[AT] HF sawmill

[Will Powell]

I'm going to jump in on this now after I have seen the HF mill... 

I know a little bid about these since I am part owner of a band saw mill. Here's a picture of my mill with my father sitting on the mill with my 36' laminated barn beam made of Oak and Plywood. 

http://williampowell.net/images/barn/julylaminated.jpg 


Also, my neighbor built his own mill and did a nice job, 16hp and I've learned a little from seeing how his was constructed. 

You can't really see much of my mill but I can tell you that it was home made by a guy in Lancaster, PA trying to manufacture mills ( I think ours was his third). Uses trailer wheels as the blade holder. 13hp Honda engine. The frame is heavy and strong. My neighbors has pulleys instead of wheels. I can't complain about the tires on our mill, though I think the pulleys would be more accurate. Harbor Frieght obviously uses pulleys to hold the blade. 

Harbor Freight unit looks like a cheap copy of the lowest cost Wood-Mizer mill. 

http://www.woodmizer.com/us/sawmills/manual/LT10/lt10.aspx 

The harbor freight unit's frame looks flimsy. If you get a large oak on that it looks like you will have some trouble. Maybe you will be ok if you have it anchored in concrete, but if you do that you will have a large sawdust build up in no time. I put my mill two cinder blocks high and that would be ok for a while with bark and sawdust build up. If you raise the HF frame on blocks looks like you will have trouble.. When you have to rotate the log you really need a strong frame. Even the lowest model Wood-Mizer frame looks stronger than the harbor freight frame..... 

12' is not very long. You could probably only cut a 10' - 11' log. Maybe you could order an extra frame. Ours is 20' long and I wish it was longer.... 

In my opinion 13hp is almost not enough for a large log. I can't imagine doing it with 7hp. If I was going to purchase another mill I would want 16hp minimum. 

Other things that I can't see on this mill and would help in my decision would be the blade following mechanism. I would want to make sure its durable. I had to redesign and machine a set for our mill... A bad blade follower causes wavey cuts and will prematurely dull you blade. 

Having a front end loader on your tractor helps with the mill. Getting a large oak on the mill required the loader and sometimes just turning it after the cut required the loader. My brother-in-law has our mill now at his house now, he does not have a tractor but he has made a gantry to move his logs. 

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mattias Kessén" <davidbrown950 at gmail.com> 
To: "Antique tractor email discussion group" <at at lists.antique-tractor.com> 
Sent: Wednesday, August 11, 2010 2:03:47 AM 
Subject: Re: [AT] HF sawmill 

Don, 
Have you got a link to some pictures etc.? 

Mattias