We make a band sawmill with our own hands

The sawmill - not industrial, but self-assembled - will reduce the wood consumption many times over, contribute to the adjustment of the production of sawn and planed boards at the construction site. The costs of the latter will be significantly reduced.

A self-made band sawmill will require specific tools, which you cannot do without:

• a welding machine and a set of electrodes with a rod with a diameter of at least 3.2 mm;
• drill and set of drills for metal;
• emery cloth - or emery wheels;
• grinder (angle grinder) with a set of cutting discs for metal (you may need diamond wheels);
• hammer, pliers and two adjustable wrenches (for nut diameters up to 35 mm);
• a building ruler of a tape measure and a square (double-sided ruler with a right angle);
• level gauge (laser-type device is preferable);
• jack.

The following are suitable consumables:

• corner profile with sides 10 * 10 cm, channel of a suitable size;
• rail from the old narrow gauge railway (if any);
• wheels from an old passenger car;
• car hubs with a set of bearings;
• shaped tube of the "square" type;
• threaded rod;
• chain from the chassis of an old motorcycle;
• medical dropper;
• gasoline or electric motor of suitable power;
• press and grover washers, bolts and nuts of a suitable diameter;
• sheet steel with a metal thickness of at least 1 mm;
• belt drive (or gear reducer).

Having prepared the necessary tools and supplies, take care of the drawings in advance.

The dimensions of a self-made sawmill may differ from one designer to another. The main requirement is that the structure must be stable, trouble-free. (as far as possible in reality with the daily performance of sawing work). To begin with, they create on paper reduced types of copies of the mechanism to be repeated to solve specific issues.

For a band sawmill, the length of the unit is at least 6 m. This is the size of industrial boards (edged and unedged) produced at the sawmill and supplied to building materials warehouses. The width of the device is not less than 3 m: this distance provides vital space for efficient and fruitful work on such a machine.

When the dimensions of the future machine are familiar to the home craftsman, he will estimate how much consumable will be spent on the manufacture of the device. The basis of the machine is a support frame and rail guides, without which sawing work on opening a tree trunk onto planks would be carried out with a noticeable curvature of the wood material produced. Strengthening the machine in the projection of the parallel corners of the guides will require the installation of transverse spacers, which are no more than 2 m apart from each other.

When working on a sawmill in a garage, only a drawing of the main device is required. The operation of the sawmill in an open area will require a canopy that protects from precipitation and significantly reduces wind flows, which destabilize work in adverse weather conditions. In other words, the workplace is prepared before starting the assembly of the sawmill... Further calculations of the main functional units are carried out as they go through different stages of assembly, and the master, in turn, must clearly imagine how the assembled unit looks like and how quickly and conveniently it is to work on it.

At home, a device for sawing woodwork is made in the following sequence:

• the frame is welded, guides are installed;
• an engine and drive mechanisms are installed, parts supplying wood, cutters (without the latter, sawing logs and trunks would become impossible).

For example, for the practical implementation of the device, a popular design is taken, the main distinguishing features of which are low costs for spare parts and simplicity. Wheels from a passenger car are tried on to it... Each component determines how accurately and correctly the assembled unit will work.

As guide rails, if it was not possible to find a decommissioned rail-and-sleep lattice from a narrow- or micro-scrubber nearby, use a profiled corner with dimensions of at least 5 * 5 cm.The angle of the rib during laying is directed upwards - this arrangement will significantly reduce the wear of the guides, while allowing you to use a more rigid base ... A corner twice as large as 5 * 5 cm is not critical to the orientation of the rib angle. The most reliable guides will be made of double T-shaped (it resembles a turnstile in its cross-section) or channel profile. The installation of transverse stiffeners is not as fundamental here as in the construction based on the angle. For transverse spacers, a profile with a width of at least 2.5 cm is used. The rail components are fixed by welding. Mounting the expanding parts, the master will weld a half-inch pipe with parts mounted on it that hold the log or tree trunk, preventing the latter from moving along and across when cutting into strips of wood.

When welding steel components, do not do without their preliminary tacking, otherwise, they will be bent to the side, and the structure will become crooked, which will immediately affect the low-quality wood materials. It is not a welding inverter, the result of working with which completely depends on the human factor (a specialist), but semi-automatic welding with protection against oxidation of heated parts by carbon dioxide gas will significantly save you from such a nuisance.

If it is impossible to accurately and evenly weld, the installation of the guides is carried out by means of a bolted connection... The finished frame is fixed on a pre-prepared foundation using anchors.

When installing the guides, the master will take care of preparing the space for the timber supplied for processing in advance. The primary stage of preparation is the installation of H-shaped supports with the minimum possible height of the rods of 10 cm. The side stops that prevent the log to be cut from rolling to the right or left from the cutting site must be at least 5 cm. The space for supplying timber can have almost any structure.

