Sawmill and Timber

Sawmills and Sawing => Circle Mills => Topic started by: joasis on October 06, 2017, 06:27:39 AM

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Title: How we ever got into sawing....with old iron.
Post by: joasis on October 06, 2017, 06:27:39 AM
I thought it may be interesting to share some of the history behind who we are in the sawing world.

When I was a kid, 9 or so, My grandfather bought an old circle mill....home made outfit from an old guy who had seen pictures. Anyway...he paid like $240 in probably 1970.

Now my grandfather was a carpenter and woodworker....built grandfather clocks, and stuff like that, and there just wasn't any sources of black walnut available....or cherry, or other hardwoods...but there were creek bottoms around with huge walnuts, and cherry trees could be found....pecan, hickory, bios-de-arc, and other woods were around.....so I remember him studying the Bellsaw Bulletins and seriously thinking about building a circle mill with the Belsaw kit, and then the estate sale came along with the mill he bought.

The mill had not ran in probably 40 years, and he sent the blade off to Kansas City to get checked and polished at Belsaw....and then we started sawing black walnut.  My grandfather knew nothing about circle milling.....and dived right in. Had he lived now, he would have probably been really enthused by bandmilling, simply because it would have been easier to manage. Take the mill to the tree, and so on.
Title: Re: How we ever got into sawing....with old iron.
Post by: joasis on October 06, 2017, 06:33:13 AM
I should have added that this old mill..wish I had pictures, was powered by an Oliver 99 gas tractor on a flat belt. Cable to the husk for throttle. No clutch.  The bed of the mill, and the husk for that matter, was made from oil field pipe, 2-3/8, all oxy-acetylene welded, and used case traction engine bearings for the mandrel. A Dodge Bros. 3 speed transmission to select speed of the feed, and a disc clutch from some old car that had the springs removed and a lever to apply force to the clutch. No belt tensioning for the clutch.

An elevator chain from a combine made the drag chain under the blade to keep it cleared.

Title: Re: How we ever got into sawing....with old iron.
Post by: bandmiller2 on October 06, 2017, 07:05:56 AM
Band mill are like the model "T" it put milling in the hands of the average guy. I got started back in the eighties with a circular mill, band mills were rather rare back then. Hauled logs to a local circular mill, he had two 44" saws and two head blocks  he sold me for $250.00 I built the rest. The arbor I made from a large industrial blower shaft saw collars were made from the weights used to close fire doors all on my old lathe that fought both great wars. The mill was portable made from steel roof trusses tandem axle and powered with a Cat 318 diesel. It worked well. Handset circular mills used to be worth about $5000.00 after the proliferation of band mills theirs little demand for them. The circular mill I have now I got complete with Ford industrial diesel for $500.00 go figure. Frank C.
Title: Re: How we ever got into sawing....with old iron.
Post by: Ox on October 06, 2017, 11:28:40 AM
The idea to feed with a clutch disc and pressure instead of slipping a belt is wonderful!  Sometimes it takes a fresh and blind mind to get good ideas injected into mainstream industries.

I didn't get started with old iron so I can't offer anything to this thread other than opinions, and everyone knows that opinions are like assholes - everybody's got one.  (except I remember reading that rarely babies are born without one...poor little buggers)