Briggs and Stratton Circualar Saw Mill

[Duart]

Tell me if I'm crazy or suicidal but here is my latest idea.

Take a ~13hp briggs and stratton motor mower engine add a pulley to the shaft and link it to another shaft with a pulley on one end and a circular saw blade on the other.

The reason that I want to do this is that my CS Rail Mill is working pretty well but is so slow, plus a lot of wood goes to sawdust. For slabs this is not a problem and while I reckon I can sell a few slabs what I mostly want is boards for myself. If I could produce cants with the CSM and then with another carriage produce boards with the circular saw that would speed up production and produce less dust vs boards.

I would need some sort of riving knife I'm guessing to keep the kerf open and avoid kickback but is such a beast going to be really dangerous or just mildly so like any piece of milling machinery?

 

[carvinmark]

I think you will need LOTS more H.P.
Welcome to AS

 

[BobL]

Tell me if I'm crazy or suicidal but here is my latest idea.

Take a ~13hp briggs and stratton motor mower engine add a pulley to the shaft and link it to another shaft with a pulley on one end and a circular saw blade on the other.

The reason that I want to do this is that my CS Rail Mill is working pretty well but is so slow, plus a lot of wood goes to sawdust. For slabs this is not a problem and while I reckon I can sell a few slabs what I mostly want is boards for myself. If I could produce cants with the CSM and then with another carriage produce boards with the circular saw that would speed up production and produce less dust vs boards.

I would need some sort of riving knife I'm guessing to keep the kerf open and avoid kickback but is such a beast going to be really dangerous or just mildly so like any piece of milling machinery?

Sounds like you're talking about a Lucas mill? Lucas have put a huge amount of thought into their mill and unless you have a lot of free materials and time you'll be battling to beat the design and capacity of such a mill.

 

[Duart]

Sounds like you're talking about a Lucas mill? Lucas have put a huge amount of thought into their mill and unless you have a lot of free materials and time you'll be battling to beat the design and capacity of such a mill.

While I would love a swing mill I don't have the money

All I would be looking from this would be the ability to slice up cants. If it was a horizontal drive motor I'd be tempted to mount it in a bench that way it would be a more conventional edger/breaking down saw.

Mind you if I had the money for a swing mill I'd probably save up for a bit longer and get a bandsaw mill.

 

[excess650]

Sawing logs into cants to dry and/or resaw isn't a bad thing. There are used bandmills around at lower cost than new. You may find someone local with a bandmill to do the reswaing for you. What is your location?

 

[Duart]

Sawing logs into cants to dry and/or resaw isn't a bad thing. There are used bandmills around at lower cost than new. You may find someone local with a bandmill to do the reswaing for you. What is your location?

I didn't know that leaving them to resaw was a good idea. Doesn't that create other problems? Mind you I'm not sure that I could leave them to resaw later.

I've got about 6 30" Monterrey pine logs in my stash to mill. If I want 150mm boards then a cant from a 4m log is going to be around 270kg. I can turn this but I cant move it.

 

[Ted J]

Sawing logs into cants to dry and/or resaw isn't a bad thing. There are used bandmills around at lower cost than new. You may find someone local with a bandmill to do the reswaing for you. What is your location?

I didn't know that leaving them to resaw was a good idea. Doesn't that create other problems? Mind you I'm not sure that I could leave them to resaw later.

I've got about 6 30" Monterrey pine logs in my stash to mill. If I want 150mm boards then a cant from a 4m log is going to be around 270kg. I can turn this but I cant move it.

Well he's using those metric numbers so he's probably not in the US.
There is a Lucas mill for sale in Bryan, TX just 40 miles north of me, on CL HERE

Ted

 

[dallasm1]

You might want to look at the some of the "Rip Saw" designs out there. I do not have one but it seems like a pretty cost effective way to cut planks. I would hate to cut 1" planks with my 084! There would be more sawdust on the ground than dirt. There are also lighter duty products like the Norwood Lumber Lite, that are cheaper than the standard band saw mills.

 

[rarefish383]

I've thought of something similar, like a big table saw just for ripping boards. I was thinking of a table with a gang of 4 or 5 blabes. I could run a slab through it and have boards come out the other end, Joe.

 

[Dave]

We had something similar, powered by a 4-71 Detroit. Freind of mine runs a for-real sawmill and saws almost everything into cants so he doesn't have a yard full of six inch boards and an order for tens.

 

[Duart]

Yep not in the US I'm in the home of the Lucas.

There is actually one for sale near me but I don't have the $15+K. Would be a good deal if I could because it comes with a bunch of extras.

So I'm getting the impression that it is not a crazy idea then?

 

[Hddnis]

No, not crazy per se.

With the 13 hp motor you could use a 12" saw blade which would let you cut about 5".

If all you are looking to do is rip slabs that will work ok.

If you had to you might get away with a 14" saw blade for 6" of cut, but I think your feed rate would be really slow.

The key to this project will be getting a saw blade designed for ripping green wood. It will look like the Lucas blades, three or four teeth that are replaceable carbide inserts.

Don't forget proper guards and safety features. The best deal is not worth getting hurt, that costs more than you will ever save.



Mr. HE

 

[Brmorgan]

I've thought of something similar, like a big table saw just for ripping boards. I was thinking of a table with a gang of 4 or 5 blabes. I could run a slab through it and have boards come out the other end, Joe.

