You could look at diy GoKart clutches. Start watching at 19:30.
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Hi Lana. I lied. The lever actuated tensioner got redone and replaced with a sliding engine mount to tension the belt but the lever did work OK but when I redid the motor mount it was easier to just fix the idler wheel to the base. Skip to around 7 minutes in this video to see the idler. It’s just a belt tensioning pulley from a Dodge truck. Any car or truck would have the same. Can also be used as a blade guide as I mention somewhere in the video. If you wanted to use it with a lever then it’s just the wheel bolted to a piece of square tubing. Sorry I don’'t have a picture of he original set up. I don’t know what the pulley would cost at a junk yard but not much. I have my own mini junk yard.
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Your sawmill seems to be working very well.
How many logs can you saw before you have to sharpen the band?
Do you have any advice on how I should know how tight I should have the saw band?
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It is so easy to sharpen for me that I usually sharpen every 4 or 5. I can usually do it in about 6 minutes. A lot of the wood I cut has knots in it so if the blades are not sharp I end up with wavy lumber. So this mill is built with a hydraulic hand pump to tighten the blade. It used to have a gauge that works to show what pressure to put it under I believe it was 1800 psi. I don’t tend to run them that tight anymore I found if they are sharp they stay straight even if they are not crazy right and they tend to last a lot longer before breaking. So long and short of it is I run blades snug but not stretching they don’t break as fast. That blade I was cutting with in that video I have sharpened 5 times and have cut over 30 logs with it and it is still cutting.
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How do you sharpen your blades Jacob? Do you sharpen on the machine or do you remove the blade. I have been thinking about building a sharpener for my sawmill.
GC
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I sharpen similar to Wayne. I do it on the mill with an angle grinder with an Emory cloth disk. I am thinking about getting a sharpener because after about 10 sharpens it is hard to keep the teeth set right.
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The hunting club wanted 1" boards with a beveled edge.
The best way is to saw in the middle and turn, and then slice up the log?
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Messing up a bit as usual, it’s the second time the shaft has broken for the band saw.
Do you have any tips on how I should make it last, and how I should make it straight?
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Ouch. Just about impossible to weld that shaft back true at that spot. I don’t know if there is any extra length to the shaft but if so then I would take the hub to someone with a lathe or mill, bore it out and slide the shaft into that. a poor option depending on how it fits on to the sawmill would be to find a sleeve ID of the Shaft and OD of the hub and then sleeve the shaft to the hub.
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I’ll see if I can grind the shaft out, but what am I doing wrong, is the 25 (1") shaft too thin for this or am I doing the welding wrong?
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Tips and tricks, Jan
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Yes, they are incredible, when I was down there I saw how they repaired rear axles and gearboxes for trucks after the roads.
Sadly, I don’t have a lathe either.
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From the photo it looks like you don’t have much penetration on the weld but that’s hard to tell from a picture. But I’m going to blab about it from that angle. The thing about especially stick but also Mig to a lesser extent is initiating an arc requires an immediate burst of high heat. More than when running the bead. That “tack” will shrink as it cools and it will draw to the point of the tack. Now there is no way to correct this if the two pieces are tightly butted. One way to overcome this is to make a simple fixture to hold the shaft and the hub in correct alignment and slip a 1/16 spacer between them, brass, copper or plastic. That way when you make the tack you have the space to rotate the shaft 180 degrees, tap the two pieces back into alignment and tack that side. You can do this because you have given yourself some space. Not much else you can now do to improve alignment but rotate quarter turns tacking opposite sides. Grind between the tacks without cutting them for deeper penetration and then weld around the entire connection. It won’t be perfect but probably good enough for your wheel to not wobble enough to effect your blade.
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Youu can also can make one. I MAY still have the pdf’s of the build your own lathe. There is a redneck way to do it with like a motor and a chuck to hold the piece and use an angle grinder on like a slide or cross slide vice. This is one of those cases where is has to be round to avoid wobble but tolerances are huge.
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I milled a few more boards this weekend. It was about all I could handle off bearing 24’ 2x8
I used the grapple to unload the 6x6’s. Also cut a few more 2x6’s
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I’d like to see a video of that sawmill in action. Cie Vu Ple
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He uploaded one earlier
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I must have watched it because I clicked the like button but I have no recollection at all. Must be getting that oldtimers disease. I hope I can get some of these projects done before I lose my mind completely.
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