JC's first adventure chainsaw milling

[farmerjohn]

Hi All,

thought i would give a slightly tong in cheek update and my thoughts on chainsaw milling.

as per previous post i ended up buying an old 50" cut double headed chainsaw mill for reasonable cost of £400 including a new chain and 2x 075 saws.

one was was a little rougher than the other and struggled to start, tick over etc.

I gave the saws a good clean, new air filters, sprockets, exhausts, one a new clutch.

Being very excited about 'having a go' i decided to test it out on a very rotten beach log, packed and screwed the ladder on, started the saws and myself and a friend look the maden voyage, they absolutely flew through the very soft beach. the log was around 40" across, 8ft long and it made the cut in around 40 seconds.

to get out eye in we cut 2 slabs off and were very pleased with ourselves, a few hi-fives and we packed up for the day.

 

A few evenings later we we keen to have a go on bit of timber not as soft.

We set up another low value but a lot less rotten stick of beach again, set the ladder up and went for it. MAN did we notice the difference, and i really noticed something else.... The vibration seemed very harsh on my saw, i had noticed the AV mounts looked a  bit perished but was keen to get out first decent slab off.

 

We set up and went again, about a 1/4 down the log i felt something wet on my hand, i looked up thinking it had stared to rain, and realised the petrol cap had unwound and it was fuel, i picked the cap up, screwed it back on, gave the thumbs up to my mate and we full throttled again and pushed on, about 1/2 way down the air filter cap unwound, and that and the air filter dropped off, i picked these up, re-fitted whilst still running, but by this point hand dearly shaken myself to bits. gave my mate the signal to stop.

 

turns out the AV mounts were absolutely shot and the saw shook so badly that the nuts holding the barrel in position had unwound to give 5mm clearance from the big end and the barrel, this has ended up scoring the barrel and psiton, so a bit bigger re-build job than inteneded.

 

Still, it has been a lot of fun and i have learned a lot. the biggest is only fools rush in.

 

 

[Rough Hewn]

Good 1st attempt mate.
[emoji106]
You've got a roller mill, so you have to brush all sawdust out the way or the round bars ride up and your cut is duff.
075's are great saws, very torquey. But as you've discovered very shaky.
You can get a Chinese made Alaskan for about £100-£130.
Surprisingly you can still get a lot of oem parts as they are nearly identical to the 051 which is still in production.

[gobbypunk]

Cool you can rebuild your saw I would not have a clue , especially carbs bigger engines lorry’s , 4stroke bikes no probs but all those small fiddly bits nightmares, milling is addictive though and good fun I have some holly lined up for when I can walk ok again wouldn’t be long , good luck with it keep us informed on your progress 

Cheers Mark

[farmerjohn]

On 07/05/2018 at 20:14, Rough Hewn said:

Good 1st attempt mate.

You've got a roller mill, so you have to brush all sawdust out the way or the round bars ride up and your cut is duff.
075's are great saws, very torquey. But as you've discovered very shaky.
You can get a Chinese made Alaskan for about £100-£130.
Surprisingly you can still get a lot of oem parts as they are nearly identical to the 051 which is still in production.

i have access to a woodmizer for smaller stuff, only milling 750 -1200mm diameter with the mill. am having rollers changed and a mill fitted as i type. just need my saws working!!!!

[farmerjohn]

BIT OF AN UPDATE / ADVICE 

 

Hi, I have put this post in the 'chainsaws' forum but as its directly related to this thread, and some people might have had simlar issues from old milling saws i thought id double up the post.

ill try and make this brief as i can. I bought a mill with 2x 075's (one on each end) one was running fine, one a bit rough.

after changing a lot of parts on both the one running rough was running perfect, 

the one that was running rough is now spot on.

the one that was running really well now seems to have a tight spot, after changing crank baring seals it seemed tight to pull (as if there was a hand break on !!!!)

this is what we did on the saw:

before i bought a clutch spanner i tried the old method to lock the crank of putting rope down the plug hole and turned to top dead center and got a bar on, there seemed to be a 10th of  turn then went tight again so i stopped as it felt bad and got a clutch spanner ordered, changed the seal, put all back together and it was tight.

after deliberation decided to remove the barrel and there seemed to be fibers between the barrel wall and piston, so presumed the rope had gone into the exhaust port and i had cut it with the piston, on inspection the chrome was flaking on the top of the barrel. so decided to change the barrel and piston (as we had changed this with great success on the saw that was running badly as barrel badly scored)

so, new barrel and piston in, oiled everything up, new gaskets, stretch bolts etc, went to fire and its still tight, took the spark plug out as even with de-compressor there is some compression and compared the other saw it seems to have a tight spot at top dead center as it changes direction, like  a notch!!!!
 my thoughts are, but i cant believe i could have done it so easily is that i have bent the crank or con rod. 
am going to split the saw (again) at the weekend i think, does anyone have and other thoughts?

or even if i get the crank off, how to check it or the conrod as the been could be undetectable to the human eye.

Any advice would be much appreciated as i just want to get milling and spent so much time and money and still am not up and running its frustrating

[Rough Hewn]

Farmer John,
I really empathise with this.
I can't help with the saw fix, as I had an 075 with problems too.
Spent loads of money on it, hour after hour of greasy fiddling. Eventually gave up.
Had a nice chat with my local stihl dealer and bought a new 880.
Starts, cuts fast, every time.
My life has been so simple since.
Had many other large old saws.
Sold them.
New stuff is so efficient.

[billpierce]

Were you 100% happy with bearing seals? Did you grease them? Bearings look ok? Did you catch bearing or anything when changing seals?

[farmerjohn]

On 01/06/2018 at 07:15, billpierce said:

Were you 100% happy with bearing seals? Did you grease them? Bearings look ok? Did you catch bearing or anything when changing seals?

hi Bill
i was happy with how they went in and we did grease them, though i did not use stihl baring seals, bough good quality ones from a baring supplier. the bearing themselves seemed absolutely fine, and we did grease them. coming to think of it, the wrong seals were sent by sthil which is why used non sthil and i have feeling we only did that side seal in the 1 saw that is now stiff.
Think next step is to remove that seal and see if it removes the knotch when turning by hand