Pros And Cons Of The Harbor Freight Bandsaw Mill

so hey everybody this is troy from the do-it-yourself world and the off-grid project i've had this for a while now and been using it actually quite a bit and i want to talk to you today about the pros and cons of having a harbor freight bandsaw mill i did some extensive studies before getting one and actually for years i had always wanted a harbor freight bandsaw mill based on what i had read and learned from them and then actually i was around one for a while as most of you know i've been around sawmills for years i've actually owned and sold a lot of sawmills more than most people have and i finally ended up on the harbor freight sawmill of all things and i'll tell you some of the reasons why um i'll start out with the pros first is price it is one of the most if not the absolute most affordable sawmills out there and in this current time one of the most available sawmills out there the um next runner up i think would be the woodland mills entry level sawmill but the woodland mills is going to cost anywhere between 700 to a thousand dollars more with that of course you're going to get a little bit of quality difference and some performance uh some some different things that are are better that i'll cover in a minute but as far as the price and availability especially in this current economy it can't be beep uh one of the things i like is the harbor freight harbor freight sells predator engines this comes with a predator engine it's incredibly convenient and easy to work on it's a very common engine especially if you just walk into harbor freight they have them in a box on the floor so an upgrade is as simple literally as walking into harbor freight when picking up a bigger engine i like that uh one of the things i love is the simplicity of operation and once you get it together and adjusted it just it moves beautifully down the rails it's mega easy to operate and when i'm sawing pine i literally can push it with a finger down the track and now that i'm comfortable i just give it a flick of the wrist and then catch it on the way back and stop it before it hits the stoppers and i can pretty much fly through here and process lumber really quickly the clutch is a pretty common piece really easy to replace very nice it is a one of the reasons i did buy this mill is it has a 144 inch blade which is very common and i get my blades from wood miser now they actually build them to fill your order they make them there and they fill your order on the spot i have nothing to do with them i just am very impressed with their quality and their time uh turnaround time and the quality of the blaze so i i get the wood mizer they're affordable as well they last longer and they're made to order you you pick and choose what you want to saw you tell them what you want to saw and they'll make it for you i love that and depending on what time of year you're at you're going to want a different bandsaw blade based on the type of wood if it's frozen or not if it's green or dry there's a lot of variables and they'll they'll help you out i love that the universal saw blade was a big deal for me another thing let me turn come around to the other side relatively universal parts the rollers are quite readily available anywhere for the tracks the blade guides the original blade guys i'm gonna get into a con there but what's good about these is you can put on different ones uh there are kits there may be some modifications needed based on what you get but there are kits to provide different blade guides i was going to clean the mill up before i did this video but one of the things i stopped myself as i was cleaning and i i decided to not clean it because that's part of my part of the video the importance of how this runs and some of the things that i will modify and change with time i was sawing a piece of cedar and had the oddest thing happen i don't know if you guys this is not exactly related to this video but um the blade filled up with fibers so if any of you know what would cause that the blade actually bogged down with fibers from the feeder and uh i messed up my cut and um i've never seen such a thing ever so i don't know what would have caused that i actually had to shut off the mill and wipe the blade off that was just odd that's why this piece is still here anyway one of the things with this mill that is good we're still in the pros of this mill you've got uh you got the places here for your log dogs on every one of your bunks except for the ends i really like that and you've got the bolt patterns for additions it's all there for you they really even on the other side there's bolt patterns all the way along the rails for for this so it's really customizable i really like that fact here's just a a piece of tree i was messing with it was only four foot it was wet it was horribly wet and the only flaw you got here was from wet fibers but i just want to share with you i don't know if you can see right here there is this mill makes a beautiful straight cut from end to end again don't let this deceive you this was incredibly wet heavy heavy heavy wet sopping wood so it lifted some of the fibers that has nothing to do with the mill here you can see beautiful clean wood and this is what every single board has been turning out like beautiful flush from end to end i've had absolute commercial grade lumber coming off this mill i am incredibly impressed and pleased with the quality of the cut of this mill now granted i'm using the wood miser blades i don't know if that has a difference or not but if you've got a sharp blade it's going to make all the difference in the world on the quality of your cut as well so keep it sharp too now the cons there's a lot of cons but they don't outweigh the pros in my opinion a lot of these the cons i'm going to mention can be fixed and as i go over them i'll mention how i plan on fixing them with some customization and improvements on the harbor freight mill you can have a really awesome machine so i've heard and i haven't had i read about and i haven't uh had a hat myself that the locks can fail on you they're banned actually so what i read is if you just use two hands you can save that if you're just grabbing on the end and wrenching on it you could bend it all up if you use two hands to push up with one and down with the other you can save wear on this mechanism here so i plan on doing just that and that's fine often though when i'm running hot and heavy i found that this cuts pretty well i've never had this move and go off on me even if i don't lock these up when i was shaving