Custom built sawmill

[In4apenny]

So, I've got a timberking 1200 and an lt40 hydraulic mill. I'm regularly getting logs that are over 35" and are a pain turning into a cant without loosing lumber. I don't mean a board or two, I've likely lost 500+bf over the last 3 weeks.

Now before y'all tell me to rerun the slabs I'm doing production work and the time consumed wouldn't be offset by the value in the lumber lost to the slabs.

My question is: could some of you guys give me some pointers on custom building another band mill just to make the bigger logs into cants. I'm thinking that a 48" wide throat would be optimal but I'm concerned that I would get a ton of band travel vertically across that spread. I'm willing to invest the money to build it and build it right, I'm just not sure what "right" would be. If you guys have any tips or suggestions I could use the collective knowledge.

Lastly, I can get my hands on a Perkins diesel that is 76hp so I was told to run it so power to keep band speed up shouldn't be an issue and if I need to I can get something bigger.

One more time, the only purpose of this mill would be to make logs into cants and not to cut lumber so to speak.

Thanks for the help.

 

[rarefish383]

Wow, I'm thinking a big circle mill. But I guess that would need about a hundred inch blade? I don't know, Joe.

 

[qbilder]

Could you maybe use one of those Haddon Lumber Maker jigs with a 70-80cc chainsaw & 36" bar? Make a couple wood cradles to rest the log well off the ground, and you would be free to rip the log in two, then into quarters. The quarters of a 36" log will give you 4 roughly 12sq" cants. Couldn't take but a few minutes to quarter a 36" log. I do it without a jig & it's not all that time consuming. I halved a big Tx mesquite log the other day to fit my mill, & it took maybe 5 minutes. If I were doing it often enough, I'd have the jig and cradles. Much easier and cheaper than building a special purpose mill.

 

[In4apenny]

You know I never thought about setting up something like a chainsaw mill. Sometimes the simplest things just pass right over my head.

I'll have to look into that and see if it would be time efficient and cost effective. Thank you qbuilder.

 

[kimosawboy]

Have a gander at this split saw thread... might help you out..(i think he eventually went with a 70-90hp snowmobile motor).http://www.arboristsite.com/community/threads/split-saw.205019/#post-3772870

 

[Mike Van]

On most all big logs, the clear wood is on the outside - If you're making 6 to 8 inch thick slabs just to get rid of it & make a cant, you need to rethink your priorities.

 

[In4apenny]

I'm having to cut it at weird intervals because it won't clear the blade guide, debarker, etc. and I'm left with jacked up slabs that could've been boards if that makes sense.

What I meant by not being reasonable to rework the slab is because the board I would end up with would be to narrow to justify the added time trying to rerun it all. Next one on the mill I'll take pics as I go along and y'all can see what I mean. I'd end up with a bunch of crap that would be sticker boards.

 

[In4apenny]

Have a gander at this split saw thread... might help you out..(i think he eventually went with a 70-90hp snowmobile motor).http://www.arboristsite.com/community/threads/split-saw.205019/#post-3772870

That was pretty awesome, thank you for that. Now I know what I'm doing today once I'm done with my deliveries. I think we have a winner and it won't cost nearly as much as building a specialty band mill.

 

[poleframer]

Just to throw a thought in.
In the past, when I had logs too big to get through the throat of my mill, some nice old growth fir btw, when they were at 36 inch and over I decided to 1/3 saw them. I used a chainsaw to rip the log to center, then rolled it 1/3, ripped it to center again, rolled it and dropped that piece out, flipped it with the wide V down, and ripped that in half. So instead of quarters, for quartersawn I did thirds, standing on edge in my mill. Came out all nice vertical grain lumber, with more wider boards than quarters would have given.
Looking at the vid in that link, something like that would make the job quick, without having to saw all the way through the log.