The urge to fiddle . . . . . . .

with the BIL mill. . . . . . cannot be resisted.

I had this in mind some time ago and had a spare couple of hours this evening and came up with the following.

Yep - an outboard trigger. Here is the inboard part.



I guess you can recognise what the bits are from.

The outboard part looks like this and is connected to the inboard part with a bike brake cable.


View from the other side of the onboard part looks like.


From on top looking down.


And if it goes pear shaped you can still get your hand in there and work it.


It might look flimsy but it's actually nice and solid although there are a couple of improvements/fixes worth considering.
- shorter cable
- lube cable or maybe get one with a telfon sheath.
- better connection to the base of the saw.

Does it work? Dunno its 9:45 pm in the evenings here and the neighbours on one side are less than 3ft away (5 ft on the other) so I don't want to give them cause to complain.

Cheers

That's funny only because two nights ago in the rain I stripped down a Stihl 08 that is set up to run an old brush trimmer. Looks exactly like a weedeater only a chainsaw powering it and it has a remote cabel I'm going to try to rig up on my 066, unfortunatly I havn't seen it through yet but your looks good.

Thanks for the great pics!! I'm still working on my mill. I'm drilling holes in the uprights for adjustment and just have a little more welding to do. I think I'll try that remote throttle idea after I get the bugs out.

Very cool! Like the use of a bike brake to give it the gas. Hope it wasn't from one of the neighbour's bikes...

Woodsurfer said:

Very cool! Like the use of a bike brake to give it the gas. Hope it wasn't from one of the neighbour's bikes...

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Actually it was but he had placed it on the footpath for the biannual city council garbage pickup.

Good, that way it won't go off in your hand. :hmm3grin2orange:
Where's the exploding chainsaw smiley?

It's morning here so I just tried it out. I'm surprised how responsive it is, I would have thought there would be more of a lag. Tomorrow I'll give it a real test milling so I'll see how well it actually holds together.

Cheers

BIL Mill goes mobile

Living in an inner city neighborhood I cannot get a vehicle around the back of our place so BIL has been taking ungainly rides in a POS wheelbarrow down a narrow footpath by the side of the house to its maintenance place in the back shed. In the field I try to get as close as I can to the logs with my car but even then BIL aint exactly easy-totin' machinery. For some time I have been thinking about fitting removable pneumatic wheels to the ends of the rails so that I could pull/push it around as needed. When I went to the hardware store to check out what they had in the wheel department I noticed these cheap sack trolleys for $10 less than the price of the wheels so here is what I did.



The wooden blocks, U-bolted to the trolley frame, contain recesses for BIL's feet to sit in.



Works a treat - just pick up and pull/push around like a sack! And on site I can use the sack trolley to move around the slabs as well

Now then . . . . .
. . . . .how's about a little gear box feed from the engine
. . . . . . sprocket on the trolley wheels
. . . . . . now - now calm down!!!!

Pretty darn cool. I have a garden wagon I haul mine on.

More fiddlin!

Three PITA issues with the previous outboard hand trottle arrangement were:

1) As the power head to outboard throttle handle distance varies with the thickness of the cut, the cable length had to be long enough to cater for this, leading to an overly long cable for thin slabs. This long cable dangling out in the breeze is a potential safety problem.
2) I couldn't remove the chain whilst the powerhead was on the mill unless I disconnected the throttle cable.
3) Removing the powerhead from the mill required me to disconnect the throttle cable.

So my solution to these three issues is to add this extra handle to the wrap and move the outboard throttle handle from the mill back onto the extra handle;


Close up of the other of the pair of mountain bike handle bar grips used for extra comfiness.



Shorter cable also seems to give a slightly more positive feel to the whole thing. Final proof will of course be when tested on Saturday.

Cheers

I must say I admire your fiddlin' prowess.

Here's my poor man's throttle lock... a zip tie. Simple but effective. With a bit of practice it's second nature to engage it one handed. It's amazing how easier it is to control the mill when you have both hands free.

aggiewoodbutchr said:

I must say I admire your fiddlin' prowess.

Here's my poor man's throttle lock... a zip tie. Simple but effective. With a bit of practice it's second nature to engage it one handed. It's amazing how easier it is to control the mill when you have both hands free.

Click to expand...

Hey - nothing wrong with zip ties, I'm a big fan of zip ties and already have two on BIL. I also use em to hold my side mirrors on my car. Trouble is one of the zip ties perished and dropped the lefthand side mirror in the middle of the freeway while I was doing 55 mph (that's about as fast as my 1982 Mitsubishi rustbucket van will go). It sure frightened the hell outta the guy behind me (the shattered mirror that is - the van just has people scratchin and shaking their heads - they do tend to steer clear though)

Reminds me . . . I gotta go and replace the zip tie on the other mirror 'for it drop off as well. Ma missus says - if only you looked after your car like you do your CSM !!! Hardy har har - she gets the new leased subaru forester to drive around in so she should just butt out.

Back to fiddling, I got me some more ideas, two involve zip ties!

Just reporting the handthrottle on extra handle attached to the wrap handle on powerhead works a treat. One reason maybe because it higher up and almost level with the other handle on the mill so less bending over on those last few slabs.

