Milling with BIL Mill and the 880

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BobL

No longer addicted to AS
AS Supporting Member.
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Today was the first chance to try the 880 milling with the BIL mill.

I have run about 5 tanks of fuel through it cutting up firewood but have run out of fire wood to cut and still felt a bit nervous about running it WOT for an extended period like one does on the mill, especially till I get a few other things sorted. The main one is the exhaust mod - I have the 15 mm opening insert installed (or and am sort of still testing and tuning. I can open it up all the way to 19 mm (3/4") if needed but am taking my time and testing and tuning as I go.

Anyway I thought I would start milling but just take it easy, mill a few ft at 7000 rpm, give it rest, mill a few ft at 8000 rpm, give it a rest, 9000 and then back to 8000 etc up and down the range. It's slow going and a bit frustrating because you can just tell this thing is just wanting to jump out of its skin.

Here was the menu. Its a tree called a Western Australian Marri about 3'6" in diameter.
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It was located very close to the side of a house and had to be taken down in 8 ft lengths and craned out. As a result the big groove cut around the trunk to make sure the chain did not slip.

You can also see how I groove the top of the log so the log rails sit squarely on top of the log.

Saw getting ready to take the test!
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Here was the second cut.
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These trees have a lot of kino and so were not milled so there are quite a few of them left in fields and woodland. They were also woodchipped for paper. Now they are considered timber grade and the kino is called a feature!

Unfortunately no one around to take pics of the saw in action. At the end I did a half minute or so of milling at WOT, and it sort of found it's comfort groove at around 10,000 rpm in ~30" of this log, which is relatively soft for an Aussie hardwood. It's definitely smoother (it reminds me a lot of the big husky) and appears to be cutting faster than the 076, but how much faster is hard to say. The only way to test this is with timed cuts. It certainly makes a racket with the 15 mm opening on the muffler (peltor muffs and ear plugs are working hard keeping the noise down but are OK) and the harmonics are very different because I lost a couple of bolts that had never come off the BIL mill with the 076.

Plus I restacked a couple of slab stacks and rebuilt the Aux oiler because it was leaking more oil than putting it on the chain.

Anyway - I can just tell this is going to be one fun milling combo.
 
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Nice Bob!!!! Love that saw and setup you have!!! :clap:
 
Good to take it easy on the new saw, mill setup. You might try nyloc nuts or blue loctite if you continue to have trouble with things rattling off. The slotted metal locknuts are nice too as they don't wear out like nylocs. On the pipe insert do you have a setscrew to hold it in place? From the other thread it looked like the insert goes against the muffler. Hopefully you'll be able to discern which ring is best for power and fuel economy(definitively tell the difference). I've only seen the general rules followed for most muff mods. This approach could be useful where smaller saws are used in milling such as my 066. For instance, if I was max'ing out my 42" bar in dry alligator (marginal power), I could simply change to a thinner ring and retune for that job alone for max power. But I'd want the rings installed on the bluesky end of the pipe in that case. I'm thinking fuel economy here also. Would be interesting to see what the different fuel consumption rates are. Maybe there isn't enough difference to walk from here to across the street over but then again there might be in terms of board feet at the end of the day. How about some timed cuts Bob? :cheers: :popcorn:
 
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Good to take it easy on the new saw, mill setup. You might try nyloc nuts or blue loctite if you continue to have trouble with things rattling off. The slotted metal locknuts are nice too as they don't wear out like nylocs.
Yeah I have nylocs and loctite on all of the nuts and bolts where that is practicable but on screws/bolts/nuts that need to be adjusted I have used either spring or serrated washers. It's just that I never needed to use them on a couple of these with the 076 but the higher revs of the 880 seem to really rattled these loose. This is surprising because thee 880 feels a fair bit smoother than the 076.

