Woodworking is a recent hobby of mine. I’m lucky to have a pretty capable garage full of tools I bought in my single days. Pro-tip: get those toys before you’re married! Since starting a family (second kid on the way), its become harder to afford woodworking tools! Machines and consumables aside, the raw material is out of my budget.
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Cheap Bandsaw Sawmill
There is a lot of wood around my house in the form of freshly fallen limbs and trees. I’ve looked at it and thought, “If only I could free the boards within.” Commercial sawmills are big and expensive, but as I started researching them a voice inside my head said, “Hey, I can make one of those!”
When looking at a bandsaw mill, there are really only three parts: the bandsaw, a gantry that holds it horizontally, and rails that the whole thing can slide on. There are some tricky parts, but I ignored those at first and just jumped into building.
There’s something to be said for having theories and plans, but too often I get bogged down in design. No CAD designs or paper sketches went into building this. The only calculations I made were for figuring out pulley sizes to get the right blade speed (2800 fpm) and determine how far apart the wheels should be for a certain blade length. I designed on the fly using my own experience and intuition as a guide – something I refer to as “eyeball engineering.”
This worked well for some things. I came up with a clever design for tensioning the blade based off milling machine ways. I figured out a way to make the blade guides using just simple bearings and some scrap pieces. I felt that most DIY sawmills used way too much metal and were too heavy, so I built mine with the least amount of steel that I could, and ended up with a very capable lightweight machine.
However, some of my intuition was way off. I had assumed a 1 HP AC motor was more than enough for ripping 20″ logs. Well, the first time I used the saw this motor overheated and almost caught fire! I have a much better understanding of horsepower now.
Also I didn’t understand the intricacies of bandsaw blades well enough. I’m embarrassed to admit that I didn’t even order a blade until the saw was almost done. I had done no research on blades up until that point. The blade I did buy wandered badly in the cut, or rubbed against the wood and fell off several times. Because the first blade I bought was too narrow, there was no hope for the blade guides to do their job.
The first thing I did in my second revision was to replace the motor with a “small” 6.5 horsepower gas engine. In terms of cost and weight per horsepower, gas wins hands down over electricity.
Next I replaced my blade. In hindsight I know how crazy it was to not begin my design with the part that does the actual cutting. It turns out there are only a few blades on the market that will work with a small saw like this, so I ordered one of each. This started to get expensive, but I chalked it up to research. I was lucky to find one that works great. It was also the thickest, cheapest, and the one I thought for sure wouldn’t work.
The result is a little sawmill that just tears through trees! I was very surprised at how well it works. I just wanted to try it and ended up milling an 18″ diameter, 6′ long log of spalted maple into over a dozen 6″x1″ boards. The cedar log that I cut up next revealed an awesome purple heartwood. I started milling wood and just couldn’t stop. I eventually came to my sense and acknowledged that this saw has almost zero safety features. My very next step before cutting another board is going to be installing guards around the blade and drive belt. I will also add a push handle.
Then there are the rails. The screwed together 2×8 lumber worked surprisingly well, but the whole thing will probably only last one season. I roll the logs and then screw them to the wood. This has worked pretty well, but it’s slow and the rails are getting beat up. I will eventually replace it with a welded metal frame that has built-in clamps for holding the logs. In fact, if I were to build another mill, I would literally start from the ground up and focus first on log handling and making a solid foundation for the rest of the saw.
Take a look at my videos for more detail on the build and to see it in action. I will post an updated video soon, so please subscribe to my channel and stay tuned!
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Bandsaw Plans Sawmill
- Aluminum
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Does anyone have any plans on building a verticle bandsaw or is a person money ahead to just go buy a used one at an auction? If anyone has pics of one they made or other home made ones please post them. Thanks.
- Hot Rolled
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Gilliom or Gillim or some such sounding company used to sell plans for a homebrew vert bandsaw. I think there's a Yahoo group that's got some pictures. Do some searchine for homebuilt machines in Yahoo groups for more details.
Really, they're not very expensive, I'd buy one.
Used 14' import woodcutters, $100
Used 14' American ones, $200 to $300
Honestly, a pac rim saw is just fine, take the time to really learn how it ticks and detail it into nice balanced quiet runner.
