It really mills that much easier with a wheel?
Yep, the saw will constantly drive the left hand side of the mill into the log and you will have to constantly have to keep unbogging the saw. Clamp skids (which you should add) don't help as much as a wheel. I have 4 wheels (soon to be 5 on my mill)
Nice mill, did you make that one Bob? I like the way the verticals are supported for such a long length and the top handles for adjustment. I'm planning to use a v block and a u-bolt.
Yep, this was my first mill I made - it accepts a 16 to 24" bar.
I made it for a 36" bar (which by my math will only cut 27"). If I decide to use a different bar, I'll just weld on another piece of angle iron at the location that the vertical needs to drop down to the bar. I only have 20" bars and the 36" I just ordered, I don't plan on buying another bar anytime soon, so for now this mill should do just fine.
From a 36" bar you should be able to get a 30" minimum cut, if you are getting less than this something is wrong. You can also drill the bar right through the middle of the nose sprocket and bolt the mill onto that hole or insert a small bolt through the hole and clamp onto that. Using this method you should be able to get another couple of inches of cutting length. I get 39.5 inches from a 42" bar this way.
Just adding angles is not a good solution because all you are adding is extra weight. What if you unexpectedly pick or obtain access to another saw or bar or loan the mill to someone. Adjustable means you can really optimise the cutting length to suit small changes you can make later on - like using the nose bolt idea. No matter really, in all probability after you make one mill and after finding all the bugs you will make another
I was planning on adding a horizontal tube rail and then if I don't like just a horizontal, I'll weld on a vertical handle, your red mill has both I see
. Thanks for the advice about making it 6" high, I had not thought of sharpening on the mill. I'm going to run my Solo 681 w/36" bar and full comp chisel .375. It should pull it unless I mill over 20" in the wood, then we will see
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The Solo should be fine. Rather than weld a vertical handle just get yourself an old bicycle handle bar stem which will bolt onto the horizontal tube - this can then be adjusted position wise to suit - this is what I use on all my mills (see my BIL mill in my sig below). You might want to add mountain bike grip to reduce vibes.
[/QUOTE]I also just got an old Pioneer 650 (103cc about 5 horse, 5500 rpm, torque monster, weighs 29 lbs wet w/b/c) running with a 22" bar (I ordered a new chain for it also, as it has the original pioneer marked chain on it that is just about filed out and cuts like crap) that I could run on this mill, but its so heavy, I think I might try it on my mini mill, as the weight of the saw won't be as much of a problem when its over the top of the mini mill.[/QUOTE]
The 22" bar is pretty limiting but should be fun. Weight is not a problem on alaskans if you use wheels and plastic lining on your mill rails (see my BIL mill in my sig below). My 60" mill with 076 weighs 72 lbs, but once it's on the log rails or log its the same amount of effort as my 50cc Homelite on my small mill.