On the pipe insert do you have a setscrew to hold it in place? From the other thread it looked like the insert goes against the muffler. Hopefully you'll be able to discern which ring is best for power and fuel economy(definitively tell the difference). I've only seen the general rules followed for most muff mods. This approach could be useful where smaller saws are used in milling such as my 066. For instance, if I was max'ing out my 42" bar in dry alligator (marginal power), I could simply change to a thinner ring and retune for that job alone for max power. But I'd want the rings installed on the bluesky end of the pipe in that case.

The inserts sit inside the exhaust so that it becomes part of the 880 exhaust housing.
These are the inserts before I polished and radiused the inside edge. You can see the holes in the pipe plate that hold the inserts in place. Only the rightmost insert has holes drilled in it in this picture
It's hard to see but the inserts sit just inside where the pipe connects to the adapter plate
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Here is a cross section of the way the inserts are installed.
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The inserts are coloured pale blue and are held in by two allen screws. You can see how I radiused the inside edges so the exhaust can escape smoothly.
The fact that they are inside the exhaust is a bit of a PITA because to change them I have to wait for the saw to cool down. Still I am no rush.

I'm thinking fuel economy here also. Would be interesting to see what the different fuel consumption rates are. Maybe there isn't enough difference to walk from here to across the street over but then again there might be in terms of board feet at the end of the day. How about some timed cuts Bob? :cheers: :popcorn:

I will once everything is running well.
 
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Do you use a ripping chain for your chainsaw mill? Do you have any experience with STIHL RMC chain?

Yes, and yes. it's good chain.

But, I save a few $$ by buying regular (non-rip) Carlton chain by the roll (since I also use regular for cross cutting) and convert what I need to rip (10º top plate angle) during the first half dozen sharpenings of the chain. It lasts just as long and as the Stihl or maybe even a bit longer.

I have a couple of chains with close to zero top plate angle - this gives a very good finish in Aussie hardwoods some of which as similar - but not quite as hard as ebony.
 
Spent a couple of hours at the yard and cut some more slabs on the big marri today. Had to switch to the longer (60") bar because the 42" couldn't cut it.

Unfortunately the next two slabs split along some wide kino lines.

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I was trying out a loop of chain that a friend of mine who is a saw doctor filed to 2º top plate angle - it gave a very smooth cut.
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Close up
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Here it is without water
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I also tried the 16 mm exhaust outlet. Now it's definitely getting loud (ear plugs and muffs are essential), but it didn't seem to cut any faster than the 15 mm - of course the tree is getting wider! The 880 seems to sits comfortably between 9500 and 10250 in the 40" cut. I like it!

One thing I have discovered about the muffler mod is the bonus position of the exhaust gas flow. Not only does it blow the exhaust away from the operator, it also blows the sawdust away as well. A fair bit of the sawdust coming out from the bottom of the clutch cover on my 076 normally falls onto my boots and makes a pile of sawdust right where I have to walk - as the log gets smaller I found I was walking on top of a pile of sawdust.

With the 880 muffler mod the sawdust falls into the exhaust stream and blows it 2 - 8 ft clear of my walking path. The plume of sawdust coming away from under the saw also looks quite impressive!
 
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Yes, and yes. it's good chain.

But, I save a few $$ by buying regular (non-rip) Carlton chain by the roll (since I also use regular for cross cutting) and convert what I need to rip (10º top plate angle) during the first half dozen sharpenings of the chain. It lasts just as long and as the Stihl or maybe even a bit longer.

I have a couple of chains with close to zero top plate angle - this gives a very good finish in Aussie hardwoods some of which as similar - but not quite as hard as ebony.

I'm using the Woodland Pro ripping chain. Seems like good chain and is probably what I'll stay with as I don't have a grinder to easily convert standard chain to 10deg. Down the road I may start buying reels but for softwoods my chains are holding up well.
 
I'm using the Woodland Pro ripping chain. Seems like good chain and is probably what I'll stay with as I don't have a grinder to easily convert standard chain to 10deg. Down the road I may start buying reels but for softwoods my chains are holding up well.

Thats rebranded Carlton chain , its good stuff , it also holds up well in hardwood , I have a variety of chains , Stihl , oregon , Carlton etc , but I have found the Carlton holds up the best . Cheers mm
 
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