Cheers

BobL said:

Ma missus says - if only you looked after your car like you do your CSM !!! Hardy har har - she gets the new leased subaru forester to drive around in so she should just butt out.

Click to expand...

I must admit to taking care of my chainsaw and mills, as well as my woodshop equipment, better sometimes than I do the house and cars. Hey... it all boils down to priorities The woodworking is still enjoyment for me, where fixing the leaking toilet is just a way to avoid a plumber bill.

woodshop said:

I must admit to taking care of my chainsaw and mills, as well as my woodshop equipment, better sometimes than I do the house and cars. Hey... it all boils down to priorities The woodworking is still enjoyment for me, where fixing the leaking toilet is just a way to avoid a plumber bill.

Click to expand...

+10!

Tingling in left hand thumb and pointing finger disappears

Now that I've had the hand throttle on the BIL Mill for 3 weeks I just realized that the continuous tingling in the tips of my left hand thumb and pointing finger has gone. The tingling developed on the very first outing with the BIL mill and I put it down to needing to continually hold down the trigger throttle. I don't know if this affects other folks. A simpler solution is of course a cable tie ala AggieWB.

BobL said:

Now that I've had the hand throttle on the BIL Mill for 3 weeks I just realized that the continuous tingling in the tips of my left hand thumb and pointing finger has gone. The tingling developed on the very first outing with the BIL mill and I put it down to needing to continually hold down the trigger throttle. I don't know if this affects other folks. A simpler solution is of course a cable tie ala AggieWB.

Click to expand...

the other solution is to buy a newer stihl.....those older saws are hard on the bones.

cantcutter said:

the other solution is to buy a newer stihl.....those older saws are hard on the bones.

Click to expand...

Yep - that has crossed my mind but the old 076 is just purring through those logs so sweetly and the vibes are being very well absorbed by those mountain bike grips I'll wait until I put a few more bd/ft on the clock. The hardest thing currently on my bones is pushing those slabs off the logs.

I fired up a new 066 recently to do some bucking and noticed the same Peltor H10A earmuffs that are very effective at blocking the lower revving 076 seem to let an awful amount of noise from the 066 through. I have to get myself some earplugs as well next time I use it.

BobL said:

Yep - that has crossed my mind but the old 076 is just purring through those logs so sweetly and the vibes are being very well absorbed by those mountain bike grips I'll wait until I put a few more bd/ft on the clock. The hardest thing currently on my bones is pushing those slabs off the logs.

I fired up a new 066 recently to do some bucking and noticed the same Peltor H10A earmuffs that are very effective at blocking the lower revving 076 seem to let an awful amount of noise from the 066 through. I have to get myself some earplugs as well next time I use it.

Click to expand...

When I mill, I always use both those little squeezable ear inserts AND my Peltor earmuffs built into my hardhat. Even so, often after a long day milling, I still get slight ringing in the ears, I think due to being subjected to that level of noise that close to the saw (when I mill, my head is closer to the saw and thus the noise than when bucking or limbing). As for the vibration affecting the hands and fingers, when I first started logging for a pulpwood company in early 80's, they had me at the end of a saw limbing and cutting off tops for about 6 months before I graduated to the bigger machines. There was no anti-vibe on those saws back then, and I remember after about 2 months of doing that every day it was getting painful to curl and uncurl my fingers when I woke up in the morning. Stiff and painful. The crew boss told us that there is a name for that condition, and that it is not uncommon.

Sign's of carpul tunnel

BobL said:

Now that I've had the hand throttle on the BIL Mill for 3 weeks I just realized that the continuous tingling in the tips of my left hand thumb and pointing finger has gone. The tingling developed on the very first outing with the BIL mill and I put it down to needing to continually hold down the trigger throttle. I don't know if this affects other folks. A simpler solution is of course a cable tie ala AggieWB.

Click to expand...

Hi Bob ..........Sorry to side track this thread Bob , excellent job as alway's Bob . I hope this help's someone else , Sound's like sign's of carpal tunnel syndrome . I was working in the local pine plantation's , roughly 18-19 year's ago , cutting down regrowth , lot's of hour's hanging on to cheap saw's , it used to get so bad me hand would get numb hangin on to the saw , night's were the worst though , when you lay down trying to sleep and your arm's get numb and start to ach , some time after that I started working in the Pulp and Papermill , I was working in the pulpmill dept at the time , we used to have the odd pulp spill , anyway , any time I used a hose to clean up the mess , my hands would go numb , I also worked out on the weight's for a number of year's which just aggravated the problem even more , it got so bad at time's , I would be trying to undo bolt's with a spanner and me hand's would be going numb , so I would have to stop because , I couldn't feel the spanner to use it or undo the nut , same problem . Eventually , I was happen to be listening to the radio and they were talking about this problem , after that I went to the doctor , not long after I had surgery on one wrist , (it's a very simple op about 4 stitch's and an overnight stay) end of problem , that was about 10 year's ago , still have not had the other one done , other one not as bad now though since I stopped doing weight's . Cheer's MM