E21 - When your Harbor Freight sawmill breaks
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- čas přidán 19. 02. 2021
- When your Harbor Freight sawmill breaks, you make it better. We replace the bandsaw height adjustment screw with a ball nut and lead screw normally used on CNC machines. I used 1605 by 500mm. Fit nicely after modification on the Harbor Freight sawmill.
I took my screw assy. apart before I ever used it and put grease on the shaft and the sliding shaft. I have used the mill for about a year now and have had no trouble and cut a lot on wood but I also did a few other slight mods to my mill and plan to do an article of my own soon. I ordered another set of rails and cross members from Harbor Freight, welded all the rails leingth together and now can cut 16 foot logs !! No problems with my mill so far and very happy. Take care.
I encountered your adventure somewhere in the snatch block era and started from the beginning. Don't let the failures get to you. Enjoy the successes and your beautiful children. My wife and I had the exterior of our house built in 1981 and then took way to many years to finish it ourselves as I earned the money. You and your lady are troopers. Enjoying to with you, I'll catch up.
Coming to this a bit behind, (now May 2022) and binge-watching to catch up. I love the way that you've put Meg as the centre of your Universe on Sketchup, the same as in real life.
He's like the dog that jumps in a mud puddle and shakes by you.
You ought to get a backtrack from harbor freight john,or your back is going to get missed up like mine. You work so hard. I pray for your family every night. God Bless you all 🙏.. 🙏❤.. Sending yousll. Ig 🐻 hugs. GRRRRRRRRRRR 😊.
I have a harbor freight sawmill...I know this video is a year old but I will tell you what I did with some of the issues you are having or had ...water delivery...I installed a second water valve ...one for on off the other I set for flow and leave it alone....the copper tube I replaced with softer copper and bent it pointing down directly to the blade ... sawdust gumming up on the track and wheels...I take a rag and lightly coat the wheels and tracks with transmission fluid. Works really well but still intend to install brushes like you said ... fortunately I haven't had the issue you had with the crank assembly breaking but my clamps won't lock the head down so I have to hold the crank handle to keep it from rotating while sawing but I intend on cutting a round steel wheel with notches and make it similar to woodland Mills...cheers
That is better. You did well.
When I returned to Montana after 7 years in Arizona I had a Old Milwaukee hammer drill that seemed useless in Lewistown so I pawned it for $30 and got a new DeWalt.
You Peoples are Great!
The Upgrade /repair on your mill was Impressive.... Keep your Family and U SAFE!!!
Great Dogs, Looking into the breed.
WOW…Great Fix on the saw mill !
I agree with Grandpa's Farm, in the end you will be better off breaking up the old and starting new - and using the railroad ties. Realize the current slab was time & money - expensive lesson. Fantastic work on the saw! Hope the camper has been warm enough.
Don, Don, Don! You're still heckling me - and I'm loving it. Miss you, buddy.
Just getting here, but subscribed and doing some catch up.
Outstanding repair for the HF sawmill!!! Taking notes...and enjoying the fine work on the videos!!!
Thank you and welcome aboard! That mill is still working flawlessly after that repair. You can look forward to another mod on the mill as you catch up on the videos.
Nice fix on the sawmill. If I buy one the first thing I'll do is rig a "Seatbelt" type catch strap as a safety against the mill head free falling.
1/4 inch steel cable with frayed end fits into each wheel. 12-V auto windshield washer pump. Wood Mizer blades, Power seat motor or auto window motor and switch. Build a saw shed.
Love your spirit and dedication to just keep pushing forward regardless what happens. I’ve been trashing my harbor freight for six year and love the opportunity to build with natural material. Crushed the log bed more than once (16 foot oak logs) rails are mounted on 6x6x20 foot treated beams. Your mud looks like a real challenge be careful it looks like a struggle. Thank you for sharing stay safe and be well.
