Homemade bandsaw mill and upgrades 

Thank you Don! I like to reuse when ever I can. I'm working on a power feed for my mill at the moment, I'm real happy how it's working out so far! I will post a video of how I'm building it when I get it all done. Thanks for watching and I hope you get stared on your mill soon!

My little Chevy LUV 4x4 does get a workout sometimes Haha, I have installed heavy duty springs in the rear and when hauling big loads like this I take it slow. I do have a F250 4x4 but it's like driving a BIG RV on my trails! Thanks for watching! I have a log splitter build I will be posting soon.

Thanks for checking out my sawmill!

Thanks Nathan for checking out my mill videos!

Thanks!

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Thanks for checking out my channel! 👍🙂

It's been about 4 years since I pulled them off some old bikes but I think your right GS550!!! Haha you know your bikes! Thanks for watching :)

Thanks for the nice comment :) I do not have any plans for this mill, but I'm in the beginning stages of planning another mill. I should be starting on it in another month or two, you should subscribe so you can watch how this new mill comes together. Also have you watched my video of building this mill yet? if not here's a link ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-dFNpKC3JTVQ.html

My mill cost me about $350 to first build, I tried to salvage when ever I could to keep the cost down, and a friend gave me the motor to help with the mill build, I have milled him wood as a thank you for the motor. After about two years of running it, I have bought and installed a new set of drive belts the cost was about $25 and I have done a few wheel bearings, about $15 and the guid bearing upgrade cost probably $15 It's been a fun project to build and It's great to turn some of my trees into nice lumber :) I'm working on a power feed so I don't have to push the mill down the log, this upgrade is going to be real nice! Thanks for watching!

I have had a few people ask this, the blade tracks on the high point of the tire, ( the crown) the teeth of the blade never touches the tire, only the flat metal band of the blade. The blade is tracked by adjusting the wheels like you would on a motorcycle chain. The blade always tries to ride on the highest point of the wheels, ( the crown) This system works quite well. Take care

@@Mikefestiva You could probably do an entire video on this explanation. (just a suggestion for a video). Pretty damn ingenious.This makes building this type of system easier and robust.

Hey Steve Good question, I have not used a mill with car tires ever so I'm not sure how they track, I see your point though. I know the crown on any wheel (Metal or rubber) helps keep the blade tracking to the highest point. When I built my Mill I was surprised how easy my mill was to track and how little I ever need to track it. I also have noticed that when you look close to the blade the teeth never touch the rubber because of the crown. One thing I have seen many times is people using spare tires on there mills, maybe this is because they are skinnier then regular car tires and maybe there more crowned? I think ether way you decide to go should work out just fine as long as you build your mill so you have some way to track the wheels. It was easy with the motorcycle swing arms I used because there was already built in tracking with the original chain adjusters :) Like I always say work with what you got or what's easy to come by, I got my swing arms and wheels for like $20 from a friend that has a lot of parts bikes, But If I did not find those I may have used some old car parts maybe? Thanks for checking out my videos :) I appreciate your nice comments and I'm glad they are informative to you and others! If you have any other questions feel free to ask, if your building a mill and need any advice I would be happy to think of solutions if you get into a tough spot in your build. One other thing I always say is there's always a solution to every problem. I plan on posting another saw mill video over Christmas break talking about a few topics on building my mill so keep an I out for that video :) Take care.

Good question Michael, So originally when I started out building my mill I was on a budget to build it for fairly cheap, and I do feel like I did do that, the cost of a trailer would have been far more then the cost of the mill so at the time it was clear to me to just move forward and see if I actually could pull it off and build this mill. I have had a few friend suggest that I still should make it portable, but I mostly mill for my self and it's convenient to me where it is on my land. Only once in a while do I mill other peoples logs, mostly because It seems like I never have enough time for my own projects let alone other peoples projects to mill. I would say If it seems useful to you in your plan with the mill to be portable I would go for it, It could be a nice tool to take and mill at others. Thanks for checking out my video! I do hope you start on your mill, you will be real happy with it when done :)

Thanks for the reply! I've watched all of your mill videos quite a few times now. Probably my favorite homemade mill on youtube. And to be honest after really thinking of it I don't think a portable mill is the best idea for me at the moment as I am a novice with metal work. Thanks again man. Keep up the great content.

Thanks for checking out my videos! I really appreciate your nice comments about my mill :) I would suggest building your mill for home use, then If you get a trailer down the road you could always set it up with your mill to be portable, that's the nice thing about building it your self, you can always make it how you like! Take care and keep me posted with how your mill comes along, I always like hearing how other mill builds are going.

