This project has taken over a year on and off as I was busy with other things. But its coming to an ending with a little luck, I'll be milling lumber for my house build before the year is out. In it past life this thing was a galvanized boat trailer and a old 6x6 ATV ...... As my grand father once said, there is no such thing as scrap. Just a lack of imagination. And he was right .. there was a band saw mill in those parts just waiting to come out. Tomorrow I'll build the slides for the blade guides and wire the thing up , plumb in fuel and water and put it on its track that is at the lower end of my little patch in the hills ready and waiting.

Great work! Can’t wait to see the end results!!

OSHA approved!!! Ha ha Looking good there.....jk

I wondered what was goin on with the saw mill. I figure it was done and you were waiting low wood to dry.

I called but she did not answer the phone



Work work kept getting in the way and I was doing one week in SC two weeks here ... but in that time there was always other stuff to do and so it dragged on longer than I thought it would. But I am not going back to work till the first of January so should get her done and milling

Nice job. I really get a kick out of seeing projects like this. Thanks.

Is there anything you can't build?

Nice innovation! Put up a video if you will when you get it up and running.

Amazing invention, Michael. Smart man.

Dunno, so things just take a little longer with my limited means here at home.


Couple of stats for those who are interested.
Engine is a V twin 670CC 22 HP
Track length for now is 20'
Maximum diameter log I can cut with this rig is 45"
Blade length 15'
The head lifts with a ATV winch and a couple of pulleys to slow it down.
At some point the advance will be done with another winch that I am building a frequency controller for to have the different speeds I want and directional control. and a long chain instead of rope to run it back and forth

Red necks would be proude.

Well before Paul made me the " colorblind Kraut " it said " Euro redneck " in that line ender my avatar ...... that was quite fitting

looking good, keep us posted, take Pic, when you start cutting lumber.

Yes
following

Lots of ingenuity and thinking went into this project. Way beyond me, that's for sure. Would love to see it working.

Your way over my simple head. lol

The whole thing is not rally that difficult in principle. I just had to do some work around as I wanted to use the "stuff " I had at hand. It gets a little more finicky to build the power advance that I want. I want a fast return on a preset button to bring the saw head back to the starting position. and a variable speed I can adjust with a knob for the cut.
Now there are several ways to kick that cat .... Both involve a frequency modulator that controls the speed of the 12V winch motor ...... I am still not sure what way I am going to build the end stops ... either physical end switches mounted to the track or with a sensor on the motor and running the whole thing fully programmable using an Arduino ..... I have the chains and sprockets from that old 6X6 I pulled the engine and bearings out of for the saw head ..... Till I figure out how I want to do the advance feature, I'll just push it back and forth. That trudging along the track is probably monotonous enough to get me thinking on how to solve that little issue, to feed my inherent laziness.

Many years ago in Eastern NC, I knew a man who had large loblolly pine cut for a home addition project. He lived out in the county. His plan fell through when he learned the lumber had to be dried and finished. Rough cut lumber for framing was not allowed.

You state and county may have this requirement, and you may be planning to finish and dry your lumber.

I like you mill.

It maybe easier to use hydraulics, but if you don’t have any of the components it can add up pretty quick.

Part of the reason that I bought the property here in the green belt of TN is that we do not have any of those restrictions. You pay a couple of hundred bucks for a building permit after a perk test and then you can have at it. I probably will never be able to get insurance on the place but I don't give a hoot about that.
My limitations for here are

Need a perk test for the building permit.

Can not build on more that 10% of my property as it is in the " Tennessee green belt " ( heck with 45 acres 10% ... NASA does not have a building that big )


I don't have pine on my property , so I am building out of oak, hickory and black walnut with a few bits of poplar thrown in for good measure where I can get away with it.

The missus did the sketch of the house that she wanted. I then took a ruler and calculator and the the math on the statics etc. and had a friend that is an architect check it out to see that my calculations worked. .....The poor guy has more gray hairs now than the time before he went through my calculations as he is used to pine and a 2x4 for him is only 1 1/2 x 3 1/2
He never had to deal with a Kraut enginerd in his line of work that was not a civil civil engineer as this guy did not believe in building targets