Thank you so much! The mud is definitely challenging and something that needs to be addressed when the growing season begins. I really want some 20 ft. angle iron rails for the sawmill so I can cut 16 footers. Have you upgraded the length of yours? Thanks for watching 👍
@@WalnutsandWineberries yes twenty feet - I beleive twenty four feet would be ideal when cutting structural lumber on a hobby mill setting on the ground. The wood beams I use under the rails absorb the shock of logs dropped from my JD tractor. Over the years the bunks have become deformed. You will be cutting any size log you can get between the legs. You will be rolling and cutting until it fits between the blade guides. I am in my seventies you have lots of wonderful adventures ahead - share the love stay safe and be well. Daryl and Teresa!
Well, the lead screw isn't an acme, it's a trapezoidal lead screw which is iso intl standard. Fortunately an exact replacement can be ordered in the US from McMaster Carr under externally threaded lead screw nuts, bronze. The beauty of the hbft mill is you can circumvent their cs gauntlet as this mill is built with off shelf parts except for the weldements
Weed sprayers, just take the spray tip off for your water system and move the valve down, set the volume. Drill a hole through sponge 3/4 the way through and apply to the blade. Instead of drip system.
As far as the tree falling at the end. You should have made your notch on the front of the tree quite shallow. That would have ensured you had enough hinge wood to make your back cut. Luckily there wasn’t a house behind the tree. 😆 Cutting trees is is definitely always an experiment because no two are the same.
Nice fix on the mill-thanks for the idea! Just bought a HF mill and may even do this mod before I use it.
Now for the lecture: You were doing something pretty dangerous with that jack. Real tree jacks cost an arm and a leg because they are built to not blow out seals/O-rings when heavily loaded. Consumer-grade jacks can and do fail with no warning...I think you would have been much better off to use wedges and also not cut it nearly so far above ground.
That sure looked like a pine you were working on there-some species like Ponderosa are pretty brittle and harder for non-pros [like me] to "steer" by continuing to cut the hinge after the tree starts over-the hinge can break and leave you with zero control.
I've watched a bunch of videos by pros like August Hunicke/Buckin' Billy Ray/BC Faller Training etc. Learned a lot and gained a lot of respect for what can and does goe wrong sometimes.
czcams.com/video/i2Aktms_4Pg/video.html
I've had good success in felling leaners the opposite direction by using a rope about 25' up the trunk, a snatch block and a rope winch [just like a cable come-a-long except it has a drum designed to grip and continuously pull a 3-strand twisted rope so you don't have to stop and reset when the drum is full, unlike a come-a-long.]
Lean into that winch before you start your cut, make a deeper than normal face cut so the tree's center of gravity is shifted toward that face cut, winch some more tension on there, start your back cut, add wedges, winch once more and finish your cut...keeps you from having to retreat with the saw stuck and running in the trunk...
Great to have some skills to fix that cheap ass mill. That was impressive.
Haha, thanks. It's good to learn on. Kind of like learning to play baseball with a horrible infield. They make epic shortstops 👍
You have the same view of harbor freight many of us have,its great for backyard diy 'ers ,🙂low initial cost to add additional hobbies for lower budget types.the faults or design flaws,or cheaper hf substitutes are expected and as we learn we improvise fixes improvements,i think all the perfectionist got hf ears,and now more premium tools are being offered and the coupons are gone,sucks.not to mention$$
Love my harbor freight sawmill
Me too! It's been great. I use it almost daily. It's paid for itself many times over by now.
Mine is currently not wanting to raise up and down as easily as before, I’m hoping I can do something to save it, now I have an idea of what I’m dealing with, thanks for sharing your experience, please share the link to where you bought that piece, I hope I won’t need to but if have to I will definitely mimic your work, tia
Good job showing telling, I am in to cutting my own wood to cut some today. Building me a few things two , two things for sure more things I am sure after that two things.ok have y’all a great day and see ya by.
I used a windshield washer reservoir from a junk car for my blade lubrication. The pump works great and it just needed 12v. Holds a gallon of water or windshield wash for the winter.
Awesome tip! Thank you for sharing it. Coincidentally, I've been meaning to replace the little motor on my Jeep for a while now. Our road is a dirt road, so it would certainly come in handy to have that functioning again. Nice thing about the 12V setup you have is that you can power it with a small battery. I'll keep this in mind. Thanks!