I've had the same thougts, but if you wanted to have any reasonable sort of feed rate you'd need at least 5 HP, preferably 10, per blade if you're ripping 6" thick stock. So to run a half-dozen blades you might want to look into an old Beetle engine or a 3-cyl Deutz diesel etc. to power it. A Briggs ain't gonna cut it for more than one blade, maybe two, if you want to maintain a good feed rate in thick stock.

I would eventually like to build a small headrig for 8" dia. max by maybe 6' long logs using a ~16" sawblade, since it would be so much easier and faster than setting up the CSM or a bandmill for small logs. I think I could get away with a 15-20HP engine for that if the feed rate was controllable.

 

[Backwoods]

Take a look at some of the edger’s that are made to run with these small mills like the, minor, woodmizer, cook, and baker. They are running 2 saws with a mid 20hp motor. They have hold down rolls, feed rolls, and wide kerf saws so that the cant does not bind the saw. The problem is they are mostly designed for 2” stock, there are a couple 4” versions out there as well, but the hp goes up to handle them, You got an old car motor that runs?

 

[rarefish383]

I was thinking about using a Wisconsin 4 cylinder I have, it's in the 23 or 24 hp range. We also have a Pick-N-Pull junk yard locally that sells all engines for $200 so a running V-8 is an option, Joe.

 

[Sawyer Rob]

My edger has two 10" blades that will cut 2-1/2" thick oak or what ever material. It's powered by a 13hp Honda, and it does just fine.

I do agree that for what the poster wants to do with what he has, it will be under powered, and by the time he gets it working half way decent, he would have been better off buying something already made.

Rob

 

[TraditionalTool]

Well he's using those metric numbers so he's probably not in the US.
There is a Lucas mill for sale in Bryan, TX just 40 miles north of me, on CL HERE

Ted

Damn, that is VERY tempting...I really want a band mill though, but that is incredibly tempting, even though Texas is a ways away. That's a great Xmas present for someone if it's in good shape...like it sounds...great deal...

 

[Brmorgan]

My edger has two 10" blades that will cut 2-1/2" thick oak or what ever material. It's powered by a 13hp Honda, and it does just fine.

I do agree that for what the poster wants to do with what he has, it will be under powered, and by the time he gets it working half way decent, he would have been better off buying something already made.

Rob

Yeah edging boards is totally practical on a small scale, and a guy probably could run 5 or 6 saws cutting ~2" thick stock with a decent small engine. From my experience though, power requirements don't tend to rise with stock thickness in a linear fashion - for instance a 6" deep cut will require than 3 times the power of a 2" deep cut. So talking of splitting cants with multiple saws on a small engine isn't very practical IMO. Single cuts like a swingmill though, no problem at all.

Come to think of it though, there WAS a company called D&L Doublecut building small mills maybe 50 miles south of here. Their website is still up, but I know they aren't operating out of the same place they did until a couple years ago. Anyway, they (at least used to) build a mill with two circular saws set at 90° to each other, so they could cut boards in a single pass. I've never seen them operating in person, but I did stop by their shop after hours once on the way by (they were literally right next to the highway with everything in a big chain-link fenced yard). The mills looked really well-built, thought to be honest this is the first time I've looked at their website since I had assumed the company went under. Maybe not. I've never been as interested in circular mills in general, so I have to admit I didn't pay a lot of attention to them before either.

Anyway here's the link to their mills:

http://www.doublecut.com/sawmills.asp

There are plenty of really interesting pics there too.

 

[Duart]

My edger has two 10" blades that will cut 2-1/2" thick oak or what ever material. It's powered by a 13hp Honda, and it does just fine.

I do agree that for what the poster wants to do with what he has, it will be under powered, and by the time he gets it working half way decent, he would have been better off buying something already made.

Rob

This idea is about my fourth idea. My second idea was a 16" beam saw mounted into a bench but they are not available over here. One of those would handle a 6" (150mm) cut and I believe they are powered by the equivalent of a 3.2HP electric motor. So I figured that a 13HP four stroke petrol engine would be able to power a single blade to rip 6" and under cants into boards.

Rob you are saying this is not the case? Or are you saying that it would do it but it would be under powered for the task being asked of it?

I could always go back to my original plan of taking the cants to a 3hp electric bandsaw in the shed. The only two problems with that plan at this point are that I don't have a shed and I don't have a bandsaw up to the task.

 

[Sawyer Rob]

This idea is about my fourth idea. My second idea was a 16" beam saw mounted into a bench but they are not available over here. One of those would handle a 6" (150mm) cut and I believe they are powered by the equivalent of a 3.2HP electric motor. So I figured that a 13HP four stroke petrol engine would be able to power a single blade to rip 6" and under cants into boards.

Rob you are saying this is not the case? Or are you saying that it would do it but it would be under powered for the task being asked of it?

I could always go back to my original plan of taking the cants to a 3hp electric bandsaw in the shed. The only two problems with that plan at this point are that I don't have a shed and I don't have a bandsaw up to the task.

IF you buy a genuine thin kerf ripping blade, like the swingsaws use, 13hp probably will rip 6" cants, but it's not going to be fast, and i think you will have a HUGE amount of time into it before you get it working. I also think you will have a lot more $$ into it to get it working than you realize now.

If i was going to do enough milling to warrant building something like that, i'd just save my money and buy a used bandmill. OR, i'd find a big old used shop bandsaw, and fix it up to do the job, knowing that it still wasn't going to be a cheap project.

Rob