Secret Sawmill Band Tension Tip!
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- Опубліковано 24 лют 2024
- Sawmill band tension is critical, and here is a good tip to maintain it! I also sawmill top soem beautiful rainbow poplar. I'm Robert Milton, a professional sawmiller and business owner and teach sawmill tip and tricks to make your lumber as good as ours at Hobby Hardwood Alabama - ranked as producing the highest quality wood in Alabama, if not the country. I am a retired aerospace engineer, my wife is a retired engineer at NASA, and we are a multimillion dollar, Dunn and Bradstreet listed, A+ rated BBB business. We used to build very high end houses and furniture using our lumber, but now sell it retail all over the country, and teach others to do the same.
We started with a chainsaw mill, upgraded to a portable manaul sawmill, then a production bandsaw mill. We are not a video company, but we are a real lumber company, and want to show others some of our money making and business sawmill techniques. This video is another example of sawmilling for our business, Hobby Hardwood, Alabama. We show how we mill logs, dry them and other things on our outdoor farm.
#sawmillprofessor, #woodyoda , #sawmill, #planer, #woodworking,#lumberkiln, #Hobby Hardwood, #hobbyhardwood
Joe Maine (229) 563-1172 makes my bands for me, using WM Turbo Silvertip stock, 0.055" x 1.5". He is in Georgia but can ship anywhere. The best I have used.
Go check us out on our other pages! Mail Address: 237 Shady Trail, New Market, Al, 35761 Email for Business Inquires: HobbyHardwoodAlabama@gmail.com OUR WEBSITE: www.hobbyhardwoodalabama.com PRODUCTS WE USE: www.hobbyhardwoodalabama.com/st FACEBOOK: - Навчання та стиль
Great teachings as always Robert, hoping your next video will be on proper gauging of spandex tension...😂
I would say that on most people, the Spandex is a little too tight, and they should better be wearing loose clothing so I don't gag seeing them walk by.
As a new sawmill owner (not sawyer - still learning), I appreciate these nuggets. Thanks for the tip!
Thanks!
Keep the tidbits rolling Robert! Mastering blade tension is one of my missions when I start sawing this Spring. I appreciate you sharing.
You bet
Learn something new everyday, thanks for the tip Chip!
Chip ssys Hi!
As always, thank you very much for the tip!! As soon as I get back to my saw Saturday morning, I will be making the change.
Right on!
Thanks for the tips. I have an old 2002 b20 timber king I got it on a good deal it seems a little out dated but I’m slowly getting use to it I always leave a lot of saw dust on my boards I’m going to start keeping a better eye on my tension hopefully that’ll help. I do appreciate your knowledge you share!
Great ! There should be virtually no sawdust on the board when everything is functioning optimally.
Thanks for the tip!
Thanks for watching!
Great tip as always! Most, if not all of your tips and advice apply across all the brands of sawmills, not just Woodmizer of which I'm grateful. I have a Cook's MP32 and mill primarily to support my furniture building habit and various projects around our farm as well as for friends and neighbors. Thank you for sharing.
Thanks for watching and noticing. I'm not sponsored by WM or any other mill manufacturer, so don't have allegiance to any and try to help everybody.
Beautiful wood, excellent advice. Thanks Robert!
Glad to do it.
Thank you professor 🤠
You are very welcome
Thats a good tip thanks Robbie and Chip
You bet
Could you do a video on cutting speed? Do you enter the log slow then speed up? Do you change speed for different wood or trees? ETC.
That would be an interesting video, yes, I will make one in the future. Thanks for the suggestion! Sawing speed is like driving a vehicle or running any piece of heavy equipment, it requires constant input on the controls, that’s why I don’t use the cruise control feature on the mill. Even the entering speed changes every cut depending.
Our goal one day to run a saw like that. Just got our LT-15 a few weeks ago so we will see where it goes.
I had an LT-15, it is a very accurate sawmill.
