarina Fraserana)

Here was what removing the first 2" showed.


Unfortunately the top third has a fungal dry rot - bummer! The rest is OK.

You can get an idea of the coarseness of the cutting by this shot.


Second cut - in this shot you can also see the partially extended rails (~10ft long)



More pics in the next post.

Here are a few shots of the slabs with water squirted on top.




Close up of grain.


The full set:


Next weeks menu.


So how did BIL mill perform today?
- No bolts or nuts fell off
- The Aux oiler she'sa working good - one way breather valve has a wee leak.
Setting aside the "knife through hot butter" cutting of the dry rot section, the freshly sharpened chain when through the good part of this relatively hard hardwood ver yeasily probably because it was only 18" in diameter.

Are we having fun yet - YOU BETTCHA!

Sorry no video's, BIL was not around - my camera doesn't do movies and no one was around to take 'em anyway.

Great result Bob

Grain in the sheoak looks great and next weeks log looks to be a good test. What is it?

Originally Posted by djstimber

Great result Bob

Grain in the sheoak looks great and next weeks log looks to be a good test. What is it?

Err . . . I was told and am embarassed to say I've forgotten - some sort of gum.

Bob... pics as per pm... couldnt figure out how to post one in the pm and couldnt be bothered uploading to imagestation or shutterfly dialups bloody slow as today... so thought Id just whack some here

First gives you an idea of the layout... as I said come down drive 3 straight in no probs
Second the area you have... can you bring a semi load of sheoak and that big buggar and drop it off? cheers mate
Third... is looking at the pile from the back door of the house
Fourth... is the main stack with the large one at the bottom the pine
Fifth... the ends of the second stack1

Reckon we can do this?

oh and some of the sleepers I will try to sort for gluts

feel like ol steptoe an son here just now... crap everywhere!! the inlaws offloading something like 100 years of accumulated crap and whatevers as they move to a new home after getting rid of the family home... "oh Shane? theres a stack of gear here if you want it just bits of rubbish old stainless steel sleepers bits of old jarrah an old boat you know junk we are just going to tip" sigh never being one to miss a bargain Im there in a flash! So the area INSIDE and around the shed is a hodgepodge of whatevers I will have to go through an sort

Originally Posted by Wild Dingo

oh and some of the sleepers I will try to sort for gluts

feel like ol steptoe an son here just now. , ,

Know how ya feel. Site looks good Shane. Post some more when you drag some of the logs clear so we can see them more clearly.
Cheers

No worries Bob... give me a few though still moving half the family around and relocating most of their accumulated crap an gunk to the side of the shed... so if the weather decides to stop phissin down I will get them sorted hopefully over the next couple of weeks

I made a few mods during the last week and thought you might like to see some pics of them.

Aux oiler:
After milling 3 logs and tightening and retightening various nuts and bolts the only things that was not staying tight on the BIL mill were the brass plumbing connections on the aux oiler. The bit that seemed to shake loose the quickest was the brass tap connection to the underside of the tank. One of the reasons is the tank ally is only 4 mm thick so there's not much thread for the 1/4" BSP fittings to grab and I'm concerned about stripping the thread if I really tighten it. A similar problem exists at the opening at the top of the tank. So, to get around this I got BIL to weld an ally pipe stub at each opening into which I could tap a longer thread.


While I was at it I wanted an easier way than using standard screw type hose clamps to attach the oil line to to the CS blade since that needs to be regularly removed for maintenance purposes. I wanted something that I could remove easily and quickly with a spanner so I changed the clear PVC tubing oil line for an old chrome plated steel covered shower hose that uses standard 1/2" BSP tap fittings so some adaptation of the plumbing was needed. The hose can now be removed with a couple of turns of the hose end with a spanner.


I also changed the bar connection to this elbow setup.


Latest addition is an outboard throttle.
Here is the inboard part.


And here is the outboard part.


You can still work the regular throttle by hand/finger which is useful when starting because I like to stand over to the side when starting off. once the bar is buried into the log I stand up against the log. The outboard throttle is surprisingly responsive given the number of linkages involved, I would have thought there would be more of a lag.Having the throttle in the middle of the middle allows one to hold the CS wrap bar with the left hand and the centre handle/throttle with the right means ones arms are not quite so spread out so it should be less tiring over the day.

Tomorrow I'll give it a real test milling so I'll see how well it actually holds together over a day's work.
Cheers