# upgraded the homemade alaskan



## foursaps (May 23, 2010)

i just got a new 394 xp for milling, and picked up a 36" bar and chain for it, but my old alaskan would only go to 20". that's a lot of unused bar hanging out, and something had to be done about it. 
I had an old tablesaw laying around, and i took the rails for the rip fence off, and modded them to work in my alaskan. 





it worked out pretty well, and while i was at it i got rid of the old clamp-on-the-bar method and drilled a couple holes for thru bolting the bar to the mill. I attempted to drill through the center of the roller nose, but there is hardened steel somewhere in there and no matter what i used or did, i couldn't drill through it. I thought i had hardened the steel, but that wasn't it as i was drilling at real low speed, using oil, and the bar wasn't even warm. (you can see the hole if you look closely) also looking for some wheels to put on to guide it as i mill. 








a couple other things had to be done to make the new rails work, but it all came together in the end. now i just have to try it out! Hopefully i will have some time this week to test it on the rest of the red pine i have down. 





any comments or suggestions are welcome!!


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## jimdad07 (May 23, 2010)

That is a good idea. I wish I had thought of that because I just threw out an old table saw about two weeks ago. The saw is alright too.


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## mtngun (May 23, 2010)

That's a very creative use of a Ryobi tablesaw. 

You might want to take the dog off the saw for milling.

Can't wait to see the new mill in action.


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## luvsaws (May 23, 2010)

Creative


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## HUCKLEBERRY (May 23, 2010)

Looks like you ended up with a slick final product. Good work and good post.


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## BobL (May 24, 2010)

If you every have a spare table saw handy one of the best things you can do with it is put a fine kerf metal cut off blade in it and you then have a metal cutting saw. I use mine almost as much as my 12" table saw.


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## foursaps (May 24, 2010)

mtngun said:


> That's a very creative use of a Ryobi tablesaw.
> 
> You might want to take the dog off the saw for milling.
> 
> Can't wait to see the new mill in action.



you must have the same saw! it was an old ryobi, served me very well over the years.



BobL said:


> If you every have a spare table saw handy one of the best things you can do with it is put a fine kerf metal cut off blade in it and you then have a metal cutting saw. I use mine almost as much as my 12" table saw.



the motor had crapped the bed in this saw, and it was destined for the scrap pile anyway, but i will keep that in mind!!


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## Brmorgan (May 24, 2010)

BobL said:


> If you every have a spare table saw handy one of the best things you can do with it is put a fine kerf metal cut off blade in it and you then have a metal cutting saw. I use mine almost as much as my 12" table saw.



That's how I dress my bars. I have a couple really nice fine-grained Pacific cutoff wheels that work perfectly. They aren't terribly aggressive so it's harder to damage a bar, and if I do need to take material off a bit quicker, I can put the cutting edge to work if I'm careful. Generally, I just set them to 90° with a square and grind the bar rails with the sides of the disc, not the actual cutting edge. This gives me a nice ~10" wide perfectly flat grinding surface; I just slide the bar back and forth in a nice fluid arc motion. I don't have a dedicated saw set up for this yet, but I do have a couple old stripped benchtop units that I picked up at the scrap for free, and one will ultimately end up as a dedicated grinding station once I get room in the shop for it.

Good idea on using the fence rails though! The old Rockwell/Beaver ones I have use those small-diameter round solid-steel rods for rails - those wouldn't be much use! I did see a saw with rails like yours go through the scrap a couple months back; I never even thought of using them and there wasn't much else worth taking on it. Damn.


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## BobL (May 24, 2010)

Brmorgan said:


> That's how I dress my bars. I have a couple really nice fine-grained Pacific cutoff wheels that work perfectly. They aren't terribly aggressive so it's harder to damage a bar, and if I do need to take material off a bit quicker, I can put the cutting edge to work if I'm careful. Generally, I just set them to 90° with a square and grind the bar rails with the sides of the disc, not the actual cutting edge. This gives me a nice ~10" wide perfectly flat grinding surface; I just slide the bar back and forth in a nice fluid arc motion. I don't have a dedicated saw set up for this yet, but I do have a couple old stripped benchtop units that I picked up at the scrap for free, and one will ultimately end up as a dedicated grinding station once I get room in the shop for it.



That's how I do mine as well.


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## dbol (Jun 9, 2010)

Now I'm looking for a used saw on CL. Cool license plate, I was confused on that one.


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