@@WalnutsandWineberries
My mill is electric start. I guess I assumed yours was too. But just a little battery will do. Nice job on the new drill crank. Keep up the good work!
Cheers !!
You didn't want to anchor your bottom plate to the edge of your slab good choice so you put railroad ties around the out side now drill holes through the railroad ties just a little bit smaller than the rebar and hammer them in place if u can fine rebar with coating on it that well help it from rusting through so fast
Ne rebar with a coating
Good repair on the ball screw. The screw needs periodic cleaning and lube. Likely what wore the brass nut out? I’ve worked in factory maintenance for last 30 years and replaced quite a few of them. Some of them have a lube line going to each bearing. Sawdust and dirt are their enemy. Good job 👍🏻
Thank you Greg! I see you're making your way through all the episodes. Love when people do that! I recently bought the gas struts to counter effect the weight of the saw. I'll be doing that little project soon.
Mine had this same failure, and with less then 3 hours of use (7 logs, most less then 12" so very little screw use), it's a design error, they used a square profile steel male thread, that mates to the acme profile female brass thread, and the contact is the sharp edge of the male thread on the acme flank. It just cut all the brass threads off till it stripped them suddenly. The replacement they sent is where I could see the female acme profile. Then looking at the brass segments stuck in the grease on the male threads you could see very poor depth of engagement. It's a super sloppy fit when I put it back together. And I doubt they fixed this design flaw in what's delivered today.
This same failure occurred last week on my machine, that had less then 3 hours of use. It's a manufacturing defect. I wish you would have shown the old acme lead screw. Mine stripped the brass threads, most of which stuck in the steel acme male threads from the glue grease they used (not acme profile with the square face thread profile, i.e. zero degrees of angle between thread flanks). The brass female has a true acme thread profile of ~29 degrees. This has a very sloppy fit to the square male thread. The fit is so bad that this results in the brass female threads in contact with a straight edge corner of the steel screw. WTF was China thinking in this? The replacement part I got from HF customer support, had a 12 week lead time, but was shipped in 2 days, and just received yesterday in less then a week (was $87 with tax and shipping). It will fail again as it has the same profile as the original. For reference, the OD of the male thread is ~19mm with a 3mm pitch left hand, this is a bastard thread as far as I can see in the metric system, so taps and dies are not procurable. The tough one for single point cutting on the lathe is the internal thread as the diameter is so small, and internal threading bars I don't have for this.
You need a machine shop so you don't have to hack the repair. The ball screw is overkill, as there's no backlash with gravity pulling down to keep any thread engagement slop from occurring during lowering. But I understand a procurable subassembly, that was modifiable. China just needs to cut the steel threads to the correct mating profile of the brass tapped threads.
I see your fix was a right hand screw thread, probably not a big deal to get used to the change.
I also removed the gas motor and put a 5HP 3phase electric motor on mine, as it sits in the garage in front of my wife's auto. I use a VFD to drive it, turns out that 3600 RPM is about what you want. I can slow it down in harder woods to limit blade heating.
I want to put a dust collector 4" to suck the major mess of the machine up. I like your idea of a brush to clear the rails and wheels.
I'm not useing the original two section angle iron rails that came with the machine as my scrap pile had two pieces longer then needed.
I did read in the HF comments section on this saw a great idea of making 2x2 wood log backside clamps, that fit in the square sockets, so you don't worry about hitting the steel ones, as you would slice through them.
Thanks for posting the issue, as this was the only link I found to this failure of the HF saw.
Get a sparkplug end cap put it on the hose. It will direct the drip better.
Did you know Sketchup before you started this project? I'm trying to learn and it's kicking my butt! Also, what are you guys doing for internet out there?
I watched a few vids on it to learn the basics. I agree, it is difficult and awkward, but that's the case for all 3d software. I learned blender a while back, so I'm sure that helped. As far as internet, we use nomad along with an LTE range extender.
