After all the helpful comments, I am approaching the end. I resurrected a 15 Hp. Lister engine from an old cement mixer and this is now OK. I got hold of some suitable 3 sheaf pullies which required fitting to different diameter shafts, but that part is all OK even though the long belt lengths may be a bit too long. The pullies are about 10 inch drive and 6 inch saw blade shaft but the centres are about 4 ft apart, is this reasonable?
I plan to mount the saw and engine on two railway sleepers with lifting hooks on both ends. As I said before, there is a left hand thread bolt holding the saw blade on the shaft with a pin to stop it rotating on the shaft. If the pin stops it rotating why is it left hand thread and which way would it be best to drive? I would by instinct, drive it so that if the pin should shear then it would drive the LHT tighter. But why? The teeth of the wheel should also - I assume push the wood down onto the table. Is this correct?
Would the top of the table have any guides to help the wood slide onto the wheel so as not to jam? How does one slice up tree trunks, I did not really consider this before. It needs to cut say 18 inch diameter trunks into 3 ft. lengths to be useful, and that should be reasonably safely and quickly! Any comments?
Regards George.