Somebody Make Something

Last Wednesday I picked up a load of treated lumber . Yesterday and today I used that lumber to build a new front porch - I already had the roof built - on our house . The original started life as a hallway from the camper to the new living room when I started construction of the house , and it was in pretty sad condition . I still have a couple of deck boards to fit and install , and I'll be building railings along 2 sides and a short section on a third . In other news , I'm working on some parts for a sawmill . It uses hydraulics and the design of the control lever pivot mounts is weak . I'm modifying the new pivot mounts to make them stronger .

... In other news , I'm working on some parts for a sawmill . It uses hydraulics and the design of the control lever pivot mounts is weak . I'm modifying the new pivot mounts to make them stronger . Snag

----------------------- What are you using for the wheels? They were the critical components of mine, the only parts I couldn't make. Motorcycle wheels and tires worked pretty well for me except that they aren't load rated for nearly the recommended blade tension, which keeps the blade straight in wide cuts. 24" diameter is large enough to avoid the gullet cracking my previous 10" wheel sawmill suffered with 3/4" wide coarse blades. These are 1-1/4" wide, 3/4" pitch as Timberwolf suggested. They can be lightly sharpened a few times with a guided file without complaints from the regrinding service.

My roller blade guides are somewhat similar to Cook's but mount differently,

My first blade guide mounts were simple to make but tedious to adjust. The current version can be removed, repaired and replaced without realignment. Removable spacers set downward blade deflection, the screw adjustments are for slight contact at operating tension without them.

Downward deflection at the guide rollers is 1/4", on the high side of suggestions, to compensate for lower tension. The slight bend greatly stiffens the blade from twisting. Tension is 1000 - 1200 Lbs between axles, a compromise between tire load rating and Timberwolf's recommendation of ~15 ksi in the band gullet. That would be 1500# for ~0.1 square inch.

It cuts 20" wide red oak pretty well when freshly reground or touched up with a file but I think would need a wider blade, stronger wheels and more than a $99 6.5HP Predator to cut wider. The feed is manual push, a gravity assist was barely worth the extra complications. Pushing tells me when the blade is dulling and beginning to bow in the cut.

The belt tensioner idler is the drive clutch. It needs to be slipped to let the heavy wheels accelerate slowly. The blade speed is 50-55 MPH on the motorcycle's repaired speedometer.

The frame is straight between the wheel axles instead of C shaped, thus stiffer and simpler. Its 13" throat depth lets it cut through the center of the largest log that fits between the uprights. Proven max capacity is a chainsaw-slabbed cant 20" square by 20' long, which the centered overhead gantry lifted to rotate and reposition. That log was 28" diameter above the stump flare and 4500 lbs.

I had to modify the sawmill to handle it since I had designed for smaller logs on the assumption that those giants wouldn't fall -- until one did, luckily tipping away from the house.

Green logs dry with less cracking if the ends are coated. I brush on molten wax, a mix of canning and more flexible toilet bowl ring wax. jsw

This is a commercial sawmill operation ... I don't know if it's a band mill or a big-ass circular saw setup . Odds are it's a circular with replaceable teeth . I've seen blades as big as 5-6 feet in diameter that take a 1/4" cut .

I would think ring rolling flat bar, and welding in spokes would be an answer. Note: that meat saws, and horizontal band saws do not use a tire. Instead they use an all metal wheel with a lip, and they typically only use one width of blade.

Turning a 24" wheel concentric might not be so practical unless you have a really large lathe or a modestly large lathe with a gap bed. There are ways to get "pretty close" on a mill though. Mounted to a rotary table offset to one side you can skim a wheel round. Concentricity is a bit more involved, but if you can center the bore on the rotab maybe not so much. A close fit stub in the bore of the rotab if you don't have a mill with 12+ inches of column clearance. It sounds ridiculous at first, but a 24 inch wheel needs to only have a little over 12 inches offset from the spindle and the same clearance to the column. Depending on the setup your rotab bore doesn't even have to be within the envelope of the machine.

You know how to balance a wheel I am sure. Just drill out or add material until doesn't stop at any particular point when setup on on a simple axle, or on an axle across a couple "parallels." However, is it spinning fast enough that balance is even really an issue? I haven't seen any signs of balancing on any of my smaller bandsaws.