off edging sawmill slabs on this mill i never took the time to lock these down because i was sawing so much so fast and i never had any drift now mine might be different than yours but i never had any drift even if i didn't lock these down so if i'm working really fast and in a hurry that's not a big deal so just keep that in mind and don't bend them up and they should last you just fine everything another pro everything is available from harbor freight with a phone call so that's a that's a bonus one of the things i can't stand about this let me refocus my camera two of the things i can't stand it's all in one the water system is absolute garbage the it's too tiny to to really do any real work it's so little i keep a bucket and a container next to my mill to constantly refill that i might be able to process a small to medium sized log with one fill up on this you're constantly refilling again an easy fix i'm just going to replace this with a much bigger container like you would see on the wood to the mills or other mills very simple fix not a reason not to buy it know that going in another thing is i'm going to be adding a second valve on here i'm and and everybody says the same i'm tired of constantly adjusting the water flow you have one valve and you adjust the water flow rate it's all it's either closed or it's on and adjust it so i find myself leaning down here and adjusting the water flow rate in between every single cut and that can be tedious and with such a small container you must turn it off as soon as you finish a cut turn off that water and then turn off your then turn down your throttle this is a precious resource here with such a tiny container so one thing though so you don't have to constantly adjust your flow right is to put another valve inline an on off valve set your flow rate with the one valve have the second valve to turn it on and off then you're not constantly fiddling with your flow rate which brings me to another thing let me come over to the other side out of the box your water feed nozzle is garbage i'm gonna go around and wiggle that and you'll see how absolute garbage that is it goes in and out and all around i mean there is crazy play there's nothing to hold it it's just a there's a big hole through here and a piece of copper pipe i hope you can hear me there's just nothing to hold it this just wobbles loosely in here and it it it's a really really weak point on the sawmill so again you're always fiddling with your flow and you're also fiddling with your your hose because there's nothing to hold it there it's just a terrible idea that's something that needs to be replaced which i will be doing soon and the next point which brings me to why i stopped cleaning this before i carry on with the video is the rollers in the tracks especially with soft wood or cedar or sappy pine like i'm cutting mostly your rollers on your tracks are going to get clogged up with material really bad now on more advanced sawmills this isn't an issue and it's a very simple fix again the the cons on these machines don't outweigh the pros because it's a simple fix i've seen a bit of stainless steel braided cable shoved in here bolted down to the frame somewhere and shoved in here and that's going to clean your rollers on the fly very very simple fix and i don't know why harbor freight didn't add that tiny tiny little bit but it's it's not a big deal to change let me get you a better view of that see that gets loaded up but for me it's really not a big deal um well the negativity of this one first of all what's going to happen as these load up your height of your cut is going to be off and your depth is going to be off and then your board is going to be off so for me it's a very simple thing i keep this pocket knife in my pocket at all times with a fingernail file that i never use anyway but it fits absolutely perfect in here and let me come back out with a camera and i'll show you if you're running a commercial operation this is an absolute necessity to to to do that right away it doesn't bother me that much i just run this every every few i mean i don't know i can do a couple few logs and then i run this is an extremely exceptionally bad example which is another good reason i stopped cleaning because uh i had a really sappy tree actually i'm do it it's faster if i'm not trying to do this on camera i just go this way but i'm trying not to block the camera and i'm actually not doing as well as i could but there you get it it's really quick it's no big deal to do this clean it off and then i just take and run along the top of my mill that's it along the rail and clean it off it's that quick and easy so it's it's not a big major problem it takes a couple minutes now and then after every couple few logs but it's a quick thing to fix by bolting on a piece of stainless steel cable spreading it out and have it scrape on there you're done that's it that's what i've seen on the bigger mills and that's what people are doing on these it's a very simple thing back up in here your guides there's again i don't know why they did it it's not a really expensive thing i don't think but your guides here is just some blocks some adjustable blocks which your blade is going to wear out and they got to be replaced um for now i'm not stressed about it it's not a real big deal i'm gonna keep some of them on hand for replacement um because it really isn't a big nuisance for me on a homestead operation i'm just gonna have spare parts on hand but eventually i'm gonna get the kit again the cons don't outweigh the pros i'm gonna get the kit and replace it with rollers there is a roller on the back of the blade but there's just blocks that wear out on the top and bottom it also puts more wear on your blade which is unnecessary so i'll probably be getting those replaced with rollers not a big deal but uh you know it is an issue to deal with now here's some i've seen a lot of people try to convert this over to a uh um to put a power drill on here to make it faster to raise them lower i will never do that of course never say never but i don't ever intend to convert this i have seen a me a big failure point in the harbor freight mills is the um mechanism for raising and lowering the mill can fail on you over time and i do believe that's caused by putting a power drill on here and forcing it to go way too fast and it was ever designed this was designed to be a hand crank and i the reason i don't intend to change this is i'll show you let me make sure i'm in the camera the reason i don't plan on changing this is i've got this down to a system um every crank i know