Portable swingblade mill questions.

[KiwiBro]

Trying to educate myself on these and the various options that will or won't be viable for them.

I'm thinking of a very portable 6" cut swingblade mill powered by a min' 6.5HP Chainsaw powerhead.

But, I'm wondering about having an electric motor option for it, powered by either a generator or mains power (depending on where I am it could be single or three phase, 220v). I have a tenuous grasp on the whole HP/torque/RPM/powerband differences between IC engines and 'lecky motors.

But I still have a few questions and am hoping someone else has been down this road before or has the skills to know what will and won't work. these questions are:

1. What is an optimal RPM for such a small swingblade mill blade?
2. If weight wasn't an option, what would be the optimum IC engine HP that would still stand up with a decent feed rate.
3. What is the lightest suitable electric motor I could use (my concern is about a motor being considerably heavier than a CS powerhead, when the mill may not be built strong enough to manage something too heavy)?

I'm grateful for any advice your experienced selves can offer. Thanks in advance.

 

[BobL]

Trying to educate myself on these and the various options that will or won't be viable for them.

I'm thinking of a very portable 6" cut swingblade mill powered by a min' 6.5HP Chainsaw powerhead.

This sounds so wrong to me I have to say something about it.

A major benefit of a swing mill is that once set up it carries its own weight so engine weight is not usuall a problem and running a decent 4 stroke motor means it is more powerful and much quieter than a CS two stroke powerhead.

Apart from the noise a CS powerhead would have to run reduction gearing to run a circular resulting in further power losses. You might be better off finding a 4 stroke motor from a self propelled mower.

A swing mill requires a certain amount of frame and gantry etc so it's not like its a one way trip to a motor vehicle, not that any mill is like that anyway. A hand truck or sack trolley with inflatable wheels can carry a decent 4 stroke motor through bush to get it where you need it.

 

[KiwiBro]

Thanks Bob.

What would you suggest as the minimum HP, 4-stroke engine for such a small blade, without the operator falling asleep feeding it through at a snails pace?

 

[BobL]

Thanks Bob.

What would you suggest as the minimum HP, 4-stroke engine for such a small blade, without the operator falling asleep feeding it through at a snails pace?

Lucas mills use 6HP 4-stroke for a hobby level 4" cut mill
For their 6" mill they use a V twin 14HP four stroke for their base model and 18HP for their upgraded model.
For more detail see [ Circular Swing-Blade Mills ] LUCAS MILL Portable Timber Sawmill

 

[KiwiBro]

Thanks Bob. Those Lucas mills remind me of the Peterson mills we have here.

 

[Sawyer Rob]

Thanks Bob. Those Lucas mills remind me of the Peterson mills we have here.

That's because the "Peterson" was the inventer, and Lucas was the copier!

SR

 

[KiwiBro]

That's because the "Peterson" was the inventer, and Lucas was the copier!

SR

Well, I do know of the very costly court case that darn near buried Carl before he finally won against Lucus. Pretty hard being a small player with great ideas in NZ when the volume and therefore money to keep bankrolling development/marketing/legal cases is overseas.

But that's history now. Him and Jake have some great ideas and if I had the $ and didn't need to have enough wood lined up to justify the purchase, I'd already own one of his Turbo mills.

I watched a Lucus at the recent fieldays for probably hours over the course of the day. They had a few there. For the price, I like them. But, and I'd love to be proven wrong on this, they didn't seem to have the accuracy I'd like. By far the most exciting thing though was their dedicated slabber. Now that, ladies and gentlemen, not only keeps all the fun of slabbing and revealing the 'beauty within', but is able to pay for itself very quickly, unlike a CSM which seems to be in all but exceptional cases, a real for-the-love-of-it undertaking.

The other I like but still have some concerns over (in tensioned wood) is the Mahoe (another NZ brand) twin saw/dimensional saw. I think you northerners have the mighty mite and MDS brands of a similar ilk?

 

[Turbosawmill]

Hi all,

I see nothing wrong with the idea of the chainsaw swingblade. Carl started this whole swingblade thing selling a whole heap of these!

He moved on to the bigger 2 cylinder engines which kind of stepped away from the magic of the truly portable machines.

I owned one of these saws with 6" cut and 084 when I was younger. They can produce some very capable production numbers. Very light to push too! I loved it.

So having introduced the new Warrior mill (chainsaw swingblade suited for the islands) my basic product principle now... chainsaw power head for the push mill version. 46 kubota for the automatic mill.

Having swapped out my earlier manual push mill from a 10hp very light engine to a 30hp Daihatsu 3 cylinder... my best production was still with the 10hp. Consider all the start stops with that extra weight. Energy is all used up in the change of direction between pushing and pulling.

An automatic saw is a different story though throw as much hp on that as you'd like lol.

Cheers
Jake

 

[KiwiBro]

Hi all,

I see nothing wrong with the idea of the chainsaw swingblade. Carl started this whole swingblade thing selling a whole heap of these!

He moved on to the bigger 2 cylinder engines which kind of stepped away from the magic of the truly portable machines.

I owned one of these saws with 6" cut and 084 when I was younger. They can produce some very capable production numbers. Very light to push too! I loved it.

So having introduced the new Warrior mill (chainsaw swingblade suited for the islands) my basic product principle now... chainsaw power head for the push mill version. 46 kubota for the automatic mill.

Having swapped out my earlier manual push mill from a 10hp very light engine to a 30hp Daihatsu 3 cylinder... my best production was still with the 10hp. Consider all the start stops with that extra weight. Energy is all used up in the change of direction between pushing and pulling.

An automatic saw is a different story though throw as much hp on that as you'd like lol.

Cheers
Jake

Hi Jake,

I wondered if you'd chime in at some stage.

When is that demo day? I have access to Kauri the big boys left behind that could be milled on-site rather than need a digger to lift onto trucks. And a Euc butt log that's way too big to lift with the tractor, etc, etc.

I'm especially keen to look at:

1. what sort of work it asks of the powerhead
2. how much 2-stroke exhaust fumes the operator will be sucking in during a day's milling
3. how much 2-stroke mix something like this will consume per m3 milled
4. what the realistic m3/normal 8-hr day production should be
5. how much flex it's going to have
6. the max log dimensions it can cope with and if it could actually handle an extension if the main beam was bigger

I am currently thinking about a 2nd hand Rimu twinblade mill while I twiddle my thumbs waiting for you:msp_biggrin:

Unless of course you are keen on zero-interest, 95% vendor financing over 5 years on your big mill, in which case please sign me up and get it here tomorrow will you? Thanks a bunch.

Cheers