This is a commercial sawmill operation ... I don't know if it's a band mill or a big-ass circular saw setup . Odds are it's a circular with replaceable teeth . I've seen blades as big as 5-6 feet in diameter that take a 1/4" cut . Snag

------------------------- Oh, you are helping, not building your own. I know enough about circular saws to not try to build, run and maintain one myself.

I repaired, welded an original (antique) froe up for a neighbor that had abused one a bit. Cracked the loop for the handle and cracked spots in the blade...

To make a modern version I figured a flat mower blade would be a good start and just weld a split piece of pipe on the end for a handle loop. Split the pipe, crush one ended a bit to form a slight taper. Angle grinder to shape the cutting portion of blade...

You can still buy new and used ones on ebay...

I would think ring rolling flat bar, and welding in spokes would be an answer. Note: that meat saws, and horizontal band saws do not use a tire. Instead they use an all metal wheel with a lip, and they typically only use one width of blade.

Turning a 24" wheel concentric might not be so practical unless you have a really large lathe or a modestly large lathe with a gap bed. There are ways to get "pretty close" on a mill though. Mounted to a rotary table offset to one side you can skim a wheel round. Concentricity is a bit more involved, but if you can center the bore on the rotab maybe not so much. A close fit stub in the bore of the rotab if you don't have a mill with 12+ inches of column clearance. It sounds ridiculous at first, but a 24 inch wheel needs to only have a little over 12 inches offset from the spindle and the same clearance to the column. Depending on the setup your rotab bore doesn't even have to be within the envelope of the machine.

You know how to balance a wheel I am sure. Just drill out or add material until doesn't stop at any particular point when setup on on a simple axle, or on an axle across a couple "parallels." However, is it spinning fast enough that balance is even really an issue? I haven't seen any signs of balancing on any of my smaller bandsaws. Bob La Londe

------------------------------- I sufficiently restored a second SB Heavy 10 headstock that could be mounted on a heavy wood beam frame with an X-Y table for the tool rest as a large wheel lathe. I bought an HF linked belt to drive it through the flat cone pulley and back gears, and a variable speed DC motor. The bigger problem is making the rim strong enough to hold a safe multiple of 1500 Lbs. Usually the rubber rim is a row of vee belts which require fairly deep turned grooves.

The saw needs some welding repair from the last session, it wasn't built much stronger than necessary for the original 5.5HP design and modifying it for larger logs and higher blade tension cut into the margin.

I removed the drive wheel tire to smooth a rim corrosion leak and it's now noticeably out of balance when running at some speeds, fortunately not the cutting speed. The 3" channel uprights that support the saw head can't have cross bracing except at the top end and are somewhat wobbly. They were weakened by notches nearer one end and cost me only $5 per 8' length so I can't complain too hard. The shorter cutoffs became their bases.

I repaired, welded an original (antique) froe up for a neighbor that had abused one a bit. Cracked the loop for the handle and cracked spots in the blade...

To make a modern version I figured a flat mower blade would be a good start and just weld a split piece of pipe on the end for a handle loop. Split the pipe, crush one ended a bit to form a slight taper. Angle grinder to shape the cutting portion of blade...

You can still buy new and used ones on ebay... Leon Fisk Grand Rapids MI

-------------------------------- I wanted to give the museum one that was or at least looked 200 years old. The sources here are drying up though I did recently find a "defective" Champion rivet forge blower that needed only a bearing play adjustment.

At noon the TV showed a froe in use at a county fair. They are meant for abuse, beat on one end and twist the other. Mine was OK except at the handle end where I filled a defect with mild steel and could no longer trust hardening and tempering that highly stressed area. I left it straight and use it like a machete. It splits narrow kindling well enough.

I have a blade made from half of an old Chevy leaf spring that already had an eye in one end . Mid 70's Camaro IIRC . I've got hickory stock to make a handle but haven't felt any urge to complete it . I left my spring in the wood stove for like 3-4 days to anneal and did part of the shaping on the mill and part with the angle grinder . It's still pretty hard ...

I have a blade made from half of an old Chevy leaf spring that already had an eye in one end . Mid 70's Camaro IIRC . I've got hickory stock to make a handle but haven't felt any urge to complete it . I left my spring in the wood stove for like 3-4 days to anneal and did part of the shaping on the mill and part with the angle grinder . It's still pretty hard ... Snag

--------------------------------- Leaf springs may be made from 5160 steel.

