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The Sawmill Project

We found a Large Bandsaw and Planer

Actually the 'Sawmill Project from Hell' that seem to be the reoccurring theme of these encounters It all started about 5 years ago when Kent found this old, very old, band saw mill at a site near work. The site had several mills and a few planers. We're not talking big stuff, but BIG stuff. He acquired one of the smaller band saw at that time. We disassembled it and hauled all 4 tons of it up north to his place (Lake Augustina). After years of negotiations (and begging the wife) he has finally closed the "Deal of the Century" on the biggest damn band saw I've ever seen! And to top that the biggest 4 sided surface planer this side of the Mississippi (really!) This equipment was from the very early 1900s, we think about 1920 or so? It was used to cut and surface massive Douglas Fir logs sent from the West coast, these cants (square logs) where 14" to 16" square and some over 40 feet long, real old growth logs! The job is to disassemble the beast into small enough pieces to handle, and cart her up north (again) Below are some pics of us in the process of taking her apart. (caution: not for the faint of heart!!!)
	This is the shed where the old girl lives, the tracks in front are for the feed carriage, the rollers are to move the heavy logs after the cuts
Here is a picture of her, the feed carriage is off to the left, it is about 35 feet long, the upper wheel is clearly visible here, over 60" in diameter
	Another shot of her, with Kent in the foreground to give some perspective. Here she is, about as disassembled as we can do without heavy chains to remove that top wheel
>Here is a close-up of the upper wheel and just a glimpse of the lower wheel, the saw band is 8" wide and 29 feet in circumference, our next trip involves removing that top wheel!
	Here we are trying not to get crushed with the 1,500 Lb. upper wheel, we did get it off and on the ground! (now what)
Now the Planer! After the sawmill was disassembled as far as we could go, we started on the planer. We called in the experts CMA heavy haul to load and truck it! Ed from CMA was the one who helped me with Helga, He really likes to work on this old stuff. Kent rented a excavator to do all of the heavy lifting and Ed did a great job of running the machine. I got a chance to load a big casting (I really need one of these machines).
To make the job possible Kent rented a Kobelco 909 excavator. She weighs in at an impressive 55,000 pounds! It makes short work of removing the side of the building.
	Like some kind of prehistoric beast, it lowers in for us to attach the chains. Here Kent and Ed, our favorite truck driver, ready the planer for the move.
With a might heave the old planer moved, an easy drag with Kent and I setting timber for her to skid on.
	It took hours to prep the machine for the move, but once ready. Within a few short minutes we had the planer out and ready to load on the lowboy
Here is a good test for the machine, a straight lift of about 12,000 pounds. It was almost too much for the old girl to lift
	Ed pulls it in really close to the tracks to get all of the leverage he can, then he swung the heap onto the truck in one smooth motion. Now time for all of the other stuff.
While the rig was here, we loaded all of the other stuff from the saw. Here is the top wheel we spent all day removing, we just chained it up and it was on the truck in seconds! Thanks to Ed and Tim at CMA Heavy Haul for the excellent job

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