I betting you would like to have a front grapple rake bucket on your tractor it would mack it so much easier to pick up logs and put them on to the sawmill and to cleaning up all the Baruch. Can you tell me where you got the parts to fix your sawmill. Thanks for the video
Good minds think alike, Robert. I got a grapple in episode #18 czcams.com/video/GBUmZ4vsiw0/video.html
I use it for everything - including getting heavy logs on the sawmill with ease. As far as the parts, I got a 1605 x 500mm ball screw kit here: www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07DQK2YFN/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Be sure to watch episode #50 czcams.com/video/9RITenaocww/video.html for an update on how to make it work even better.
Why not use one of those pump up spray bottles for your blade lube?
Is that brindle colored dog a mountain cur? Great dogs!
They are sisters. Their mom was a mountain cur. Their dad is a mix of terrier and Chihuahua. Funny combo, but the mountain cur really shines through. They are fantastic dogs and spend their days running our acres. Such great companions!
Try the slab fix, if it continues to degrade it can be broken up later, give your fix a try
I'd just put a hand crank on it instead of the drill. Since it turns easily no need foe the drill.more precise turning with a hand crank.
Woodland mills HM122 say no more
You shoot a bean bag and pull rope to pull in your rope and then you use a block to redirect your pull to the tractor or whatever…
Use a 5L sprayer bottle hook it up where the water bottle is now.
You mean one of those chemical sprayers? That could be an interesting option.
You should have just bought a new square tube ànd fixed it. I've seen people use a drill to go up and down.
You only need a drip of lubricant on your blade , any more and your blade might hydro plane off the belts.
The ball screw idea sounds like worse option given it is going to sit outside in the rain as demonstrated in this video.. At least the the brass acme nut is more tolerant to clearing debris given the inherent wiping/sliding action in operation. You'd do better to grind a lathe bit to the profile of the acme screw and create a replacement nut from brass or (better yet) a sintered bronze bushing.
It's been working flawless almost a year later now. The brass nut that the sawmill came with was complete garbage. It stripped itself out with normal usage only after a few short months. Ball bearings in hardened steel casing (ball nut) was definitely the way to go. The steel tubing protects everything from the weather and debris. If you're interested, check out Episode 50: czcams.com/video/9RITenaocww/video.html
This modification really helped take the load off and the band saw doesn't need to rely on locks anymore to keep its height.
@@WalnutsandWineberries If a counter balance is added, a ball screw is even greater overkill. Without a static load on the screw a conformal nut could have been molded to the original LH screw from acetal, HDPE, etc.. To each his own.
I really wanted to add a stepper motor at some point so I can raise the saw up and down accurately. Probably should have mentioned that before. Hope you found it interesting anyway.
Too much water is Bad. Only need 2-3 drops per second.
Why would you have to fix a new sawmill send it back if you can get a woodland 130 max solve your issues and stay cutting
Dude! Start over with the concrete. Break it up and redo it using proper concrete. What you made will degrade and break up all by itself. It will not be sufficient foundation to pour a top coat onto. If necessary hire a contractor to pour the pad and watch and learn. You were close but still way off with your mix and ingredients.
Thanks Grandpa's Farm - I do appreciate your feedback and respect your experience. I also agree with you. That being said, it's not in our best interest to redo it. There are other factors that come into play with our decision of just "going with it". Just to share a bit more, it's just a shed; not a habitable structure. It's really just there so my tools don't get rained on and somewhere to put a washer and dryer while we're living in our RV. I do regret cheaping out on the concrete mixture and not waiting for the ideal temperatures, but that's on me. Also, there was a shed in the same place that we demolished not too long ago. The ground is still very compact, even though it looks like a muddy mess right now. That shed was probably there for 60 years just sitting on a couple of cedar logs. I feel good about our new plan and have to give it a go. If I'm wrong, I'll redo it again in 30 years. Thanks for following along.
12:21 sawmill needs a permanent base. czcams.com/video/o7Qi5ZL6gxc/video.html
Couldn't agree more. Talked many times with my wife about pouring a small slab for it. I think I might increase the rail length before that though.