Closely spaced crossbeams are placed at a relatively short distance - no further than half a meter. This will make it possible to work with logs of the order of 3 ... 6 m, which expands the format and parametric tolerance of the work of the master-sawer.

For rollers, parts made on a lathe or industrial bearings produced at precision mechanics plants are used. For machined parts, a hole is drilled in advance to help set the angle of rotation. Wheels are hardened - hardened steel has a significantly higher hardness. When using industrial bearings, one of them is taken larger than the other three... Components are selected with identical internal dimensions. The shaft is made with an abutting flange, opposite which a thread is cut to fix the rollers on the opposite side.Rollers of a wider size allow using any profile for rails: from I-beam to channel.

The sawmill has two vertical guides... Supports and movable elements are made of ordinary steel pipe, selected with the smallest possible clearance. Then a rectangular frame is assembled, moving parts from above and below are fixed on its sides. The lower transverse part provides for the fastening of the wheels - it must have an acceptable rigidity; a thicker-walled pipe or channel is best suited.

Main body elements - pairwise alternating parts located horizontally and vertically. They are connected perpendicularly. A frame that would be assembled from a professional pipe with a square side of less than 5 cm would not have sufficient strength parameters. Spreading bars - a rectangular professional pipe smaller than 5 cm in width. If the professional pipes were not available, when using the corners, reinforcing spacers are taken, forming a triangle with a right angle. Their steel thickness should not be lower than 2 mm. At the bottom of the frame, rollers are placed, having previously calculated the distance between their abutting walls. This distance is equal to the distance between the rails.

Having finished assembling the frame and wheelbase, a pair-type screw mechanism is installed to move the carriage part. It has a manual rotator and a chain transmission. The nuts are fixed on the moving part at the bottom, and the screw stops are attached to the frame cross member from above. The screws turn without difficulty when they are seated on bearing sets commensurate with their dimensions. The chain tensioner relies on the drive, and the lift nut is fixed to the carriage sleeve. The top crossbar will require the screw to be seated on the bearing assembly.

For smooth operation of the lifting mechanism, the shafts need identical sprockets... After placing them, the chain is tensioned by means of a roller. The smooth transmission mechanism is equipped with gears of different sizes: one rotates synchronously with the screw, the second is fixed on the other shaft. The use of a larger main sprocket will allow the carriage to move quickly along the rails, and the locking mechanism can be made from a spring pin. Once the pin is calibrated, it is positioned between the chain rollers and the brackets that are locked in place. At the end of the installation of the main parts, the drive is equipped with a long handle, by which it can be turned manually.

The sawmill mechanisms will not be able to fully work without pulleys... In this case, the axle halves from a rear-wheel drive passenger car will be effective. To fix these axle shafts on the lower crossbar of the carriage part, units with bearings are used. These components are cheaper to order at the nearest repair plant from turners, which will allow them to subsequently be adjusted when the slightest backlash appears, as well as to deflect the wheel axles a little to the side.

Adjustment elements - pieces of the pipeline, in one of which the second is installed. Between them there is an air gap of up to 0.5 cm. The clutch, placed inside, will serve as a protective casing for semi-axial ball bearings. A correctly centered coupling is adjusted by means of screws on the outside of the collet.

The first of the wheels is fixed on the carriage part permanently. The tail part of its half of the axle has a pulley. The second is located on a dynamic element that pre-tightens the cutter. The assembly of the pulleys is not carried out strictly horizontally, but with a pull to the side by an average of 3 mm vertically.The band is calibrated by pulling back on the torch support assembly. Like the sawmill rollers, the cutter support assembly is made from three ball bearing crowns.

The final stage of assembly is the placement of the engine.... The torque is transmitted from the engine shaft through a V-belt transmission. The motor, used as a source of torque, provides for additional tensioning of the belt drive by means of a roller with a spring. This option is used when the sawmill is powered by a liquid fuel engine. A so-called chip discharge (protective cover) is placed around the saw blade, thanks to which sawdust and wood shavings do not fly over the entire territory or the garage. Additionally, a washer is installed, in which the washing and lubricating substances are delivered to the place of work by one of the saws.

Before starting work, check how the sawmill works as a whole.

The bearings in the motor, transmission and feed mechanism must be cleaned and lubricated at least every six months. Worn bearings should be replaced promptly.

The sawmill is not always suitable, for example, for making wood chips... And it is completely ineffective, impractical to use it as a wood chip grinder. Sawdust and shavings are just a by-product, not the main product of the sawmill.

Decide on the cross-section diameter and wood species with which you plan to work... Not every sawmill will grind, for example, and cut into planks boxwood, which is distinguished by almost a record hardness of wood.

How to make a band sawmill with your own hands, you can see in the video below.