Sawbar Life on a Chainsaw Mill

[Sawdusty]

Long time lurker but had a few questions that I could not find answers to so I figured it was time to sign up.

How long does a mid-quality bar last you guys on a chainsaw mill?

I am running a procut style mill with a 3120 cutting a mix of hardwoods and softwoods, I get about 5mbf out of a chain but burned up my first bar (before the chain) due to not enough oil and sagged rails. I fixed the rails and the oiling and the new bar (36") is holding up better. Now I am looking at picking up a 42" powermatch bar but want to know how many board feet to expect out of it. About 40% of my milling is 1" boards, the rest is 2" slabs and beams.

Also, anyone have any tips for keeping waste veggie oil (canola) in the bar tip oiler from gelling up in winter? I hit it with a torch every couple of passes to get it flowing again but that gets old pretty fast. I have 15 gallons of oil on hand so I dont really want to go out and buy low temp bar oil for the aux oiler.

Thanks

 

[Trx250r180]

i run winter grade bar oil in mine ,if i did not have the extra oiler the bar would wear out fast ,i hear of guys running veggie oil or motor oil ,i do not think it would keep the bar as cool as bar oil though

 

[BobL]

I am running a procut style mill with a 3120 cutting a mix of hardwoods and softwoods, I get about 5mbf out of a chain but burned up my first bar (before the chain) due to not enough oil and sagged rails. I fixed the rails and the oiling and the new bar (36") is holding up better. Now I am looking at picking up a 42" powermatch bar but want to know how many board feet to expect out of it. About 40% of my milling is 1" boards, the rest is 2" slabs and beams.

Your experience with the 3120 confirms my experience with the extra oil being output by the 3120 being a waste of oil because it is thrown off the drive and nose sprocket before it gets to where it is needed.
It just sounds like you need more bar oil.
This is the size of the oil pool I like to see on my bars - also I like to see a definite spray of oil on the side of the log being cut.


Are you using hole in the bar or the drip method?
Have you see the "nick" or cut into the bar to help get more oil into the groove for the drip method?

Also, anyone have any tips for keeping waste veggie oil (canola) in the bar tip oiler from gelling up in winter? I hit it with a torch every couple of passes to get it flowing again but that gets old pretty fast. I have 15 gallons of oil on hand so I dont really want to go out and buy low temp bar oil for the aux oiler.

I have gone right off using canola on my mills. It doesn't just gel up in winter, any exposed canola on the bar and chain dries out and makes a hard gummy mess. My dogs used to lick any chains left on the saw free of canola but since i have stopped them getting near the mill the chains have stuck like glue to the bar and it has been a PITA to clear. I have started to refill the aux oiler reservoir with mineral oil for the last few cuts of the day but if I forget to do that and am not going to be milling for a while I felt like I had to drain the canola and clean it out of the tank and lines and clean the B&C.

 

[Sawdusty]

Thanks for the tips.

The original bar (28") was running on a pro-mac 850 and I think the oiler was not working with the saw on its side and I was too stingy with the bar tip oiler when I finally added it. I do agree that the oil from the 3120 does not make it around the bar tip, I am running a 36" bar now and it gets very hot if I dont have enough oil from the bar tip oiler (like when it gels up while I am cutting). Currently the oiler is a drip oiler but I drilled a hole that it drips down into and it forms a puddle around the hole, I do like the groove idea also.

I have a pretty good supply of used oil that is a canola/soy mix and it seems to keep the bar cooler and then chain cleaner than just regular bar oil, it does get sticky but I have been using the mill often enough that it does not dry hard and I use compressed air on my saws every couple of weeks which seems to keep them clean. The soy oil may also dry less than the canola. I was thinking of thinning it a little with kerosene, any thoughts on if that would cut down on the stickiness?

With enough oil, how long do you expect a bar to last? Should they last indefinitely with enough oil or should I expect to replace them after 5 or 10 chains? I used a rail closer on the 28" bar but after a while there was nothing I could do to get it to cut straight.

One other observation on the 3120 is that when milling softwood the large chips get sucked into the recoil cover and packed around the airfilter (only the largest chips). Has anyone else noticed this? No problems milling hardwoods with finer dust, I think the big chips are the only ones with enough mass to make it over to where the recoil cover / air intake is.

 

[BobL]

The original bar (28") was running on a pro-mac 850 and I think the oiler was not working with the saw on its side and I was too stingy with the bar tip oiler when I finally added it. I do agree that the oil from the 3120 does not make it around the bar tip, I am running a 36" bar now and it gets very hot if I dont have enough oil from the bar tip oiler (like when it gels up while I am cutting). Currently the oiler is a drip oiler but I drilled a hole that it drips down into and it forms a puddle around the hole, I do like the groove idea also.

