Malus

Looks like a good combo there Spud, thanks for the pointers. Consensus seems to be that they are useful for the right job but there isn't necessarily enough work out there for them to make much money. I'll keep mulling it over for the next couple of months. As for the dedicated small forwarders I don't think I want to spend my entire life forwarding timber and I think you might have to to get a return on the investment. I think they're about £30-60k, would have to move a lot of wood to make that pay. My thinking was that a trailer behind the tractor is another string in the bow and keeps life a bit more interesting. I think if I could get a month or two of work for it a year I'd be happy. I can see the benefit of those dedicated forwarders though, they all look like really handy machines and far more efficient than tractor/trailer. Just another thought - I had originally intended to get a rotating grab for my 2.6t digger and make up a little trailer to tow along with it. I was put off by the price of the grabs though, about £3k+vat - nearing half the price of a forwarding trailer for the tractor. Mini digger would be limited to short runs though.

Yeah good point, hadn't though of getting in touch with land agents. Ha yeah I can't think of any farmers around my way that like to splash the cash without either a nice shiny new tractor or a big return. Would have to be fairly certain of making money for a farmer to get someone in to fell and process a small area of woodland. Yeah that's exactly the kind of niche markets I've been thinking about. Thanks for the heads up on those Granta. I saw them recently but they don't apply to Wales. I'm up in Scotland at the moment and saw a little alstor forwarder, looked like a brilliant machine and easy enough to transport.

If only money was no object. I have deliberated buying a tractor about that size but just can't see I would get a decent return on the investment, I'd have to borrow the money etc etc also seeing how cheap some agri contractors are is a bit of an eye opener.

That's a good point. To be honest I was under the impression that extraction price was a lot less than that, I guess it varies a lot from site to site. I winched out some wind blown Douglas fir and spruce with a friend, and the woodland owner said we would have to get in there before the main contractor arrived and that he was charging £10/ton to extract. There wasn't a huge amount, I think we had about 4-6t each.

Thanks Matty. Looks like a good setup you've got there. I'm certainly more comfortable working for a day/hourly rate and I think it can be fair for both parties. Well ideally I think it would be more like £40/hr I just think a lot of farmers would think that's taking the p1ss, and if it's extracting low value first thinnings then it might not happen. That's a good point about hydraulic flow. I've looked up the specs and apparently it has 29.5lpm so not exactly high. It runs the loader fine but I've not used it for any power hungry hydraulic attachments. I think I heard something about the oil getting hot on those agt 835s? Do you manage to get much work for the tractor and trailer combo?

Here's a picture of the tractor and winch because everyone like a photo

I've been thinking about buying a small forwarding trailer to go behind my little ford 1710 26hp tractor. Would be something with a capacity of 2-3 tons. I've also got a skidding winch for it which I've used for personal use, but not done any extraction for anyone else. I know a few people on here do small scale timber extraction - I'm interested to know how you charge and how much. I.e. do you charge per ton/day/hour. Or do you buy standing timber and market it yourself? I take it a lot of the work for small scale machines is removing first thinnings and can't imagine there's much if any return for the land owner. How do you overcome this and get them to pay you a fair rate? I've got a portable bandsaw mill and have been toying with the idea of offering a service from tree to boards targeting smallholders and farmers who have woodlands that aren't necessarily commercially viable. This might be a non-starter though, it's very much a niche and I'm not sure there would be all that much work out there. It's a relatively small financial outlay (in machinery terms) to buy a trailer. I think about £7-8k +vat should get a decent trailer, already have the tractor but if it's working out would look to upgrade in the future, but keeping it small enough to transport behind a 4x4. I'm thinking it can't be worth doing for much less than £35/hr but keen to hear what other people are charging, I might be way off the mark.

Ha well looks can be deceiving! It does the job though, so still pretty pleased with it. Having spent a bit more time working with it I've found a few problems. It sat outside for a couple of weeks and the electrics that control band lubrication stopped working, so either the solenoid or switch or both don't like moisture. Also a note of caution to anyone thinking of using a lifan engine - the wind must have been blowing the rain pretty hard but nevertheless the exhaust collected it and funneled it down into the cylinder. As you can imagine I was a bit surprised when I tried starting it and it was completely hydro locked. Took the spark plug out and turned it over, loads of manky water came out. Surprisingly once it had dried out a bit it runs fine. Need to make a little rain deflector for the exhaust muffler. The consistency of the timber I'm producing is acceptable for my needs at the moment but there does seem to be a bit of variation from board to board. At a guess maybe 3mm from the top board of a cant to the bottom one. What's typical for a portable band saw in terms of consistency of dimensional timber?