Great video sir, thanks for sharing your experiences and knowledge of milling and band tension, how do you keep your high speed guides lubed?
Diesel or water soluble oil works very well.
Thank you!
I don't need to run diesel drip milling spruce out west.
Your milling headquarters looks great, did you ancer it down to your pad?
Great video and chip is a great kid, love our dogs as well
Thanks! No I haven’t anchored it yet, it walks a little but I’m figuring out how to minimize it.
That thing sure cuts fast and clean. Since I'm running an old LT40 I use a tension gauge to set my blade. I rebuilt the spring tensioner so I could get it up to a max of about 25k.. Originally it would barely make 15k tension. If I had about 30 more hp maybe I could get closer to your cutting speed. Do you know how many fpm your blade is running?... I'm guessing it's quite a bit faster than mine.
Thanks! I will check on my band speed. I’m not sure how accurate the WM diagnostics display is, it tells me what it’s supposed to be but I wouldn’t bet my house on it.
👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
Thanks!
The face is riveted to the gauge on my LT40I walk with my mill and the pointer is on the line between yellow and red.
I've seen that on a few, but the WM website videos and all my gauges on my old LT40 they were just blank, white face, standard gauges. So in that case, it's hard to tell where the band should be, and also be interesting to know where the color code on the current gauge is and if it really is the correct band tension for the band you are running or just what WM decided to mark the gauge. For example, on my LT70, WM has big black decals that say run at 85 psi air pressure on the band, but they done;t like too cut at that tension. Everybody at WM knows this but they still keep putting the misleading deal on the mills, maybe for liability reasons. Their tech support says to run at 90 psi, which is where I run most bands. WM has told my buddy, with different bands, to run at 100 psi. Each band likes a different tension based on thickness and width and it most likely wont be where WM has color coded the gauge. Sad but true.
@@HobbyHardwoodAlabama My LT 40 is a 1991 model and has a color coded gauge. Wood Mizer told me to run it between the yellow and orange marks, which (if I remember correctly) is 2250#. Some years later they revised the recommendation (tech support) and said to run at max pressure. That did not sound right to me, so I still use around 2250#, or slightly over. With a fresh blade I begin with an over pressure setting and it will settle in to my desired pressure within a minute or two.
Keep the videos coming, you always have tips beyond what the company provides.
Stan Stevens
Do us a favor and check your blade tension .you use on your blades. First what blades are you using ? Next put some tension on the blade, 10% or so. with 2 one inch C clamps clamp your HF digital calipers to the blade open to 5 inches, set to zero. air up to normal and check the Strech on the calipers. Check and chart over and under your normal air presure and see the Strech change.@@HobbyHardwoodAlabama
Thanks! Yes, you will get a “Feel” for where the bands want to run, and it’s hard to describe, but you are feeling it.
Do you sharpen and set your own blades? I have ordered silver tip turbo 7s from Joe and I still get allot of sawdust. It’s smooth cutting and sharp but I still have a decent amount of dust on my boards.
Yes I do but the bands in this video are new and unsharpened. Sawing fast and using diesel for lube is how I'm gettin this little sawdust.
So flat sawing makes the rainbow show better than quarter? ( I want to quarter-saw everything since I saw your video!)👍
Great observation! The answer is no, it doesn’t show better but it shows differently. Flatsawing shows a more muted and color blended cathedral pattern while quartersawn shows dramatic high contrast vertical grain. I was thinking of doing a video of this in the future. The pattern I will use depends on the end product I’m targeting.
When you have highly figured wood like this, what's the next step, do you edge it or leave the bark on. Looks to be about 2 inches thick
For these boards, I will leave the bark on and sell them as live edge slabs. If a board cracks or otherwise defects, I will edge and sell it as a specialty board.
Does this mean if you have a manual tensioner you should re tension every few cuts meaning take tension off then bring it back up to torque specs?