I've never heard of canola gelling while cutting - are you cutting at cold temperatures?

I have a pretty good supply of used oil that is a canola/soy mix and it seems to keep the bar cooler and then chain cleaner than just regular bar oil, it does get sticky but I have been using the mill often enough that it does not dry hard and I use compressed air on my saws every couple of weeks which seems to keep them clean. The soy oil may also dry less than the canola. I was thinking of thinning it a little with kerosene, any thoughts on if that would cut down on the stickiness?

Vegetable oils have a higher heat capacity than mineral oil (Olive oil is one of the most common vegetable oils with the highest heat capacity, pity is is so expensive) but you'd have to weigh that up against it thickening up in cold climates. Kerosene would work and maybe diesel would be a possibility.

With enough oil, how long do you expect a bar to last? Should they last indefinitely with enough oil or should I expect to replace them after 5 or 10 chains? I used a rail closer on the 28" bar but after a while there was nothing I could do to get it to cut straight.

I'm not milling 1" boards (usually 2") but I'm cutting much harder wood and bigger logs than you are. I have milled about 130 logs.
~30 with a hard nose 42" bar ~60 with a sprocket nose 42" bar, ~20 with a 25" bar, and a dozen with a 60" bar.
I have about a dozen different chains I use regularly and have only worn out 1 of my 42" chains and one is just about worn out, and all my bars are in good to as new condition.

Some questions for you:
Do you mill on a slope and if so does you saw self feed in the cut or are you still pushing all the way?
How often do you touch up - how many tanks of mix do you use before you touch up the chain?
Are you using a grinder to sharpen?
What raker depths are you using and what are your other cutter sharpening angles

One other observation on the 3120 is that when milling softwood the large chips get sucked into the recoil cover and packed around the airfilter (only the largest chips). Has anyone else noticed this? No problems milling hardwoods with finer dust, I think the big chips are the only ones with enough mass to make it over to where the recoil cover / air intake is.

If it's big chips it won't be a problem.
FWIW on my 880 and 076 I removed the sprocket cover completely and replaced these with modified covers that allow the big chips to more easily escape.
On my 880 I opened up and extended the exhaust so that the sawdust falls into the path of the exhaust and blows it about 3-6ft away from the operator.

 

[Sawdusty]

I am cutting in cold temps, is has been in the single digits at night (deg F) and teens during the day hence the gelling. The oil has a good amount of soy oil in it, I think that helps with it not drying as badly on everything. So far it seems to be working well on the 36" bar (about 5mbf and no signs of wear yet).

I have some kero on hand and I will give that a try in a week or so, I am going to be moving my mill next week so I will be down for the week.

60 logs is very good, I went ahead and ordered the 42" bar today (oregon pro match sprocket tip 3/8 pitch) my local dealer was able to get it for $100 which seemed pretty good for a small dealer.

I think I have made it through the worst of the learning curve on my mill now, it took about 8mbf to get it all figured out. I built my mill similar to a procut but took some the features off a Norwood bandmill that I liked - mostly the dogs and bunks. I figured out that the first carriage was flexing as I entered the cut so I built a second one that was stiffer. I tried cutting with the mill at a slope and I still tend to set up with about 2" of drop over the 20' mill, I felt that the slope helped but I cut a lot of narrow timber (8-12" boards) and I found that by using a boat trailer winch I could cut much faster than it would feed on its own, and I could mill with a lot less effort. I am running full comp at a 0-10 degree angle (10 for fast cuts in pine, closer to 0 on hardwoods, most of the time it is at 5). I drop a file size once I am about halfway through a chain for more hook. I set the rakers to about .035 with a fresh chain and .040 -.050 as the chain wears. I have found that for both milling and cross cutting that if it seems like the chain is getting dull too fast it is time to drop the rakers (or get cleaner logs).

I hand file all of my chains but for the first 8mbf I would have someone with a nice grinder set them back to where they were supposed to be every 4 or 5 hand sharpenings or so. Now I pretty much have a feel for it. Another lesson I learned the hard way is that it takes less time to sharpen the chain than to take that one last cut before you sharpen. I sharpen about every 2-3 tanks in clean pine and up to twice a tank in hard dry wood- the walnut I was cutting yesterday was dulling the chain after every 3 cuts at 12" wide. I generally only give it a quick touch up on the mill and do the rakers and deep filing on the bench.