I'm not a fan of threads that get abandoned with no resolution so here goes. After that last post I pretty much ran out of time for the project so it sat in the shed untouched for the best part of the winter. The weather really howls up the valley and the shed isn't the most water tight, so when I finally had made some time to revisit the mill it was all pretty rusty. I have to say it was pretty hard getting together the motivation to spend a day with a wire wheel on an angle grinder. I was a bit slack with documenting the rest of the build because it was done here and there when I found time and my phone camera had been compromised. Anyway, after facing many many problems, some of which would have been avoidable with a bit of foresight, and asking questions here, the mill is now operational. I've not milled up all that much yet, some test cuts in alder firewood logs and shock horror some turkey oak. I'm pretty pleased with the quality of the cut, I was taking 3mm slices that stayed a consistent thickness out of a 7ft length of alder. Surprise surprise the turkey oak has proved more of a challenge. There's a little bit of waving in some of the more knotted logs. I'm picking up some Douglas logs this week or next so I'll see how I get on with making some dimensional timber. One thing I've realised for sure is that I don't think I'll ever be milling logs near the max capacity of the mill unless I've got a machine to move the logs. That's a lot of weight to be handling manually. I've still got to wire in all the lights to make it road worthy. I also need to remake the winch and ramps for loading logs. The ones I made were way to flimsy for a decent sized log.

Been a busy week making the most of the good weather so barely had any time for the mill. I've been working on a few fiddly little bits that I can dip in and out of. I've welded up a sleeve for the idler bandwheel to slide on as it's tensioned. Not yet finished, it needs a couple of plates welding on the drilling and tapping for screws to hold the pillow blocks on. I was planning on using the lead screw out of a big old vice from the scrapyard as the tensioning screw but I had a hard time figuring out how to attach the nut to the sawbeam. In the end I tried welding it but because it's cast the welds kept on cracking. Instead I'm going to used a long M20 set screw. I've welded two nuts either side of the bracket so I'm hoping there's enough thread engaged to prevent too much wear. I've got some conical spring washers so there will be a bit of give in the tensioning system. The other thing I've been doing is making some sprockets for the raise/lower mechanism. I marked and drilled holes in some 5mm plate then cut out and shaped each tooth a bit. I guess mild steel won't hold up to a lot of use but should be plenty good enough. I made up some collars, I'll weld them onto the sprockets so I can secure them to the shaft with a screw. The chain is scrap from a local motorbike shop. If my maths is right then one turn of the crank should raise or lower the head by 25mm.

I've heard that a few times. I've ordered another tight belt but I'll try out the slack one too. The belt sits about 8mm proud of the pulley.

I cut the carriage apart and welded it all back together, so it's square again after falling off the rails. While it was apart I swapped the 90mm round tube top cross piece for a larger 115mm round with a thicker wall. I also added a gusset, hopefully both will help with stiffness. I clamped on the bearings, cut some axles and then put on the bandwheels to see how everything comes together. They're on top of the saw beam temporarily, but it's clear that the sleeves that slide vertically on the carriage frame will be in the way of the blade guides. So I've decided to get rid of those sleeves, and instead of having the ability to unbolt and remove them they will be welded in place. I've tacked up a couple of sleeves from angle and flat bar. A third backwards step was realising that it's probably better for the blade tensioning screw to be under tension and not compression when the blade is tight. So I'll have to change my plans of how the screw will mount to the sawbeam. I ordered a couple of belts for the bandwheels. Surprisingly they look like they will do the job well. The pulleys are b450 and I ordered a c55 and c56 belt. The c55 is a tight fit, a bit difficult to get on and the c56 has a fair bit of slack.

Sounds like it will be a dream to use when you're done! Yeah I can imagine that. I guess you have to sort out some kind of workflow too so the board's don't pile up in the way?

Nice. Do you find it worthwhile? Do you push your mill along as you saw or has it got some kind of drive?

Thanks! I hand't thought of that, I've followed a few threads on there. Yeah I have to say I'm dreading the IVA, the requirements for positioning of all the lights etc seem like they might be a bit of a pain on a sawmill. Also the thing that's worrying me most is that I think new trailers need a reversing light, but I highly doubt the 7 pig socket on my truck has a reversing light wired in. Thinking about it do any 7 pig plugs have reverse lights?

Had a nice morning out this morning, had lunch and then had a bit of a nightmare afternoon.. Turns out my bench isn't perfectly flat so when I welded the saw beam together it ended up slightly twisted, probably about 1.5-2mm out. I thought it was pretty critical to get it flat seeing as it's what the bearings and wheels are going to mount to. Had an almighty faff getting it apart and then welded nice and square. I clamped it all to my log bunks, by far the flattest/most level things within a mile of my shed. Anyway in the end I got it welded up nice and flat. Now for the major cockup. Seeing as I had the saw beam welded up and the parts that slide up and down sorted, I clamped them together and gave them a test. The sliders were binding a little bit so gave it a bit more oomph and guess what... I lifted the carriage off the rails. It came down with a bit of a crash, twatted me on the head a bit but got off lightly. I managed to get it back up onto the rails ok, but since it was only tacked together it's twisted out of shape a bit so one of the wheels is out of line and raised up off the rail. I left it there for the night and came in for a shower and some dinner. Most days I do something stupid and wonder how I got away with it. Today I just did something stupid. Was a bit pi55ed off at the time but now at least I can laugh at the irony, those comments about putting on some sort of carriage retainer came at just the right time but I though I'd do it later. Tomorrow's another day, I'll take a better look at the carriage if I get a chance tomorrow. I'm probably going to have to cut all the tacks and start again, might be easier than endlessly bending bits too far, then too far back the other way.

