bar length lost on the mill

[Brewz]

Hi Folks

I am after some advice from people on what size bar and mill to buy.

My main question is how much bar length is lost to the mill structure.

If I get a 50" bar to bolt onto an 090, how much timber width will that 50" bar handle?

 

[VinceGU05]

Ya loose 3 to 6"

 

[Shawn Curry]

I lose around 8-9": about 3" to the clamps, another 3" for the tip, and another 2-3" to the bucking spikes. Some guys will remove the spikes to get a little more width, but this places the exhaust too close to the mill hardware IMO - and you risk blowing up your saw due to the excess heat that can't escape.

 

[Wolverine]

3-6" in my experience. With the dogs removed from a 394, there is enough room for exhaust/heat to get out. W/ a 36" bar, I can mill just under 31". @mdavlee would have some valuable input on this topic.

 

[srcarr52]

It matters if you plan on running clamps or drilling the bar and bolting. If you run clamps you have to stay back off the tip of the bar so you don't crush it onto the sprocket and you end up loosing 6"-8". If you drill the bar through the tip center you can get your loss down to 3-4".

 

[junkman]

With my 42 inch bar ,i can get 37 max cut if that helps on an alaska branded mill so i lost about 5 inches

 

[mdavlee]

No spikes on a stihl I can get 27" out of the 30". On a husky its about an inch less than that.

 

[Shawn Curry]

I was just thinking about this again. You know, when I was starting out, I thought that matching the bar to the mill length was important. So I got the bar that Baileys or Granberg recommended, which was a 28" bar for a 24" mill. It ended up a little shorter than the mill, even with the spikes off.

Since then, I picked up a few more bars, and another mill - 48". And I've done a crapload of sharpening. Now I prefer to use the shortest bar I can.

But you can in fact use a longer bar than the mill allows. This also reduces width loss down to just the clamps, which is 3". I used this setup on the black walnut at my sisters.



When that ended up being too small, I borrowed a couple parts from my Granberg length rails, which are 9' long. 54" capacity as configured.



So, moral of the story - get a mill that's at least 3" larger than you will "ever need", and a bunch of different bars. And get the length guides too, they're really handy.

 

[junkman]

That setup looks heavy

 

[Shawn Curry]

That setup looks heavy

Yup - you will definitely need your Wheaties. But that 4' black walnut weren't goin nowhere, so the mill had to come to it. And I was happy to oblige.

 

[Iron.and.bark]

Buy the grandberg clamping system, but not the rails.

If you are in oz (like brewz), use solar panel mounting bracket for rails, much better rigidity even better than HD Ali unistrut. Have a 6/7 foot rail, the extra length balances the power head out nicely

Drill bar and tap grandberg clamps for about 3-4" loss. Also drill a hole through clamp to provide easy access to chain tensioner.

 

[Brewz]

Buy the grandberg clamping system, but not the rails.

If you are in oz (like brewz), use solar panel mounting bracket for rails, much better rigidity even better than HD Ali unistrut. Have a 6/7 foot rail, the extra length balances the power head out nicely

Drill bar and tap grandberg clamps for about 3-4" loss. Also drill a hole through clamp to provide easy access to chain tensioner.

Now that's the info I was after!

Cheers mate.

Where is a good place in Oz to get the Grandberg clamping systems?

 

[Iron.and.bark]

Direct from an online seller in the USA. Local agent has a BIG markup!

Or eBay/Gumtree for a local used on (any size since you would want to replace rails anyway probably).

 

[Brewz]

@Iron.and.bark
Do you have any info on what solar rails you are talking about?
I did some googling but not really sure of a good source.

I am emailing Grandberg now re. mill parts........ prices are a lot better.

 

[Iron.and.bark]

I am not sure of the part number or if it is in the capral catalogue. Here is a pic comparing it to the stock granberg rails



Comes with an inter locking fitting that sits in top section. Makes it really rigid.

I will be wanting more soon, so will ask local metal supplier for part no.

 

[Brewz]

Awesome. That stuff looks great

I will go speak to a local metal supplier as well, see what they have

Thanks!

 

[Iron.and.bark]

Pulled a dolmar 144 for abit of fun today.

That is the rails fitted to granberg clamping system (44" bar fitted).

 

[KiwiBro (deleted)]

Does anyone know where Granberg mills are made? I ask because there is a crowd in Brazil selling what looks like identical mills way cheaper. There is also a guy on gumtree selling these Brazilian mills, so you may find it cheaper to buy a mill off him to get the parts you need to complete your bigger mill build. It's exactly what I have been contemplating. I actually got a price off them and it was about NZ$350 for a 48" mill, but it was about a hundy cheaper from the Ozzy guy on gumtree.

I also looked into making up a mill here from scratch-no granberg parts, but really only made sense if building about 10 of them and flicking off the rest. So, if you guys want to put together a few to make the whole thing cheaper, I'm keen to piggyback if it works out well for everyone, or I can look into getting a bunch made up here but I haven't seen that particular ali profile Nick mentioned. It certainly looks solid. There are the t-slot extrusions available here that look good too. But Nz doesn't see the variety of extrusions you guys across the ditch do.

 

[Iron.and.bark]

Mine is made in Richmond (Canada I presume). Is an old one though.

That one on Gumtree is def not a granberg, but does not look bad

The real benefit with this profile is the larger surface contact area with the log. Quality of cuts went up once I switched to these..

 

[KiwiBro (deleted)]

http://meghi.com.br/produtos/serra-tabua-master-universal/

48" = US$135 ex Brazil.
Shipping costs knock the gloss off it, but would be far less if just buying a few sets of everything less the extruded profile?