The chips are big but they totally fill up the area around the airfilter and then the saw starts to run rich and lose power. I think it is the chips that bounce over the top of the bar clamp in front of the saw, I am thinking of putting a little deflector plate there but I like the exhaust idea also. Until I do that I will just have to clean it out at lunch every day I am milling pine.

I am very impressed with the size logs that you mill, even a 24" cut in pine seems like a long time to me but the big slabs are definitely very rewarding. Thanks for all the help so far

 

[BobL]

. . . . .I found that by using a boat trailer winch I could cut much faster than it would feed on its own, and I could mill with a lot less effort. ......

How much wear do you get on the underside of the chain ties? I think the winch is a significant contributory source of the problems you are having, pushing a saw much beyond it's own feed rate is a guaranteed way to mess up the bar and chain. The problem with winches is they put a barrier between the saw and the operator that removes the feel of the cut from the operator. This should improve with experience and as other cues like engine sound are used. Do you have a tacho you could mount on board and monitor RPM while cutting?

If you want more cutting speed rather than using a winch I reckon you could go to 0.045" rakers on a new chain cutting 12" boards. It will probably vibe a bit more but should fair cut faster.

The reality is that CSMs are not the best way to generate lots of narrow boards, if you need to do a lot more I would recommend a BSM.

A chip deflector sounds like a good idea for your problem

 

[Sawdusty]

I should clarify that when I said it cut much faster than when pushing by hand is mostly due to getting 2 more cuts per sharpening than when pushing by hand (it still gives good chips but does not self feed), and that I can mill for a lot longer each day without getting tired due to better posture. When I push the mill by hand it cuts at about the same rate as with the winch but the winch gives a smoother cut, I think the feed rate is more even.

I cut about 5mbf without a winch and another 3mbf when I only used a winch on the wide cuts in hardwood, I was then able to track down a very low ratio boat trailer winch (hand crank with a strap so the feed is very even) and it gives very good feedback and is fast enough for narrow cuts in pine. I think the winch was a factor in the first bar wearing out, it was a much more powerful winch and it was hard to feel the resistance from it. The smaller winch lets me feel the hard grain and knots and adjust accordingly. With the new winch the wear on the bar has been about even between the top and bottom rail, with the old winch the wear was almost all on the bottom like you mention, I should have paid more attention to that. For feed rate I just keep it in its "sweet spot" where the saw is not at the rev limiter and it is cutting at the fastest rate - all the teeth are getting a full cut in but the saw is not bogging down. I was cutting 8" wide walnut 8' long yesterday and was doing a cut in about 30-45 s.

.045 on rakers is a good idea for the pine I am milling, I tried it once in hardwood and it did not work very well, far too much vibration and a poor cut quality, it did cut pine very well though. I should probably just get another chain and have one for hardwoods and one for pine.

Every couple of months I try to justify buying a bandmill, there just happen to be a lot of them in this area and I have a hard time making the business case to buy one. Plus, to get one with the capability of the CS mill that I have puts me in the $10,000 range. Right now I am milling around 10k bd feet a year and selling half of it and most of it sells for .50 bd/ft so I would have to mill about 4 times the lumber each year for the bandmill to really make sense. I know a couple of people that have nice bandmills that they might be selling in the future so I am just waiting on them. If I can get 10mbf out of a bar (it sounds like you are getting far more) then the cs mill is not that much more expensive to run than a bandmill and gives me something to do after sitting in front of the computer all day (engineer as a day job).

A chip deflector, remote throttle (I like your bicycle brake one, heading to the scrap yard today to get parts), and increasing the bar tip oiler tubing from 3/16 to 1/4 are next up on the list. I am pretty sure that I am not getting quite enough oil to the bar tip with the 3/16, I compared the oil pool on my bar yesterday to your picture and it was significantly less.

Thanks again for all the advice

 

[BobL]

I should clarify that when I said it cut much faster than when pushing by hand is mostly due to getting 2 more cuts per sharpening than when pushing by hand

That does not sound right and will definitely cause more B&C wear. It shouldn't matter if the milling is being used by hand or winch it should get the same number of cuts per sharpening. If its getting twice the number of cuts then the chain must be blunter and the winch is just forcing the CSM through the wood and will rapidly wear B&Cs.

You didn't mention the amount of wear on the underside of the ties?

Anyway it sounds like you are getting the hang of your setup and hopefully that will continue

3/16" Bar tip oiling tubing should be OK, where is your oiler mounted, perhaps it is not high enough above the bar to overcome the viscosity of the oil. 1/4" should help that and is worth a go.

