72" panther mill problem

[BigOakAdot]

I started assembling my panther mill yesterday and I have some questions that maybe one of you could answer. It seems like a simple enough assembly compared to my grandberg but something doesn't seem right.

There's these black angle clamps that hold the blue bar clamps to the main set of rails. It seems to me the bolts aren't quite long enough for this. I also think it's weird that instead of clamping to the whole rail it mounts on the edge of the black piece of steel.



The arrow is pointing to the black steel that holds onto the rail. I know I have that the way he's explaining because the long side needs to be facing in and it wouldn't fit on the rails any other way. As you can see, there's barely enough room for a lock washer and nut (provided). I don't feel comfortable without have the whole nut threaded onto that bolt.

Here's a pic from online that shows one put together.

Any insight would be appreciated as always.

Oh and for what it's worth that pic was missing the bolts washer. So between that and the lock washer under the nut,
There was minimal threads remaining.

Andrew

 

[Timberframed]

Hmmm. Call Kim. Acorn nut perhaps? He has changed his design.

 

[BigOakAdot]

I will but he is a tough man to get a hold of. I'll try him later

 

[marshall]

I think that is the wrong size bolt. I just got a 42" panther pro and have a lot move space for the washer and bolt. Based on the turn around time you might be better off heading to the big box store and just buy a bolt.

 

[BigOakAdot]

Yeah that's what I had figured. Does that look correct the way I have it there? I did notice that on the short end of the black clamp it was angled where it contacts the square tuning. This makes me feel pretty confident I'm holding it on there right.

 

[marshall]

On mine the bolt is flipped the other way - basically the bolt is facing down, not up. You might want to try assembling it. When I tightened mine together it seemed like everything had a bit of give and you might find that as you tighten it that there is enough room for the bolt after all. I think that the black bracket has some give and flex to it. You might be okay with that bolt as is.

 

[BigOakAdot]

Okay. Thanks for the help I'll try and assemble it that way and see how it looks.

 

[Kroll]

Flipped mine the long side out. Bolt stuck through a few more threads. Works fine so far.

 

[kpantherpro]

hey guys got some time to look at this the short side should be out, if there's not enough thread, tighten the clamps down a little to flatten them slightly, you shouldn't need to go buy new bolts, the ones supplied works and I think in the instructions unless I'm mistaken it does address that, the bigger mills such as your 72" use a thicker bar so while the 42" is fine you just have to compress the clamps a little for the 72". Hope that helps

 

[BigOakAdot]

Compress as in tighten it down very hard? My partner was running it an he blatantly tightened the heck out of it. It had dents in the tubing from him cranking but it still slipped.

 

[BigOakAdot]

I'm sorry I thought you replied to a completely different thread. We did tighten them down and they worked fine. We are having issues with the depth bolts sliding loose.

 

[Gixxerjoe04]

Was wondering how much or a rough guess of how much your 72" mill weighs without your chainsaw in it? Thought about going with the 60" one and just adjusting it to whatever bar I end up getting but having the room to go bigger down the road. My friend was saying he was going to get the 60" granberg, said it weighs a lot less.

 

[BigOakAdot]

It's heavy but not insane. Couldn't really come up with a number but it's manageable.

Let's put it this way we are considering buying a 60" grandberg because of the issues we are having with the mill sliding on us. And just use the Panther mill when we need the extra 6" or so.

 

[Gixxerjoe04]

Are the granbergs adjustable to where I could get a 60" mill and run a 36" bar on it until I upgrade down the road?

 

[stikine]

Are the granbergs adjustable to where I could get a 60" mill and run a 36" bar on it until I upgrade down the road?

yes, you can run a shorter bar.

 

[rarefish383]

As said above, yes, a shorter bar will work fine. I put my 18" Farm Boss on my 36" mill just for kicks one time, Joe.

 

[kpantherpro]

I personally have never had the sliding problem and I run 3 of my own mills, but I also don't run the bigger stihl saws, I've built thousands of these mills with a very healthy positive feedback directly from my customer's, I would say the sliding problem has to do with either not tightening the bolts enough or that one of my guys might have grinded the lip from the bolt or it just flattened itself and that's why it slides, try to bring the tip of the tightening bolts to a rounded concave point with a grinder or file and that should stop and sliding, as well as eliminate any need for drilling stop holes, if this doesn't help call or e-mail so I can help you directly instead of through a forum.

 

[Zack_M]

I personally have never had the sliding problem and I run 3 of my own mills, but I also don't run the bigger stihl saws, I've built thousands of these mills with a very healthy positive feedback directly from my customer's, I would say the sliding problem has to do with either not tightening the bolts enough or that one of my guys might have grinded the lip from the bolt or it just flattened itself and that's why it slides, try to bring the tip of the tightening bolts to a rounded concave point with a grinder or file and that should stop and sliding, as well as eliminate any need for drilling stop holes, if this doesn't help call or e-mail so I can help you directly instead of through a forum.

I have both a 36" and 60" Panther mills that I run with an MS880 and the only occasion where I've had the vertical alignment slip is when I made an adjustment but did not tighten the bolts down adequately. Weight wise my 60" GB bar is 17 pounds, another 6ish pounds for the chain (depends on what configuration I'm running at that moment), about 8 pounds worth of aux oiler/oil, 27 pounds of powerhead (with fuel and oil full) plus the mill weight.

 

[BigOakAdot]

Maybe I will try and do the grinding on the bolts.

 

[ragnar_furniture_sawmill]

My two cents for those thinking granberg or panther: I ordered a panther mill from them in April 2018. Five months later it is September and I still have not had a responce to my phone calls or emails. And more frustrating, still no mill.