Bandsaw mill finally comes good

It's taken me a while but I think I now have this bandsaw mill under control. It appears I didn't quite have enough set and wasn't using enough tension on the blade. I had a chat with Henry Brothers and then set me right and now it's humming along quite nicely.

One of the more senior blokes from the Mens Shed I am involved with wants some "rustic" timber to make some planter boxes.
This bloke is 85 years old and as sharp as they come, he recently rescued a Myford metal work lathe out of a skip and fully restored it and he has restored a number of other ww machines at the shed. He's also an artist (painter) and a dab hand at furniture restoration.

Anyway I said I would have a look amongst my offcuts at the tree loppers yard, but most of the offcuts are of variable thickness so I milled up a short (1.2m) long Spotted gum specific to his needs. The boards are ~20mm thick and one is 40 mm thick so he can cut some framing material out of it. I've left the natural edges on as he might want to use these.

The mill frame and log holders are not really designed for such short/light logs so I had to use WW clamps to help hold the log to the mill from against the blade so this slowed things down a bit because I had to stop and reposition the clamps otherwise the blade would run into the clamps
https://www.woodworkforums.com/attach...d=349875&stc=1

Finish is not too bad, similar to what I get with full chisel on the CSM.
https://www.woodworkforums.com/attach...d=349876&stc=1

https://www.woodworkforums.com/attach...d=349877&stc=1

The milling itself took me about 40 minutes, but setting up the mill, the log, and then afterwards, washing everything down and putting it to bed , etc etc took about an hour and a half so just over two hours for this job.I won't get the full rate for this job but I'm sure he will cover costs and I was doing it more to help him out anyway.

Bob, job well done, S/Gum looks really nice, it must be a relief to get the Mill going sweetly, l can only wish.

Sorry to ask on this post, but l posted some shots of my B/saw mill on the forum thread ( https://www.woodworkforums.com/f132/blade-bi-metal-tungsten-tip-195535 ) and was wondering if you have a look please at my questions, you have left a few answers etc but l was slow getting the pictures up, till today.

Cheers
steve

Good going Bob.


Pete

What beautiful timber!

Yvan

Very nice looking boards there Bob, judging by the uniformity of the cut lines it looks to my (untrained) eye that you've got the mill dialed in quite nicely.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Justin

Very nice looking boards there Bob, judging by the uniformity of the cut lines it looks to my (untrained) eye that you've got the mill dialed in quite nicely.

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Thanks guys,

I'm happy compared to where I was about 3 weeks ago when the blade was dipping and diving a fair bit, but reckon there is still some way to go. The vertical drive on the mill needs some work as the height above the track is not as reproducible as I would like it to be.

BTW I helped the fellow that I cut the boards for at the mens shed break up the boards today using a combination machine.
In the process he knicked one of his fingers.
This is an old school combo machine whereby the 10" saw and 12" planer/thicknesser are on the same shaft and both rotate at the same time. What happened was he went to move the guard away from the buzzer out of the way of a piece of wood and his hand slipped and one of his finger just brushed the top of the buzzer and it drew blood - I saw it about to happen and yelled out but I was too late.
He was VERY lucky it was a bandaid cut.
We are now going to mandate the bolting of a cover over the buzzer BEFORE the saw is going to be used.
The other way around (i.e. saw turning while using the buzzer) is safer because the timber going through the planer/buzzer does never gets in the way of the saw which also has a guard that cannot be easily just swept aside.

The injured party was suitably mortified as he is big on safety and has become the first person in the shed to lose blood on a machine.

Nice job Bob

When you say you didn't have enough set, was this on old blades or brand new?

Regards
Paul

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Bushmiller

Nice job Bob
When you say you didn't have enough set, was this on old blades or brand new?
Regards
Paul

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Using a new blade,after cutting up 4 small logs the blade was still sharp but the set was reduced by 2"' on one side and 7"' on the other, some of which is due to cross blade dishing. According to Henry brothers I need a higher tension to pull the dishing out. Restoring the set and upping the tension makes straight cuts again.

Here's what the old timer at the mens shed made with some of these boards.

https://www.woodworkforums.com/attach...d=351028&stc=1

https://www.woodworkforums.com/attach...d=351027&stc=1