Sawmill

[sumi]

I will be absolutely sure to try and get more photos if we go back over there soon of the corn crib to share, especially inside. He used store-bought lumber for the inside corn stalls and top flooring as we were using the mill and lumber at the time on our house.

Please do! I love that building and would love to see the rest of it.

 

[HomesteaderWife]

@CrealCritter - I love seeing your work for sure! We aren't experts at this sawmilling- but it's been a great investment. It helped us build our home and many other buildings/animal pens here. We've also cut wood for others, sold some scraps, and I use alot for little art projects. We're sure proud of it.

@sumi - I will! We don't get to see him often, now that he preaches elsewhere, but sometimes we get a call to help at the farm. He'd get alot of attention here if he used the internet much- they've got bees and chickens. He is an avid hunter, heirloom farmer, has a well that can be tapped without electricity. Antique tractors and trucks. Their place is beautiful!

 

[CrealCritter]

Having fun book matching some red maple on the sawmill. 12" wide boards this might make a cool door panel one of these days. Kind of looks like a evil horny toad maybe? IDK...

 

[sumi]

That's really neat! Reminded me of this, I don't know if you saw it already…

 

[baymule]

Having fun book matching some red maple on the sawmill. 12" wide boards this might make a cool door panel one of these days. Kind of looks like a evil horny toad maybe? IDK...

View attachment 7066

Very pretty!

 

[HomesteaderWife]

@CrealCritter - Your mill is on a trailer, correct? We have a portable, but it is set up on ground and not a trailer. We have leveled that son of a gun over and over and still have been having slight dips right at the beginning of our cuts when the blade enters the log (we cut our logs at least a foot over what we need for this purpose). Any tips on how to get this dipping to correct, or things to check? We have changed blades, adjusted tension, and made sure the blade guide was close to keep it even. But as I said, right after it goes into the log it makes a small dip! Not a problem for us personally, but if we were ever to mill someone else's log this would be a waste!

 

[CrealCritter]

@CrealCritter - Your mill is on a trailer, correct? We have a portable, but it is set up on ground and not a trailer. We have leveled that son of a gun over and over and still have been having slight dips right at the beginning of our cuts when the blade enters the log (we cut our logs at least a foot over what we need for this purpose). Any tips on how to get this dipping to correct, or things to check? We have changed blades, adjusted tension, and made sure the blade guide was close to keep it even. But as I said, right after it goes into the log it makes a small dip! Not a problem for us personally, but if we were ever to mill someone else's log this would be a waste!

Blade dip can be caused by a few things, like entering the log too fast, your blade guides might not be square or your B57 belts might be worn. But I found it's mainly the blade tesion is too loose. Mine has a hydraulic blade tensioner with a guage colored with yellow & red marking on the guage. I run my blades in the red all the time and my blade dip problems went away. I never once broke a blade because I had it over tensioned... When I break a blade it's usually due to trash in a log. Glass, metal, coke bottles, etc...

 

[CrealCritter]

I ignore the "ideal Tension" and I run .041 x 1 1/4" x 13' 1" Munkforssage blades (German made and sharp as razors). They are getting harder to find but Try http://www.menomineesaw.com
for the best prices and customer service, Jennifer is awesome to work with.

 

[CrealCritter]

More fun sawmill bookmatching red maple.

 

[CrealCritter]

Here a picture of my tensioner and specs which I ignore.