Harbor Freight Sawmill .....set up & first impressions

how's it going everybody my name is dave whipple and you're watching bush radical today we're going to take a look at this guy the harbor freight sawmill to my knowledge the cheapest sawmill that you can buy we're going to go through what it was like to set this mill up some of the issues that i ran into some of the modifications that you might want to make and what it was like to run this mill how easy is it to operate what kind of quality you get in the cut and my first impressions of using this machine stay tuned [Music] about six months ago i picked up a used harbor freight portable bandsaw mill for fifteen hundred dollars on facebook marketplace considering how expensive lumber got to be this year i think it's one of the best investments i've made last winter before the cold really set in i decided i was going to try to see if i could get it set up in time this is what i went through for my setup process yours might be kind of similar [Music] i'm using a treated six by six and i'm cutting them into about three foot sections and i'm digging them into the ground setting them on top of the ground is another way you could go about it but i wanted them right down into the dirt not sitting on any moss or duff or anything like that [Music] i think in the perfect world the best case scenario would be to set this on a chunk of sidewalk pour yourself 24 feet of sidewalk and then you'd have all that area to expand if you wanted to add track and cut longer material these six by sixes i think are going to do good because i'm not totally sure that this is where this sawmill is going to spend the rest of its life thankfully my brother stopped by to help me not only dig but lift the heavy parts now when i bought this mill the previous owner and myself loaded it up into the back of my pickup truck in pieces it's not that heavy of a mill but i will say it's a very simple mill so the parts that need to be robust are robust there's just not much there [Music] it's built very solid but overall it's not heavy for a sawmill [Music] unfortunately right after we shot this video it snowed about a foot and dropped about 20 degrees in temperature so it set this project back a ways the sawmill set the rest of the winter doing nothing until last week when i finished setting it up going through it and trying it out for the first time let's take a look at that [Music] scenes is how this is a used mill that i'm completely unfamiliar with i kind of ran over the things that i thought needed attention on it before i worked with the mill cutting lumber these cables are starting to get rusty and the adjustment slide in the center it has a rusty bottom i think that's probably just what happens to these if they're not covered up and they get rained on quite a bit so i pulled out that adjuster rod and i greased the bottom of it knocked off the paint and all the loose rust reinstalled it now not only does that adjustment rod move much smoother but now i'm going to take and spray down these cables and make sure the cables don't corrode any farther than they already have for that i'm using a chain and cable lubricant this works really good for motorcycle throttle cables and it's pretty good on just about everything now it's time to install that other section of track i believe this sawmill cuts about a nine foot four board with the track that it comes with and that's about all you can get out of it one of the big complaints with this mill and a lot of mills with sectional track is the bump where the one track meets the next basically what you need to do is find thin metal shims whether it's washers or chunks old saw blade or whatever and make that track perfectly level from one section to the next might take a little bit of finagling but that's what it needs because if there's a bump in the track there'll be a bump in the cut now it's time to install the engine of course i did test this engine when i bought the unit but it's been sitting for about six months and it needs to be looked over and ran and make sure everything is good [Music] i can tell right away that i don't like the throttle cable that this unit comes with it's a kind of a cable wire it's not a solid core wire and it's just it's kind of cheesy but the motor runs good everything works the centrifugal clutch works good before i run the saw i'm going to take off those guide blocks with that bearing that backs the saw blade and i will grease that bearing with a grease needle and make sure all of those nuts and bolts and adjustment parts are clean and they're going to be easy to work with when they need to adjust it [Music] now the old belt does work but it has a lot of wear on it so i bought a brand new belt this continental b75 this is the size of belt that is supposed to be with this mill it's 75 inches inside circumference and it's 78 inches outside circumference now you have to adjust the motor where the motor mounts there's four holes where the motor can slide and then you can take off the original belt put on a fresh belt [Music] now here's where i started to run into problems this sawmill calls for that b75 belt which is 78 inches outside circumference 75 inside do you think that that belt would go on that mill absolutely not [Music] so here's my issue all afternoon i've been trying to change the belt the problem is it won't fit on this machine see this gap right here every video i've seen shows the pulley all the way over touching this metal when you change that belt the location of the engine mount where it's welded to this cross piece here i think it's too far over and even when you slide this motor all the way over here as far as you can to change the belt it seems like it's still about an inch too far that direction also the belt that came off this machine was about 79.5 inches a b75 belt is a 78 inch belt so i i don't think a belt is going to stretch an inch and a half over its life so the answer's simple i'm just going to put on a b76 belt it's going to give me one extra inch it's going to be more similar to the belt that came off this machine so i took that belt back and i bought a b76 bell which is an inch longer it would not go on this sawmill so what i ended up doing is i ended up drilling and filing out those holes to be about three quarters of an inch longer than they were originally [Music] making these slots that were about two inches long now about two and three quarter to three inches long now i'll reinstall this engine bolt it all back up and i should have all the adjustment i need to get that valve perfectly fit [Music] now you might be wondering about this metal bar i'm just using it to keep that belt tucked into the groove while i turn the wheel there we go she's on and that belt is tight it's going to need to be ran a bit now it's time to hook up the lubrication