The bearing guides that I show in this video do the part of keeping the blade from rolling off the tires, also you can track the blade so it's centered on the tires. thanks for watching

Hi John thanks for watching! I recommend that you do build yourself a bandsaw mill, you will be real happy you did. Keep in mind I was a novice a few years back about saw mills too, I never used one till I built my mill! My mill has a 12HP motor on it, If you want a good powerful mill It's all about getting the gearing right, if you gear it to high it would be like climbing a steep hill in your car in 5th gear, if you gear it to low it would be like driving down the highway in 3rd gear. A good rule of thumb on blade speed feet per minute to HP is 6HP blade FPM 3500 8HP FPM 3800 12HP FPM 4000 thats my mills speed 16HP FPM 4500. This info I added to my first video of building my mill, I found it on the Cook's saw mill site. I think my blade is 1 1/4" wide, 1/8" inch thick and about 176" long? I can't remember, something like that. Anyhow there's two ways of going about blades and building the mill, I just built my mill how I wanted to and got my blades cut from a blade shop to fit my mill, or you could order a common size blade that fits a manufactured sawmill and build it to fit that blade? One thing I would have redone different is when I was building the mill I found the centrifugal clutch I needed was about $300 dollars, more then I wanted to spend, I bought a cheaper clutch, about $100 for it, it works but I don't like it. You may consider building your mill without a clutch and just make the motor move in and out to tension the drive belt or use a idler pulley to tension the belt to engage the blade to spin? Just a few ideas, there's a lot of ways to build a mill, The best thing is to just start the project and don't over complicate it, keep it simple so you don't get overwhelmed. One other thing, there's always a solution to every problem :) I hope this helps.

That's great Mike thanks for replying. Wow, where did you find blades like that? I found some 20 foot industrial shelving that I'm going to use for the base and weld some angle iron on top for the grooved wheels. I was wondering how you knew what size blade you would choose? I watched your new videos on the addition to your setup very cool! Love the golf cart pulley system! You've definitely put some time into your mill. Thanks for the videos and please let them coming.

Kruno Meštrović Hey Kruno thanks for watching my video! If your building a mill and don’t want to make the blade guides adjustable from right to left like I did, I think that’s fine, I mostly run my mill with the guides set to the maximum opening anyways, I just made them adjustable because I see a lot of mills like this when I built it. Now to answer your other question about the blade guides touching the blade, I did not make my bearing guides adjustable even though I wanted to have them adjustable. When I welded them on I just made sure they where level with the blade and left a real small gap between the bearing and blade about 1/64”or 0.50mm this seems to work fine for me. I have now worked out a bearing guide design that I will use on my next sawmill project that uses a eccentric shaft (a shaft with a bearing not centered) so you can rotate the shaft and bring the bearing closer to the blade to adjust it. Really if you just get the bearings real close it should work fine, if you make them so you can adjust them and have them touch the blades that’s fine as well. One more thing just make sure your blade is level with your track and log bunks( the platform your logs rest on) level from right to left and front to back. Good luck on your mill 🙂

Mike festiva Thanks man.

Can you show us what is the proper tension of the blade that you use? By pushing the hand on the blade or something like that

I live in the Pacific North West, lot's of trees out here, they grow like weeds! I really liked my 1980 Chevy LUV 4x4, I moved a lot of stuff with that little truck, I sold it about a year ago, I was using it less and less after I got a early 90s Ford F250 Diesel 4x4, the Ford is not a classic like the LUV but can haul just about anything, I do however miss how compact the little LUV was for driving on tight roads and trails.

I have rode my dual sport motorcycle down to ocean shores a few times, fun to get out on the beach! I have done some research on parts for my new mill I'm planning on building, I was at first thinking of going that route. I have only found aluminum hubs that can be mounted onto axels for go karts, they seen to be built a bit light I think for the mill application. I'm going trailer bearings and weld on stub axels for this next band mill. I hope to start later this month :)

if you weld on trailer hubs, the axle is 1 3/4 for the drive side , seems massive to me , I need to replace the front hubs on my 99 civic soon. I was going to see if those front hubs would work better,

I'm going to run trailer tires that are 16" OD The weld on axles I got from surplus center have 1" shafts where the bearings mount, I was going to use one weld on axle for the idler side of the mill and was thinking a 1 1/4" drive shaft with a go kart hub for the powered drive side, but I think I have another idea that may just work, I will post my first video hopefully soon explaining the idea of the build and parts I have bought for it my new mill.

Hey Brian :) I did not find any big nestable tubing or people call it "Telescoping Steel Square Tubing" for the main frame that my mill slides up and down on, I know it's out there but I did not want to spend the money on it, instead I salvaged some big angle iron and plastic that I used for slides to make the outer guides for the mill head. I will post a link to my first mill build video at the end of this post, somewhere in the first third of the video you will see how I made my guides. I'm sure there is many ways of doing this but with the parts I had It made the most sense to me. Good luck on the mill build my friend :) ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-dFNpKC3JTVQ.html

thanks a bunch!! appreciate the response.

The swing arms and wheels are from some Suzuki GS 550 street bikes, They have worked out great! Thanks for checking out the video.

I live in Washington state, It's nice we got the ocean and mountains lots of evergreen trees but we also get a crazy amount of rain. Thanks for watching and commenting :)

Yes I am :)

Elizabeth Fearon I've got a friend who cured his lung cancer smoking cedar sawdust