My used USA built 42' saw, $50! But that was different.
Metal cutters are a different story, however, if you're considering building a saw from scratch, converting a woodcutter to a light duty metal cutter might be a decent compromise.
Tools - Hot Rolled
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SIR,
i have the 18in saw from GILLIOM,
and i have the jackshaft that is
used to cut metal. i did spend quite
a bit more beefing up the saw frame
than is required. they are located in
st. charles, mo.
wlbrown - Plastic
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I am in the process of building this band saw
www.frugalmachinist.com/3wheelbs.html
ed - matt_isserstedtDiamond
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If you can get your hands on a Powermatic model 143 in running condition, I would recommend that you do so.
It's built like a tank for its size.
-Matt - Jon_SpearHot Rolled
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The bandsaw that Ed is making is very impressive.
I think that just making a simpler two-wheel bandsaw is a daunting project, one that would require a great deal of time. The 3-wheel saw described in the above link looks really nice, and I respect the amount of effort that goes into making it.
I believe I have seen photos of somebody using a pair of mag automobile wheels and turning them down on a lathe to be used as the bandsaw wheels. I think that would be much easier, and still pretty interesting as a do it yourself project. - Stainless
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Ed, nice job.
Jon, I saw pictures some time ago of a bandsaw made using motorcycle rims. That sounds like a good way to go. - Junior Member
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Here's a 24' throat saw that I have built and have been working at converting the 3D drawings to 2D and still need to write the directions for it. It works well for sawing steel as so much of the blade speed is killed by driving a 6' wheel. It's 3 speed also and the top speed works well for wood. It's construction is pretty easy stuff and doesn't require anything exotic in the way of machinery. It's shown without the front cover so you can see some more detail. It has the drive wheel on the lower left, the tension adjusting wheel on the upper right and the two tracking wheels on the upper left and the lower right.
- Aluminum
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I've seen 3 shop built band saws. To me there is something heart warming about a hand built machine found still in service after 50 years, but that's just me. Yes they can be bought new for cheap, but maybe you like to design and build things, which is good. If I had the time I wouldgain all skills and build the machines I use, but alas I have no time.
- Cast Iron
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George thats a really good looking bandsaw. Its simple and functional and thats what every machine needs to be. What size blade will it take? I would love to see a photo of the one you built. How would this saw compare the the 'legendary' DoAll's of the same size? You should but together a cd with cad drawings of these tools (I liked the tracer mill you made also) I would be your first customer. I believe anyone with fabrication skills could build that. Please give more pictures and details.
Chris - Junior Member
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Everyone,
Thanks for the nice compliments about the saw. I am sure that this will not keep up with a Do-All that might operate 8 hours a day, but it has served me well for a lot of years.
As I said, I am working at getting a set of plans made. It might take a little time though. I'm not much of a typist. I'll try to remember to post something when I get them done.
Chris, the blade for my saw is 107' long. It has a 24' throat. I make my own blades from a roll of blade stock. I have a blade welder. I've got kind of a funny story about that blade welder thatI'll have to post sometime. - Diamond
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a friend made saw wheels for a Boice Crane that originally had phenolic wheels that cracked. he used ordinaly 14 inich grooved pullys, and used a v belt that he skived and glued into the groove for the tire, works well. I also saw a large homebuilt that used a angle iron frame that was a full gantry style, ie closed vs c framed, much stiffer. Annother customer or mine needed a 48 in throat, he took a ML I had , fabricated a deeper throat and a 3rd wheel, welded it all together, then cut the column out, works well, he does very exacting cutting of bronze sheets for sculptures he fabricates from sheet that you would think are castings.
- Stainless
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I have several different saws for sale, some are projects and some are running.
The prices are $750.00 for an older 16' Do-All ML running or a 16-1 Do-All running(Ugly Paint)for the same price.
I have a powermatic project for $450.00, and also have a 14' Do-All band filer for $375.00.
I also have different Do-All carcasses available that would be great start for a saw project.
You can e-mail me if your interested [email protected] or call 248-396-5817.
I've got alot of projects and need to make room for some new ones.
Thanks, Kevin.
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