# hydraulic chainsaw for milling?



## b116757 (Sep 23, 2009)

Guy's

I have an 48" chainsaw mill and was wondering if a hydraulic chainsaw was a good option for the power head? I have never fooled around with one before any input would be helpful.

Chris


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## timberwolf (Sep 23, 2009)

I would think it rather inefficient. That is, to be using one motor to drive a hydraulic pump and pump fluid through lines to a hydraulic motor. 

Kind of puts a couple middle men in the production chain.

I guess some efficiency could be recouped by having a more efficient 4 stroke for the power pack.


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## BobL (Sep 23, 2009)

With Hydraulics, something has to drive the pump. If you are turning a shaft with a smallish motor why put a put pump in between the two and lose efficiency. It's more efficient to just put a sprocket direct on the shaft. If you already have a biggish motor running like a skid steer or a harvester then thats when it makes sense to add a hydraulic drive. 

A major idea of CS mills is portability and lowish cost. As soon as you add hydraulics both are reduced. I've often thought about adding a cutting bar out the side of something like a Dingo, which is basically a hydraulic pack on 4 wheels, and drive it up and down alongside the log. It could also wear forks and carry away the lumber. But have you seen how much those things cost?


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## b116757 (Sep 23, 2009)

Guys 

I have a LT40 super hydraulic bandmill for the small stuff. I'm looking for the most power for a dedicated slabber. I have 45 hp tractor or 18 hp portable hydraulic power unit at my disposal to drive hydraulics Potability is not a concern. I was hoping for someone with a little hands on time with a hydraulic chainsaws thoughts.


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## BobL (Sep 23, 2009)

b116757 said:


> Guys
> 
> I have a LT40 super hydraulic bandmill for the small stuff. I'm looking for the most power for a dedicated slabber. I have 45 hp tractor or 18 hp portable hydraulic power unit at my disposal to drive hydraulics Potability is not a concern. I was hoping for someone with a little hands on time with a hydraulic chainsaws thoughts.



In that case I'd start looking for harvester parts from which maybe you can adapt bits and pieces or at least look and see how they do it.


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## tomtrees58 (Sep 23, 2009)

no i don think its good to slow we run them on are bucket trucks from 12" to 36" like i said to slow tom trees


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## woodsrunner (Sep 23, 2009)

I think the concept is worth serious consideration in your situation. I also looked at this concept. I found a couple of links to hydraulic drive units for a chainsaw bar. Unfortunately, my old laptop suffered a fatal accident :censored:
and I lost the bookmark. I will search some tonight and try to find it again.
I think using a bandmill for lumber and dedicated slabber for slabs/flitches of unique pieces is what makes the most sense for converting trees to useable wood. Unfortunately most of us don't have the financial resources to do both. Also most of us are hobby-ists with limited time. I encourage you to keep looking at this and then do the financial analysis to see if it makes sense to go hydraulic.

Scott


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## woodsrunner (Sep 23, 2009)

Check out this link:

www.danzcoinc.com



Scott


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## lumberjackchef (Sep 23, 2009)

Hey Chris welcome to the site. Check this one out specifically. It looks like you could use it right on the alaskan mounted up like a normal saw. You shouldn't have to retrofit much if anything.http://www.danzcoinc.com/html/hand_held_saw.html


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## gr8scott72 (Sep 24, 2009)

lumberjackchef said:


> Hey Chris welcome to the site. Check this one out specifically. It looks like you could use it right on the alaskan mounted up like a normal saw. You shouldn't have to retrofit much if anything.http://www.danzcoinc.com/html/hand_held_saw.html



No chainsaw fumes. That would be pretty cool.


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## Backwoods (Sep 24, 2009)

I have worked with hydraulic chainsaws in the big mill. One big advantage is they are easier to start. However that was with a strong hydraulic system, and they were set up stationary. As far as portable, I have heard of less then desirable results, due to lack of power. If you already have a strong hydraulic system and are looking to build something out of spare parts it may not be to bad of an adventure.


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## Brmorgan (Sep 24, 2009)

Actually hydraulic power is one of the most efficient forms. A very distant cousin of my dad's once converted a blown-out backhoe over to all-hydraulic power - drive and everything - and drove the whole thing off of an 8HP Honda engine & hydraulic pump. It was incredibly slow to drive around, but the actual backhoe operations weren't too bad once it was parked.

You can gain tremendous torque with hydraulic power, but don't count on it being fast by any standards unless you're using a very large pump/motor to drive it. Such a setup _might_ be useful for making very wide cuts, but I think that for average use a vertical-shaft engine ~20HP or larger would probably outperform any reasonably-sized hydraulic setup - not to mention you'd need an engine to drive the hydraulic pump anyway.


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