Thanks for pics, they speak a thousand words. In hindsight it would have been better to have vertical rails like yours but I couldn't find any suitable wheels. What are those bars hanging down from the sawhead? Are they some sort of board return?

Brilliant, thanks for that diagram. I'll have to make a cover of some sort then and will find some plastic for the scrapers. Hmm I think a 1% chance of a big bandsaw falling on me is enough to bother making something to catch it.. With the play I was referring to the interface where the sawhead slides vertically up and down the carriage, the carriage wheels are all solid with no play.

I spent Thursday afternoon prepping stock to make the head sliding mechanism. I got some 5mm plate and 60mm angle from the scrap yard a while ago. I've got a cheapo plasma cutter which does the job for cutting plate to size but I'd say only 3 out of 10 cuts are "clean". Tends to cut a bevel for some reason. I've decided to make the sawhead removable so I can take it off to fix any cockups. I think it would have been a lot quicker to just weld it all together, been a bit of a fiddle working out where's best to drill holes for bolts. The sliding mechanism is made of two bits of angle welded with a plate in between. This then gets bolted to a backing plate with the carriage frame sandwiched in-between. Can anyone tell me how much slop is ok in the sawhead? One side has a little bit of play and the other is spot on. I don't know how much it will be affected by paint. I tacked together the sawhead frame that will hold the bearings for the bandwheels and made a cradle that will house the tensioning screw.

Thanks for the link. I've seen his sawmill videos, looks brilliant!

Ah really? That would explain a lot! How do people usually straighten stock out? It's not like you can run it over a planer. Righto, I'll do the same then. I noticed quite a few people run the carriage wheels inside the box section, I guess to stop sawdust landing on them? Are you scrapers made out of steel?

I'm hoping gravity is going to do most of the work. I do plan on running a length of small angle down each side of the rails, sticking out sideways. A tab of some sort attached to the carriage will hook over the angle to stop the carriage from tipping over. What do you think? Have you got any ideas?

Had a bit of a hectic week so not had time to work on the mill until yesterday. After tacking the axle mounts and measuring it all up for square I seam welded the mounts. The next job was a bit of a daunting one, welding on the rails that the carriage runs on. I decided to use angle iron with the square corner up. From what I understand this is the bit that's important to get level and square, even if the trailer chassis is out or whatever. I set up a string line on one side so that the string was 3mm above the ridge of the angle. It's amazing how bent new steel stock is sometimes.. I used a piece of 3mm flat bar as a gauge and a few thin wedges to tap under the angle where the gap was too big. I went along like this tacking it in place. For the other side I set up a similar string line to gauge the height and used a piece of flat bar with a notch cut out at each end as a spacer between the two angle irons. At this stage I didn't want to properly weld them in place until I had a carriage built to test for parallel and true. So that brings me onto the carriage. For the bottom piece that holds the wheels I cut and drilled some flat bar and welded it onto the end of 50mm box. It wasn't the best way to do it really because I've ended up with one about 5mm longer than the other but I'm not too worried. I made a corresponding mark with a centre punch on each so measurements can be taken from that point. For anyone building a mill in the UK I got the wheels from F H Brundle and they were quite a bit cheaper than elsewhere. Another head scratching moment. A few cups of tea later and I started cutting steel for the carriage uprights. Basically I was trying to make the most out of the steel I've got, without having to go out again and spend more. I can't remember what I settled on now but I'm really hoping it's going to be enough to raise the sawhead enough to cut a big log without taking a massive first slab. I didn't have enough 50x75 box for the cross pieces of the carriage but luckily I had a few lengths of 90mm round tube I picked up from the scrap yard that will do the job nicely. The carriage parts are only tacked together, I'm a bit hesitant to commit to welding until I've got a better idea of whether the sawhead is going to raise and lower ok, and if it's all going to fit in at all!

Thanks, but my handwriting is definitely not as easy to read!

Ben came over to help again yesterday and I've had a few hours working on the mill today. We took the jacks off the caravan chassis and made up some mounts for the sawmill chassis. Initially I wanted the jacks to be right in each corner, but for various reasons they weren't going to fit. Ben came up with idea of mounting them on the cross braces that we hadn't yet fitted. So we positioned them as best we could, about a quarter of the length of the bed from each end. The really nice thing about these legs is that they fold up completely so unlikely to snag on uneven ground. The bed is surprisingly sturdy on those four legs but I'll add some drop down supports. I made up a couple of axle mounts and tacked them in place. I'm waiting on some square u bolts to be delivered but in the meantime made some out of threaded rod. The axle fitted the mounts nicely and to my surprise it seems to all be nice and square with the chassis. I bolted on the coupler and jockey wheel and hitched it up to the truck. It sits nicely behind the truck, the back of the chassis being slightly raised but by the time the weight of the sawhead is added it might drop a bit.