Milling addiction?

[flying pig]

Cuts like a laser beam. Funny it does, there is no measureable leed and the blade should probably be hammered, but if you don't get greedy on the feed speed it sure does a nice job. And it's super easy on fuel. We cut an arrow straight 1/2" slab with it. Nice green wood too though. My wife even took a turn at the controls, she loved it, the hair full of sawdust no so much. Ha ha.

 

[flying pig]

Changed two bearings this morning and then went after it. Fell, bucked and limbed six or seven trees and cut a pile of slash. Even got to throw a few through the headsaw. Not bad for not getting after logging until 1:00 and running out of daylight at 4:30. Alec ran the crawler, my wife ran chokers and cut slash, I fell, limbed and bucked. Not bad for our first afternoon logging.

 

[J & L Creations]

Alright well it's going to be a slow go and a lot of work, this may be a year or a few build.

I picked up a sears roebuck belsaw for $50 a couple months ago after missing another mill at auction. It has a wood frame and is fairly light duty but has a 44" 26 tooth blade on it and a modified 3 dog carriage, which is far too light for what we want to do. So we have that...

My buddy and I partnered up in this little adventure, so he lined up a house trailer frame to build off of. The frame is fairly sturdy as sits, and is 57' long. We are going to narrow it up, beef it up big time, and away we go . He also lined up another blade, this one is 42" with 40 teeth, so a little more to our liking. Next he lined up a pile of tin, steel, gears, pulleys, chains, a transmission and a 125hp Perkins 6 cyl Diesel engine, also known as a combine. Ha ha. So that's going to be our power plant as well as gear train, log turner parts, hydraulic pump for the carriage drive, in feed ramp etc. Really, a combine was about the best source of free parts we could find to make a sawmill out of!

We started on the combine yesterday. It wasn't been ran in ten years, and was stuck solid from moisture build up in the liners and head. A few hours work and we had it freed up and running like a brand new engine. So at this point we have $250 dollars invested in this mill and we have most of our major cost parts covered.

More to come soon...

Awesome, looks like it’s going to be a good build. I’m also in the process of building a sawmill but a bandsaw type. This will be my second one, I posted the first build here and now my second. Well I’ll be watching with interest, thanks for posting and keep it coming.

 

[J & L Creations]

Sorry I did not read down far enough, now I see your cutting logs awesome.

 

[J & L Creations]

Sure would be nice to see a video of the sawmill in operation, loading, cutting a log up into slabs to the finish.

 

[flying pig]

Sure would be nice to see a video of the sawmill in operation, loading, cutting a log up into slabs to the finish.

I can definitely work on that, maybe on the weekend if we run a few more.

We’ve got a new game plan that’ll keep us going through the summer, which involves a lot of logging now so that we can mill during the summer. Our wood comes in spotless now and it’ll be dirty once things thaw.

 

[J & L Creations]

You’ve got a very nice operation, and having the crawler is a real plus, saves so much work, all I have is a forklift. How do you load logs on the sawmill? I found some old forks off an old forklift at a steel plant about 10 miles from where we live ( they melt down cars and junk to make rebar and angle iron) bought the forks, priced by the weight of them” cheap “ . Modified these forks to fit on a guys tractor to lift logs and such, worked great. I’m still building my sawmill, have most of the parts now but still need to make a few more, I will get there eventually. We live close to San Antonio Tx and the roads are iced up now and I know it’s nothing like the weather youal see, work and endure through, but for the most part everything comes to a standstill down here when it gets this cold with freezing rain. So I don’t think I’ll be working outside on my sawmill for the next few days, I do have some machining work to do and can do that indoors, so that’s where I will be. Sure enjoy the photos and your posting here, really shows how we all can help each other with knowledge and accomplish goals. Great work being done here and everyone on this forum.

 

[flying pig]

Thanks a bunch, things are definitely coming along. We have a ton to learn, and fix and do, but eventually we might make a little money at our hobby and that’s the big bonus here for sure.

We’ve been using my dad’s 200hp case tractor to load the infeed. It’s an expensive way to load and the grapple is meant for picking up bales so we’ve got to be really careful with it or we’re fixing tines instead of cutting wood but it’s working for now. We have a line on another old John Deere crawler loader with forks and a bucket that will work much better, plus we can put an arch on it and a winch so we’d be laughing. Hopefully it’ll be in our possession shortly.

 

[J & L Creations]

I wish you the best to you and in your endeavors and you are well on your way. I want/encourage you to enjoy the challenge of it all and the success as it will come later on.

 

[flying pig]

Well, the little mill has done its job. We all really enjoy milling, and being creatures of opportunity....well let’s just say we’re in deep now.

Here’s a sneak preview of where this has headed...Mills are just like saws. Apparently they reproduce.

 

[J & L Creations]

Very cool.

 

[flying pig]

Very cool.

Yes a big step up. Full hydraulic carriage and feedworks, conveyor with splitter, 46” saw, sawdust blower, building, planer and a 4-71 Detroit. It came available and we had to see if we could get it reasonably. Now we have something we can grow into, big time. We’re going to sell the M14 and try to put that towards a skidder. My wife wants to skid and Alec and I want to fall, so that will be good. If we can pay our set up and iron off off of this 80 acres then we are off on a very good start. With oilfield picking up strongly here and all of our contacts in the patch we should have no troubles making it happen with a bit of luck and some hard work.

 

[J & L Creations]

Sounds like a very well layed out plan. Awesome.

 

[flying pig]

Slowly getting things worked out with the new mill. Trying to find an infeed and green chain, also getting gearing worked out and planning for cat time to set up the yard for it. Set the carriage on the other day.

Also rebuilding the old M14 as well. It’s going to be one nice running unit when it’s finished.

 

[flying pig]

Here’s a few of our lumber and the old mill on a work day before we shut down to rebuild it.

 

[661joe]

Any more updates this is neat as can be.

 

[flying pig]

Yup you bet, coming right up!

 

[flying pig]

We spent the last month or so fixing the mill up big time.

We rebuilt the carriage wheels, added a brake and new control handle to the setworks, made new feedworks cable pulleys, rebuilt the feedworks, replaced the feedbelts, trued the output mandrel and fixed the output end of the transmission, replaced the engine fan and governor, added an alternator, added a clutch pedal, re sealed the intake manifold, fixed the exhaust, and probably more stiff that I’ve forgotten. Was a long month, we dedicated every evening that we were home from work at a normal time and worked at it every weekend but one (it was too wet so we fell trees instead). Things are coming along well. Now the plan is to saw out the wood we have processed to length, then build a floor and skids for our storage shed and move it. Then we have to clean out the mill yard and I’m going to get a cat in and strip it, snake put it and build a level clay pad for the big mill and planer and make a better access road. Then on to setting up the big mill and planer. We also may have picked up a couple old skidders that aren’t running so we’ll have to fix them up, and we made a deal for a 920 cat loader with a bucket and log grapple too. So we will be well set up come next winter.

 

[flying pig]

Well, we are about a days work away from being sawed out with the Belsaw. We will be setting up the yard and new mill (green machine) soon. We picked up an old Timberjack skidder and bought a 920 cat loader too and should be bringing them home in coming months. We also may have acquired a second planer, and seem to be getting some leads on salvage wood. Things are really coming along out there!

 

[J & L Creations]

Really a cool operation.