it's distance and five for me four and a half to five is an inch depending on how precise i want to be and i don't have to look at anything um the tape measure in here is a piece of paper mine was wrecked to begin with i'm not even using it i don't even know if i'm going to worry about replacing it because i know i want to drop down an inch it's that simple i mean and i do it you know five ten times and and i've got my two inches so i don't think that's going to be an issue for me um cranking up and down is not uncomfortable or inconvenient so i'm leaving that one i just wanted to let you know though that is a point that i've seen that people have failure on but i do believe most of those people are using a power drill this next one isn't really a a deal breaker or anything it's just i bought mine second hand so i can't speak for these in general but there was a bow in my rails when i got it now these do come in a box and they do have some stresses on them and all your sawmills the rails come in a box so i don't know and i can't speak for how for the rest of them but mine was um bowed upwards fortunately upwards slightly so i was able to correct it i don't know if i got that in view that's why my mill is on four by fours and bolted to a heavy duty um four inch square tube steel frame so this is bolted down to the four by four and this is bolted down to the steel frame and i was able to bring that flush all the way across and it didn't affect me and i'm getting beautiful cuts one of the things i i don't like is the the dogs i i can't quite explain it it's very sloppy um i'm always dropping it on the ground when i'm in a hurry i'm gonna put a board down here to stop this mine's on a trailer it's not on the ground so that makes a difference um it's really sloppy and you've got a screw here you've got a screw here you've got a screw here and one thing i've learned that i have to do to make sure this works is it slides to side from side to side there's a gap between the uh the pipes here and this can slide from side to side and if you go ahead and line this up close to your log torque this down and then you start screwing that and if you didn't have this pulled all the way to this way and it was that way instead you start turning the screw and you're going to be pushing this backwards so i've learned first thing i do slap that down hold it in place get this where i need it get then tighten this down i took this one out i think the guy that built this put this on the wrong side i don't use it anyway i took this one out there was a screw here and then i just get this adjusted where i want it crank it i do keep this oiled heavily because it was too hard to use and now it spins beautifully that was a big deal out of the box the thing was really stiff i wasn't liking it i'm getting used to it honestly but it's it's not one of the best dog systems in the world although i have to say i got no complaints about these i slap these up and down all the time now it's reversible you got a notch here for starting your log which holds it in place better on your round and then when you're cutting your straight lumber you drop that in you set your height tighten the screw it's really quick you know it's it's convenient another thing about getting a near commercial grade quality lumber these dogs are adjustable i i i don't have any problem with the height for holding anything i've thrown at it yet but you can drop this down all the way and you can actually get all the way down to a two inch board which is what i've seen with even the best of mills you can drop that down and you can sew all the way to a two inch board um i'm really pleased with that so there's no waste of wood my last board is always a two by four then i cut a plank out and then i uh re-saw it on my table saw around the mill as i please but there's no waste on this mill and i'm loving that part too over here you can see that i have a bunk off i'm just finishing my extensions my add-ons and one thing i have to say with the harbor freight mill their angle iron is non-standard i think they may have done that intentionally so you can't just make your own tracks easily nothing meshes up that's you can buy standard so most likely then you're forced to buy um 400. three or four hundred dollar um extensions but what they've done is taken a four inch angle iron i think that's three or four inch and they've milled it down to give you a flat edge which is unnecessary and that makes it incompatible with standard metal that you can buy so i got myself some angle iron at a shop i had them drill it before me and prepare it and then i've had to take a 4x4 and put it on the planer to get it down so this edge was flush i had to i had to actually cut that down just a few sixteenths of an inch to get this flush so the mill rolls not really a a pro or a con or anything just stating the fact that um if you do want to make new rails you're either going to have to go all new but i didn't want to waste that money since i had these and i didn't want to waste you know good good steel in this day and age or you're going to have to custom build or design something to make it work right so those are my opinions and my experiences so far and i've cut a lot of logs on this already you may experience something different and some of you might have some other things you can add to it please feel free to leave a comment below and share your thoughts and opinions and what you think are pros and cons of the harbor freight sawmill out of the box i am loving it actually i'm going to bring it out of the rain i am very much loving this mill and it was my my mill of choice um if i ever was to do something else it'd be a woodland mills but there's there's a not a lot of differences except for what i've shared with you which can be changed on this and that's why i call this my frankenmill it's my uh mixture of different parts from different machines as you can see there's a lot of mods on here a lot of non-standard things and there's going to be a lot of changes made over time as i go along but overall i'm really loving it so please do like this video guys i hope it helps some people and i'd love to hear your opinions and your experiences on the harbor freight mill this is troy from the do-it-yourself world and the off-grid project trying to stay dry and out of the rain at the homestead today talk to you later you

Channel: The Do It Yourself World

Views: 52,864

Keywords: the do it yourself world, the off grid project, off grid homestead, homesteading

Id: A-aF1MrySqk

Length: 26min 1sec (1561 seconds)

Published: Tue May 03 2022