 

[Sawdusty]

What is the best way to tell wear on the chain ties? The ones on the worn out bar measure about .002 less in height (some more than that) on the bottom than on the top which makes me wonder if the chain isnt more of the problem than the bar (it cuts a sloping taper on the mill/ jams in the cut if it cant lift the cant up off the mill, has been ground and closed so either the groove is worn internally or the chain is the problem). The ones on the 36" bar look fine, I cant see a difference in wear but maybe I am not looking in the right places. 2 more cuts with the winch is in narrow pine, in hardwood and wide cuts it really just lets me stand up straighter and stand a little further from the saw exhaust and chips, the number is cuts is the same. I do remember setting the mill up at an angle so that it self fed but if I did not rest the carriage off the rails between cuts it would roll down the mill and jump off the end, hence back to the level set up and crank.

I think I will baby the new 42" bar - push by hand, plenty of oil, lots of sharpening per your suggestions and use the 36" bar as the production bar. The next milling job is 160 pine logs, between 6" and 32" diameter. I should have plenty of time to experiment but I am really getting into bandsaw territory. Since it is all pine I am going to drop the rakers to .045 like you suggested.

It was much warmer on Saturday, 45 degrees (f), and I got about twice the volume out of the bar tip oiler. I think 3/16 is good for warm weather and 1/4 would be best for cold weather. I have between 18" and 3' of elevation on the oil reservoir so height should not be a problem. I am also going to try cutting the oil with kerosene next weekend as it is supposed to be back down around freezing.

I will try to get some pictures and cut times as I start this next pile of logs, we felled and yarded them on snow so they should be nice and clean.

 

[Sawdusty]

What is the best way to tell wear on the chain ties? The ones on the worn out bar measure about .002 less in height (some more than that) on the bottom than on the top which makes me wonder if the chain isnt more of the problem than the bar (it cuts a sloping taper on the mill/ jams in the cut if it cant lift the cant up off the mill, has been ground and closed so either the groove is worn internally or the chain is the problem). The ones on the 36" bar look fine, I cant see a difference in wear but maybe I am not looking in the right places. 2 more cuts with the winch is in narrow pine, in hardwood and wide cuts it really just lets me stand up straighter and stand a little further from the saw exhaust and chips, the number is cuts is the same. I do remember setting the mill up at an angle so that it self fed but if I did not rest the carriage off the rails between cuts it would roll down the mill and jump off the end, hence back to the level set up and crank.

I think I will baby the new 42" bar - push by hand, plenty of oil, lots of sharpening per your suggestions and use the 36" bar as the production bar. The next milling job is 160 pine logs, between 6" and 32" diameter. I should have plenty of time to experiment but I am really getting into bandsaw territory. Since it is all pine I am going to drop the rakers to .045 like you suggested.

It was much warmer on Saturday, 45 degrees (f), and I got about twice the volume out of the bar tip oiler. I think 3/16 is good for warm weather and 1/4 would be best for cold weather. I have between 18" and 3' of elevation on the oil reservoir so height should not be a problem. I am also going to try cutting the oil with kerosene next weekend as it is supposed to be back down around freezing.

I will try to get some pictures and cut times as I start this next pile of logs, we felled and yarded them on snow so they should be nice and clean.

 

[nk14zp]

How about putting a bunjie strap in between the winch line and the csm.

 

[BobL]

What is the best way to tell wear on the chain ties?

The wear is on the underside of the chain ties where it comes into contact with the bar. They usually become peened/flattened and/or rounded over. What you needs to compare is the height of worn ties with the height of new ties.

The ones on the worn out bar measure about .002 less in height (some more than that) on the bottom than on the top which makes me wonder if the chain isnt more of the problem than the bar (it cuts a sloping taper on the mill/ jams in the cut if it cant lift the cant up off the mill, has been ground and closed so either the groove is worn internally or the chain is the problem).

Worn grooves will definitely cause sloping/tapering cuts and jamming. It could just have been a soft bar, otherwise this sounds like worn B&C and are symptomatic of a chain is being pushed too hard or not getting enough oil.
If all is going well, the logs are clean and the bar rails are kept dressed (square), there should not be a need to close up a bar groove on a milling bar. If everything is maintained bar grooves can still wear on CS when the chain gets dirty but this usually is less of a problem in a mill.

2 more cuts with the winch is in narrow pine, in hardwood and wide cuts it really just lets me stand up straighter and stand a little further from the saw exhaust and chips, the number is cuts is the same.

Yeah this a problem. Most alaskan CSMs have handles that are too low and benefit from higher handles but it does not apply to you because you have a carriage mill.

I do remember setting the mill up at an angle so that it self fed but if I did not rest the carriage off the rails between cuts it would roll down the mill and jump off the end, hence back to the level set up and crank.

