ROller nose

[BobL]

Cheers Woodshop.

I slabbed another biggish (35"+wide and about 9 ft long ) lemon scented gum on Saturday. I finally figured out what the freshly milled timber smells - Fresh Corona Beer! It has that same floral fragrance about it (It's the blossoms that smell like Lemons).

Anyway, as a trial run I used the 42" hardnose bar set up in the new way - using the nose bolt, steel jaws and new oiler.

The nose bolt and steel jaws worked great. It all held together and nothing came loose. I am disappointed in the new oiler. The oiler delivery point is about is about 4/5 of the way around the nose and the chain seems to just flings most of the oil off. The chain definitely ran hotter than my direct bar groove delivery method. I am thinking of drilling a hole thru just one side of the bar so the oil drops into the groove underneath the chain rather than direct on top of the chain. Could be tricky as the oil delivery mechanism will have to be modified to be physically adjustable in 2D - I have a few ideas on how to do this.

Have I said how hard this stuff is? I'm am touching up the chain, 3-4 strokes per cutter (I'm running full comp chain at the moment) between each slab so itl took me around 5 hours to cut 7 slabs. if I had encountered this timber as my first log I probably would have given up milling then and there. I also ran out of bar width (39.5") on the log I was cutting and nearly stopped milling until my new 60" mill setup is ready but that is still some ways off yet and I have more big logs than I can cope with at the moment. These big hard logs are giving me a real workout especially as the forklift was not working and I had to handle the slabs with just a sack trolled. They also test how "on-key" everything is, otherwise performance just drops rapidly

Sometime I must start a "BIL Mill gets a makeover" thread.

Cheers
Bob

 

[DRB]

Nice work BobL.

I like how you made the bar tip end adjustable. You sure have done your home work.

Thanks for posting such a great write up on your mods. Now lets see some sawdust fly

 

[BobL]

I just wanted to report that I successfully drilled a 1/4" hole in my 42" sprocket nose GB bar. I did this one with a new Cobalt steel alloy bit. Seeing as it cost twice the price of a carbide tipped masonry it did not seem to make it any easier, although the cobalt is easier to resharpen and won't shatter like the carbide will.

 

[woodshop]

I bought a set of cobolt bits but because they are so pricey, I only use them in situations when I think nothing else will do. That usually means I will try and then ruin a standard bit, then move to the cobalt. Then there is always that errant piece of "mystery steel" one runs across. I'm not sure where I even got it, but I tried to drill a simple 5/16 inch hole into this 1/4 inch thick piece of metal... after only drilling maybe 1/8 inch into this stuff and in the process toasting 2 standard HHS bits AND also ruining a cobalt bit, I gave up. I'd love to know what this metal is.

 

[slabmaster]

Glad to see you got that hole drilled in your bar. Let us know how it holds up with the mod.I still am using the hard top bars and they have served me well.I also like to go all the way to the end of a bar if needed.Mark

 

[slabmaster]

I bought a set of cobolt bits but because they are so pricey, I only use them in situations when I think nothing else will do. That usually means I will try and then ruin a standard bit, then move to the cobalt. Then there is always that errant piece of "mystery steel" one runs across. I'm not sure where I even got it, but I tried to drill a simple 5/16 inch hole into this 1/4 inch thick piece of metal... after only drilling maybe 1/8 inch into this stuff and in the process toasting 2 standard HHS bits AND also ruining a cobalt bit, I gave up. I'd love to know what this metal is.

It might be the same metal,just tempered now because of the heat generated from earlier drilling with a softer bit.I find it better to drill with the best drill i have so not to heat it up to the point of tempering which only maked it harder to finish drilling further. Hope this helps.Mark

 

[BobL]

Just a note to say I have also drilled holes in 3 mm thick HSS using a 3/16" carbide tipped (masonry) drill bit. It needs high pressure (I used an HD drill press) but not too much or the carbide will shatter (not violently - it just crumbles), lots of coolant/lube and a slow speed.