tank and top it off and we're about ready to go after changing that belt i did have to adjust the tracking and i did have to readjust the guide blocks here's a couple parts i changed this is the original lubrication tank water tank it's kind of a cool design but it's really small and after it sees a bit of sun it gets brittle and just falls apart so i had to change that also the throttle lever now this is a cable pull throttle it's not a solid wire so you're relying on this spring to pull the throttle back closed back down to idle position once you let go of this throttle lever i replaced that cable throttle with a solid wire throttle so as opposed to trusting that little spring to close the throttle i can just do it manually from my thumb grip now i've had this pile of logs way too long and it's going to need to get cut up or they're going to be of no value whatsoever like i'll start with this red pine here in the background and it's pretty bad shape and hopefully i'll get a cant out of the center of it let's see that again in slow motion i hope you guys enjoy that maneuver now that big log on top of the pile is 24 inches this mill is supposed to cut about a 20 inch log so you can see that these small mills are not so limited by the size of a log they can take but much more so how big of a log can you handle what equipment do you have to move a log and just like that seven months later we're ready to cut a log [Music] it looks like i'll need to scooch this log backwards for the next cut because at the end of the track i still hadn't finished that cut i'm going to take the first couple slabs that come off this and use them as kind of rollers for these next big logs to get them up in the air a little bit to get them on this track easier [Music] that's not too bad [Music] the outside of this red vine is pretty rotted so i hope at least i'll get a good solid can out of the center of it [Music] well i gotta say with the first couple cuts i'm enjoying the mill so far i like the fact how simple it is for starters now every sawmill has dozens of points of adjustment but this one seems to have about the bare minimum that are necessary and i appreciate that [Music] [Music] now this is not my first time running a sawmill but this is my first time running this sawmill i appreciate things that are really basic and easy to operate and just as simplified as they can be and i think this mill is right in that ballpark it's about as basic as a mill can get now there's some decent wood left in the heart of this red vine so i think i'm gonna saw that into four roughly four by fours and then i'm just going to use those four by fours as dunage to stack lumber on that this mill cuts it's going to be my sawmill yard donage [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] it's like 100 degrees over here in the world am i doing running a sawmill [Music] so the big question is what do i think of this harbor freight sawmill i love the fact how light this sawmill is it seems to pick up very easy with the crank handle i like the locks it so far i'm pretty happy with the way that the mill is set up is it's plenty big for what i'm doing takes a little bit of a learning curve to go from a different style of mill to this style of mill it's a little different than the mill i was used to working with and the last mill i had i think it cut a 36 inch long i have no equipment to move 36 inch log even these 23 24 inch logs they're monsters it's a major big log and i know i've got stuff in the upper peninsula i've got white pine up there that's four foot across but hey i'm not going to cut it and b i couldn't move it if i did and if i was going to i would need to get in there with a tractor skidding equipment maybe a big giant log arch and that cut roads it's so stupid i can't even think about it i don't need to cut up a tree that size so for the stuff i want to cut stuff that's 10 inches to 20 inches this mill seems to be just about what i want what i need would it be better to go with a wood miser i think it would you're going to be able to pick up a phone and call and get parts for this harbor freight mill if you wanted to change bearings in it for instance you'd have to mic all the bearings you'd have to source the bearings where if with like a wood miser you could just call them up say hey send me another set of bearings the predator motor that's on this mill i like those predator motors as much as i would like to be a purist uh china makes some pretty good motors for cheap i'd rather have a honda on it because i i know a honda is gonna run for a decade of using it hard you know if this motor conked out on me i could go spend another 225 bucks and and have a fresh motor and with the honda an eight horse honda is going to cost me a thousand dollars probably i could buy five of these for about a thousand dollars i like the design of the mill i'm not a big fan of its rigidity it kind of does this but it doesn't seem to affect the cut at all maybe it will with different wood i don't really know that it had a couple problems i had to elongate those holes which that's kind of a big deal you know you buy the right belt and it doesn't fit then you buy the next size up and and it doesn't fit and then you modify the machine and you get the next size up belt to work barely i think the throttle cable should probably get replaced i would have probably replaced the lubrication jug had it not broke in the first place but it did break so i had to replace it this harbor freight pump sprayer it's a much thicker plastic i think if you're going to upgrade and you're looking for something that's easy to find you know just pop right back into harbor freight and get yourself one of these pump sprayers all of the the iron in it especially the track is really robust it's a three by four channel and it's thicker than quarter inch it's pretty heavy plenty heavy for what you're doing i think like all sawmills this sawmill is the name of the game is fiddle with it until you get it dialed in and then try to leave it alone truth of the matter is i bought this sawmill used right around christmas of last year for 1500 bucks where are you going to find sawmill for 1500 bucks especially this year when lumber is so ridiculous my first impressions are it's simple it's cheap it's quite heavily made and for the money i spent on it i'm totally happy with it so far thank you guys so much for watching bush radical my name is dave whipple and be radical eh see you soon [Music]

Channel: Bushradical

Views: 938,092

Rating: 4.9259667 out of 5

Keywords: Sawmill, band sawmill, band saw mill, harbor freight band sawmill review, harbor freight saw mill review, portable sawmill review, band saw sawmill, DIY sawmill, harbor freight review

Id: FsarlPFHaeQ

Length: 15min 45sec (945 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 11 2021