Monday 5 January 2015

Turbo Saw Mill - Making an oak gate post

A couple of days ago I joined my friend Rich to help out with his new Turbo Saw Mill, and make a video of it in operation. It's a serious piece of kit to be working with!

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Here's the video, showing several of the stages in the production of a gate post measuring 8'x8"x8" from an oak log:


As you can see from this picture, it can actually handle much longer pieces of wood than this though - the back end is behind where Rod is stood in the picture below:
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The saw is mounted on a carriage which rolls along this aluminium beam:
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There's an electric version, but Rich has one powered by a chainsaw engine, so it can be used in the woods. It's a Husqvarna 3120xp, with this small modification to the throttle so it can be operated remotely:
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Rather than driving a chain, the saw engine drives a belt, a bit like a car fanbelt:
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In turn this drives the circular saw mounted at the other end of the axle:
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The saw Rich has is about 20" across, allowing it to make cuts up to 8" deep. The teeth are tungsten carbide.
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When in action, a water tank uses a gravity feed to cool the saw, which can run vertically or horizontally, with the weight of the saw blade and the chainsaw engine counter-balancing each other:
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By being able to swing through 90 degrees (hence the other name, 'swing arm' saw mill), it means the mill can take chunks out of a log without having to cut all the way across:
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This was only the second use of this saw mill - there should be lots more coming up, and I'll be posting some more videos...

Mike