Yes, 100% important to keep the band on the tight end of the manufacturer spec. They will stretch a little when new and will certainly stretch when they warm up to operating temperature. I've had them slack up in the matter of a cut or two, and it's easy to just readjust and resume sawing.
what type of poplar wood is it white or black? paint your ends if you have twisted cracked firewood boards?
It's tulip poplar, a relative to the magnolia. I use end sealer after the boards have been sawn and stacked, it saves money.
For minimal sawdust… are you setting your teeth narrower so the dust doesn’t spill over as much in the kerf or is it more a function of gullet/hook angle choice.
I remember in one video you said you use 1.5” .055 turbo 7s… what are you setting these at for hardwoods? 25-28 thousandths? Or closer to 23-25 thou? Thanks.
25 thou, but residual sawdust is a function of all you listed, but mainly sawing fast to keep the sawdust suspended in the vortex of recirculating air in the gullet of the band, so it can be ejected properly and quickly.
@@HobbyHardwoodAlabama Gotcha. Makes sense. Great vids. I’ve been sawing for 15 years or so now but what you talk about is next level detail. I’m liking it.
Thanks!
I notice i have to really keep upping my tention worth a new blade, takes a few logs til pressure stays firm . Yes soons blade warms up tention drops . I c it every day
You are EXACTLY on point and what it's so important to monitor band tension all the time! That is very normal band behavior, and most people ignore that. You are doing a good job.
@HobbyHardwoodAlabama Have learned quite a few new things from your videos, all u talk about on your videos I get to c every day when I'm slicing away on big spruce logs. And yes id really like to upgrade to a LT 70 super hydrolic with diesel engine. Going to try some different blades from woodmizer , 7° see how they stand up in spruce , c if they better n 10degree . Live n learn!! I sharpen n reset with every sharpening but once the blade max stretch is reached, slightly over 3200 psi it's a matter of time b4 it busts. Usually a medium sized knot can make it happen . Most I've got out of a blade is 2 days . That's with using the debarker as much as needed. I've tried a laser but doesn't work for me due to too much sunlight. Getn very good at eye balling!
Hello Robert I have a lt 40 supper Hyd 52 hp cat Diesel engine aint no way in hell I can cut clear white pine that fast any advice on what I might be doing wrong
I'd have to know more but a 52 hp diesel is only 3 more hp than mine, so you should be able burn through them pretty fast.
Why did you cut the wood so thick?
How are you liking your concrete pad?
These are primarily for live edge slabs. I am loving the concrete pad. There is a certain amount of sawmill walking but is not too much and I will probably anchor it down before long.
The camera showing a mirror image?
Is it? Not on purpose, but it could be. At what time stamp? Cameras and I don't get along well.
Starting at around 48 seconds. Debarker on the left, sawhead supported on the rail on the right side.
Did you get that little amount of sawdust when you had an LT40? I always have sawdust!@@HobbyHardwoodAlabama
I will check it! Yes, even with my LT40, I tried to keep sawdust to a minimum. That being said, I had lots of sawdust until I could fit all the pieces together. Then it’s like night and day.
"Taste the Raibow!" "Slab the Rainbow!" I've never seen a lab sleep and lie still more than chip.
He's actually pretty active, that's why it's so funny for me to see him lying around. I trained him from a pup that when the machines are running and the rolling stock is moving, the only safe place for him is up in the 4 wheeler or up on the forklift. No ruining around on the ground to get squashed like so many of my friends sawmill dogs. So he knows to shut up, climb off the ground, and lay down when the machines come on. So on that video, he knows he's not supposed to be on the ground, but I guess he decided as long as he was looking at me, he would be OK, and then he fell asleep on the job like any good supervisor. However, right are quitting time, he will get up, walk over to me and actually bump me on the leg and tell me it's time for his day to start and the work day to end. Or he picks up a stick and brings it to me and asked me to throw it for him. He is a very smart dog. He wins when we play chess, and like playing poker but has trouble holding onto the cards since he doesn't have thumbs.