I bought the tube furnace at auction hoping to use it to heat treat shop-made cutting tools in an inert atmosphere or vacuum. So far coating the O-1 tool with soap and heating it in a charcoal-filled tube has sufficed for fairly crude home projects.

Show me how productive you have been for the last few weeks. Make me feel bad. LOL.

------------------------------------ I'm taking a 3D CAD class in night school. I'm fine with orthographic and isometric drafting and mental visualization but the menu logic is difficult, like learning new thought patterns of a foreign language.

I've been puttering away at building a rack to hang my bicycles to take up less dloor space in the garage. Building it out of "free angle iron" scavenged from bed frames gathered off the curb over the last year - whick means doing all the cutting with the "death wheel" rather than risking the band saw blades. It's been tiring my back significantly so I only get a couple hours in at a time. 15 months post surgery - the recovery has gone well, but it lets me know when I attempt too much!!!!

I had this problem at first as well.

Joe

I had this problem at first as well.

Joe

------------------

Possibly the issue is that my right brain processes the graphic images and my left brain the menu tree, and I have always had difficulty fully using both at once or quickly swapping. I can become so involved in solving a difficult problem that if interrupted I can't immediately talk. My postings here are practice to overcome that, but when I write coherently I can't visualize at my best. Fortunately on IQ tests the verbal and spatial sections are separate and I can take a moment to switch, but when brainstorming engineering problems I have to immediately explain my ideas.

A t-joint wheel is going to be quite rigid. Cut a round ring for the bottom leg of the T. Ring roll the blade surface of the wheel. Add spokes from your ring to your hub.

When I mentioned turning the ring I was not implying a huge amount of material removal. Just enough to make the surface acceptable and concentric with the hub bore. You should take the effort to get "pretty close" in fabrication so that is all you need to do. If you have enough material you "could" turn a slight crown, but I don't think other lipped wheels have a crown. They are just adjusted so the blade runs true without it. Balance can be achieved by drilling holes in the spokes. I am thinking flat bar for spokes. Of course adjust as your own mind works on such problems.

Or just cut sections to save materials and weld them in between the spokes.

A t-joint wheel is going to be quite rigid. Cut a round ring for the bottom leg of the T. Ring roll the blade surface of the wheel. Add spokes from your ring to your hub.

When I mentioned turning the ring I was not implying a huge amount of material removal. Just enough to make the surface acceptable and concentric with the hub bore. You should take the effort to get "pretty close" in fabrication so that is all you need to do. If you have enough material you "could" turn a slight crown, but I don't think other lipped wheels have a crown. They are just adjusted so the blade runs true without it. Balance can be achieved by drilling holes in the spokes. I am thinking flat bar for spokes. Of course adjust as your own mind works on such problems.

Bob La Londe

---------------------- I examined commercial bandsaw mills and talked to the blade maker's tech support and didn't deviate much from their practice beyond using the available wheels because the bandsaws have a reputation for being difficult to adjust and maintain for straight flat cuts, many details have to be right. My 4x6 metal bandsaw needs frequent checking and adjustment to cut square.

The only real issue with my saw as it is now is keeping the blade sharp enough to cut 20" wide without excess feed pressure that makes the blade bow, I think when tension all shifts to the back edge from deflection in the cut and leaves the tooth edge free to twist up or down.

I made a filing guide that supports the file on outboard rollers and adjusts for angle and depth of cut. Two or three rounds of tip filing between regrinds suffice for at least one big oak log and appear acceptable to the sharpening service.

Deflection is much less of a problem after slicing off full width planks so I can extend blade life by swapping in partly used ones to match the cut width. They breeze through 6" or less after considerable use. If I changed from road tires to steel wheels for higher blade tension many other parts of the saw would have to be upgraded, notably the tensioner screw which I needed to change from all-thread rod to a fully threaded 1/2-20 Grade 8 bolt and captive Grade 8 nut to survive the current 1000 Lbs. I mentioned all this because I thought Snag might be designing his own.

Or just cut sections to save materials and weld them in between the spokes. Bob La Londe

------------------------------- That would push my amateur skill further than I dare for a heavy wheel spinning up to 60MPH rim speed 3' from me.

I don't need a band saw , my neighbor has one . Another neighbor just made a run to Missouri to pick up a couple (or more?) of big - like