Building a bandmill

[sion.dovey]

I am working on a project to build a new narrow band sawmill for myself, horizontal, along the lines of a wood mizer or norwood type machine, i have been intending to use a pair of wheels from a Wilson Bandsaw i have had for years that is in very poor condition, they are 26" diameter and ideally suited in many ways as the top wheel was mounted on a casting containing all the top wheel adjustments, with this bolted on top of a fabricated steel C frame. Here are a few pictures of the 2 wheels with their carriers:

However, there is a little rule that the wheel diameter should be at least 1000 times the blade thickness, to discourage cracks from forming, and with blade thickness in the order of 1mm the wheels should really be more like 36". I would also like to chase the extra throat bigger wheels would provide, so I have started to wonder about alternatives, I may need another scrap bandsaw basically, and wonder if wheels from something like a large DR or Robinson, or something of that ilk might be a better bet, and where to look for such a thing, apart from ebay, which I'm looking on constantly, or maybe something you think might be more appropriate? The wheels need to be strong, a sawmill blade will expect a decent amount of strain, in the order of a ton or maybe a little more for a 1 1/2" mill blade.

 

[Myfordman]

I'm pretty certain there was someone else doing a similar project one here within the last year or so.
might be worth doing a search of the archive and comparing notes.
I'd not seen the 1000:1 rule before but my old Startrite bandsaw does not meet it - nearer to 500:1

 

[blackrodd]

I would really like to see a homebuilt bandsaw working, Please keep posting on you're progress.
The bandsaw wheels you have look too narrow to me, have you checked the width of the blade you intend using?
By using the wheels and cast iron parts of the Wilson, I presume that this will not be a mobile saw by the weight
of the castings.
A pity really as most of the build issues mainly frame welding, bearings etc would not occur.
Will this be petrol/engine driven?
Regards Rodders

 

[sion.dovey]

I would really like to see a homebuilt bandsaw working, Please keep posting on you're progress.
The bandsaw wheels you have look too narrow to me, have you checked the width of the blade you intend using?
By using the wheels and cast iron parts of the Wilson, I presume that this will not be a mobile saw by the weight
of the castings.
A pity really as most of the build issues mainly frame welding, bearings etc would not occur.
Will this be petrol/engine driven?
Regards Rodders

I'm just gathering parts at the moment, my design is fairly finalised but yet to make the first metal cuts. I will post about it as the proect proceeds though. The Wilson wheels are about 2" wide, the additional castings are not too heavy; easily picked up and carried. It will be a mobile machine, quite a bit heavier than the woodmizer types; intentionaly so. As long as it weighs less than 3500kg all up then its still mobile, i'm after it being alot more rigid than anything i could buy ready made, hence build my own. I'm also looking to be able to do things like sweep cutting in bits that are too heavy for me to push through a workshop bandsaw, and also cutting a face relative to another at angles other than the usual 90 degrees. My work is in Timber framing and it calls for sawing all sorts of oddly shaped bits. The engine will probably be about a 40hp diesel.

 

[blackrodd]

very interesting reply, As you say, The wilson will be very strong and should give a good service with a 40 HP diesel
behind it.
Sounds like you've done you're homework, weight, drive, etc and keep collecting!
Regards Rodders

 

[wallace]

When I restored my DR their was a guy on here who offered me some wheels off a 30"DR. I will have a look at the old thread, you never know he may still have them

 

[xy mosian]

I'm pretty certain there was someone else doing a similar project one here within the last year or so.
might be worth doing a search of the archive and comparing notes.

I wonder if this is tickling your memory. From the much missed RichardT.

the-thing-in-the-garage-t37191.html

xy

 

[sion.dovey]

After some 2 1/2 years I have made some progress. some while ago some Wadkin DR parts came up on ebay which looked ideal for my project (Thanks to Robin, Alba Timber!). Once I had them I started to work on some drawings which for a change I thought I would have a go at with 3d cad:

That was about as good as it got and I returned to my favourite 2d cad program:

I'm just using that to work out the relationship of parts based on my ideal requirements. Theres not a great deal of large timber round here and the biggest log I've ever cut was around the 4ft mark. As the new mill is going to be a horizontal type I would like to maximize its ability to cut wide boards when the opportunity arises so I'm working towards being able to slab around 36" wide more easily than I can at the moment using the existing vertical band machine, and include an absolute maximum between frames of 48".

Blades will be 258" long, upto 2" wide, 3/4" pitch and .045" thick.

From the 36" DR I have both wheels, the cast iron top wheel post, slider and tracking mechanism but nothing to carry the bottom wheel as it was motor mounted so everything to swing that wheel will have to be made unfortunately.

Once I have worked out how best to post pictures from my phone I will add some pictures of works so far.

 

[sion.dovey]

So, this pictures from phone thing turned out to be harder than I thought. There must be a less complicated way of uploading pics from a phone...

I've started to build the saw head first, its a fairly simple shape with lots of angle grinder action to cut out the plates needed, I started with a 2500 x 1250 by 6mm thick plate:

and a chance to try out one of those VERY cheap Chinese cut 50 plasma cutters off of ebay - it worked well:

One done, one more required - draw round first attempt and repeat errors on copy:

I also need a short piece of tube which will form the outer housing for my bottom wheel mounting point. This is 11" diameter:

First pieces clamped up and the first tentative welds committed:

I'm welding in a few bulkheads to stiffen the box construction:

And more - the top of this box form is going to carry the diesel engine directly, so just trying to plan in some extra stiffness to the construction near where the engine mounts will fix to - trying to avoid vibration cracks later on:

I might have this galvanized once its done so I'm trying to make sure all parts will be free draining incase I go for that option in the future, hence clipping about a 1" corner off all the bulkheads:

The next process will be to roll plates to close in the top and bottom curved parts of the box close to the bottom wheel.