I thought you said you got twice as many cuts BETWEEN SHARPENINGS with the winch than by hand. It should be the same. If you get more cuts with with the winch, that means the winch is over stressing the B&C.

I do remember setting the mill up at an angle so that it self fed but if I did not rest the carriage off the rails between cuts it would roll down the mill and jump off the end, hence back to the level set up and crank.

Sorry I forgot you have a carriage mill so you can't really use a slope. That's why I prefer a standard alaskan but then again I'm not cutting lots of 1" boards.

The next milling job is 160 pine logs, between 6" and 32" diameter. I should have plenty of time to experiment but I am really getting into bandsaw territory. Since it is all pine I am going to drop the rakers to .045 like you suggested.

That definitely sounds like BS territory

It was much warmer on Saturday, 45 degrees (f), and I got about twice the volume out of the bar tip oiler. I think 3/16 is good for warm weather and 1/4 would be best for cold weather.

I have an adjustable tap on my Aux Oiler connected via a cable to a bicycle gear change lever so I can set 5 different oiling positions/flow rates while I'm milling. Well, 4 flow positions and "off". You can see cable and lever in the photo above.

 

[Sawdusty]

Wanted to write and update and thank you guys for the help. Since the start of this thread I have milled 7 weekends with a total of 7100 bd ft, mostly 1x's and 2x's from pine and I figured a few things out

- I was getting noticeable wear on the bottom rail of the bar after every 700 to 1000 bd ft when I was using veggie oil in the bar tip oiler, even on days that were warm and when I had a good flow of oil. I then switched to cheap winter grade bar oil because it was very cold out and had much less wear (one light pass through a small belt sander after 2mbf instead of 3 passes after 1mbf) on the bar even with a lower oil flow rate. It seems like waste "vegetable" oil does not do quite as well as bar oil in my situation. I think "vegetable" oil around here is almost entirely soy oil and I am pretty sure that canola would have done much better.

- My problem with the bar diving in the cut, that I was considering a symptom of a worn bar, was also partially caused by the chain being at the end of its life. This showed up the other weekend after I had cut about 9mbf with the chain and it was sharpened almost all of the way down and the mill started cutting tapers again. I put a brand new chain on and the problem went away. Turns out I was pushing my chains too far, they cut fast when they get filed down that far and the kerf is nice and narrow but the chain rivets were rubbing in the cut and causing the chain to dive. Before when I had problems with diving I would generally get a new bar and chain at the same time and it would be a different size so I never had a chance to put a new chain on an old bar.

- I paid more attention to the winch and cut rate and chain sharpness, the winch seems faster because I can tell my feed rate by how fast I am turning the handle, it turns out that my cut times with or without the winch were the same. I also would hand push the last 6" of the cut to make sure that the chain was still self feeding. I would recommend that anyone starting out pushes by hand until they get a feel for sharpening. I also set the mill up at a very slight angle, maybe 3" over 16'. That worked pretty well initially until everything got gunked up with pine sap and then it didnt want to roll on its own anymore.

- I tried more aggressive rakers but found that they caused me to be on and off the clutch too much. The pine I am cutting is pretty soft overall with really hard knots, and the rakers would hang in the knots if they were too low. Right around .035-.045 seemed to be about right for this batch of timber.

- With a helper I was averaging 700 bd ft a day from 16-28" pine logs, the board footage was measured on the cant so the actual bd ft on the boards I produced would be about 15-25% lower due to kerf loss. Were were putting in about 6 hours on the mill each day and using a dozer winch to parbuckle the logs onto the mill.

Here is a picture of the mill with a 28" pine log on it, we were cutting it into bar tops, I think I compressed the image too far. Running a 3120 with a 42" bar for this log. The mill carriage is stainless steel, scrap yard find for half price of new regular steel.



In the last three weeks I have got orders for about 25mbf of milling so on Friday I will be getting an almost new Woodmizer LT35hyd and I will be passing the chainsaw mill off to a friend who will use it on his farm. Over the course of 2.5 years I cut 17,200 bd ft on the chainsaw mill and I would highly recommend them to anyone that wants to get into milling or build their own mill to mill their own lumber. My initial out of pocket cost was $250 for the materials and a week of my winter break one year. I will warn those thinking of getting into chainsaw milling that is can result in a severe case of CAD. Before I started milling I was fine with 2 chainsaws, now I cant head out for a weekend of milling and cutting without 6 and I have another 14 on a shelf. At least the mill paid for the saws and the parts to keep them running....

Thanks again for the help