Today was the first chance to try the 880 milling with the BIL mill.
I have run about 5 tanks of fuel through it cutting up firewood but have run out of fire wood to cut and still felt a bit nervous about running it WOT for an extended period like one does on the mill, especially till I get a few other things sorted. The main one is the exhaust mod - I have the 15 mm opening insert installed (or and am sort of still testing and tuning. I can open it up all the way to 19 mm (3/4") if needed but am taking my time and testing and tuning as I go.
Anyway I thought I would start milling but just take it easy, mill a few ft at 7000 rpm, give it rest, mill a few ft at 8000 rpm, give it a rest, 9000 and then back to 8000 etc up and down the range. It's slow going and a bit frustrating because you can just tell this thing is just wanting to jump out of its skin.
Here was the menu. Its a tree called a Western Australian Marri about 3'6" in diameter.
It was located very close to the side of a house and had to be taken down in 8 ft lengths and craned out. As a result the big groove cut around the trunk to make sure the chain did not slip.
You can also see how I groove the top of the log so the log rails sit squarely on top of the log.
Saw getting ready to take the test!
Here was the second cut.
These trees have a lot of kino and so were not milled so there are quite a few of them left in fields and woodland. They were also woodchipped for paper. Now they are considered timber grade and the kino is called a feature!
Unfortunately no one around to take pics of the saw in action. At the end I did a half minute or so of milling at WOT, and it sort of found it's comfort groove at around 10,000 rpm in ~30" of this log, which is relatively soft for an Aussie hardwood. It's definitely smoother (it reminds me a lot of the big husky) and appears to be cutting faster than the 076, but how much faster is hard to say. The only way to test this is with timed cuts. It certainly makes a racket with the 15 mm opening on the muffler (peltor muffs and ear plugs are working hard keeping the noise down but are OK) and the harmonics are very different because I lost a couple of bolts that had never come off the BIL mill with the 076.
Plus I restacked a couple of slab stacks and rebuilt the Aux oiler because it was leaking more oil than putting it on the chain.
Anyway - I can just tell this is going to be one fun milling combo.
I have run about 5 tanks of fuel through it cutting up firewood but have run out of fire wood to cut and still felt a bit nervous about running it WOT for an extended period like one does on the mill, especially till I get a few other things sorted. The main one is the exhaust mod - I have the 15 mm opening insert installed (or and am sort of still testing and tuning. I can open it up all the way to 19 mm (3/4") if needed but am taking my time and testing and tuning as I go.
Anyway I thought I would start milling but just take it easy, mill a few ft at 7000 rpm, give it rest, mill a few ft at 8000 rpm, give it a rest, 9000 and then back to 8000 etc up and down the range. It's slow going and a bit frustrating because you can just tell this thing is just wanting to jump out of its skin.
Here was the menu. Its a tree called a Western Australian Marri about 3'6" in diameter.
It was located very close to the side of a house and had to be taken down in 8 ft lengths and craned out. As a result the big groove cut around the trunk to make sure the chain did not slip.
You can also see how I groove the top of the log so the log rails sit squarely on top of the log.
Saw getting ready to take the test!
Here was the second cut.
These trees have a lot of kino and so were not milled so there are quite a few of them left in fields and woodland. They were also woodchipped for paper. Now they are considered timber grade and the kino is called a feature!
Unfortunately no one around to take pics of the saw in action. At the end I did a half minute or so of milling at WOT, and it sort of found it's comfort groove at around 10,000 rpm in ~30" of this log, which is relatively soft for an Aussie hardwood. It's definitely smoother (it reminds me a lot of the big husky) and appears to be cutting faster than the 076, but how much faster is hard to say. The only way to test this is with timed cuts. It certainly makes a racket with the 15 mm opening on the muffler (peltor muffs and ear plugs are working hard keeping the noise down but are OK) and the harmonics are very different because I lost a couple of bolts that had never come off the BIL mill with the 076.
Plus I restacked a couple of slab stacks and rebuilt the Aux oiler because it was leaking more oil than putting it on the chain.
Anyway - I can just tell this is going to be one fun milling combo.
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