Trouble-shooting, Checking the cutting equipment

Trouble-shooting

Reasons for wrong measurements on an M7 sawmill.

A.Incorrect adjustment or set-up.

B.Cutting equipment misfunction.

C.Tensions in the wood.

A.Checking the M7

1.Check that all four legs stand firmly and that the feet do not sink into the ground when a heavy log is loaded.

2.Sight over the log beds and cross beam to check that the sawmill stands straight.

Check both loaded and unloaded.

3.Use a square to check very carefully that the guide rail is at an exact 90° angle to the long legs. Even a small devia- tion can lead to large measurement errors.

4.Set the distance between log bed and guide bar so that it is exactly the same to both log beds. Make sure the guide bar and the log beds are fully parallel. Use the setting block included with the machine.

5.Check that the guide rail is absolutely straight by sighting along the guide rail or by running a line over the guide rail and using nails or something similar

as spacers between the line and the guide rail.

6.Check that the guide bar is straight in relation to the sawing direction by placing a

1.5 m (5 ft) strip of wood on the guide bar without the chain. Sight across the strip to make sure it is parallel to the guide rail.

Even factory-new guide bar mounts can be out of true. This is discovered if the parallel relation to the log bed changes when the guide bar is turned. A bent guide bar is most easily straightened by being pressed up or down while the saw is mounted on the sawmill (see page 21). An out of true mount is corrected for by placing washers between the carriage plate and the slide rail.

7.The set-up of the M7 can be checked by placing a board with maximum length on the log beds. First trim off a narrow strip from one side of the board. Then turn it, set both log beds to the same height and remove a similar strip. Now measure the width of the board carefully. If the board is not the same width along its entire length it can mean that the log beds are incorrectly set or that the guide rail is crooked. It is also possible that the guide rail has been depressed by the weight of the log. When a heavy cutting unit is used, this problem can even occur if the support legs are not on a rigid surface. If a chain- saw is used the same thing can happen if you extend the guide rail more than 0.5 m (1.5 ft) without adding support legs.

B.Checking the cutting equipment

The guide bar must not cut upwards or downwards during sawing. This is most obvious when the guide bar leaves the log. If the guide bar does not simply float out of the log but springs up or down, problems can arise. In such cases there can be something wrong with the guide bar or the chain.

Reasons for misfunction in the cutting equipment:

1.One frequent reason for problems when using the M7 is that the chain is dull (see page 26).

2.The chain may be damaged on one side, such as by metal objects in the log. The chain may still cut, but pulls up or down (see page 27).

3.The chain may have been filed wrong. The cutters may be filed less on one side than on the other. To get a more even result, try to maintain the same working position when filing the left and the right sides of the chain. That individual cutters are faulty or that some are missing, such as after sawing through nails, usually has very small effect on the function.

4.When precision diminishes after a period of fault-free sawing, it is almost always due to wear on the guide bar (see page 27).

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