ChainSaw Conversion

[Jim1764]

Hello list,

I'm hoping someone out there can help me out or point me in the right direction on a little project I've been thinking about.
My dad and I have a chainsaw sawmill, works great only problem is the fumes and the constant refueling and oil fills on the saw is starting to take the fun out of it.
So I've been thinking of changing the power head of the saw to either hydraulic or electric. The saw were using is a Stihl 066, (7 hp) on the mill.
I have found some conversion formulas for converting gasoline HP to hydraulic HP and Electric HP to hydraulic HP but I'm not sure about RPM and Torque specs.
Anyone have any ideas or thoughts?

Thanks,

Jim

 

[Anonymous Poster]

The chainsaw has to run at a pretty high speed. A hydraulic or electric motor may work, but speed will be an issue IMHO.
A buddy of mine just bought a firewood machine (logs in, split firewood out). I will be over tomorrow to look at it, and if I'm right, it has a hydraulically powered chain saw for cutoff. I'll look at it and give you an answer back.
DaveL

 

[Egon]

Will weight of the electric or hydraulic motors be a factor.

There are electric chainsaws on the market but not in the 7 horsepower leaque.

Perhaps look at the electric chainsaws for motor RPM and use it as a base to calculate the size of electric motor required.

How much wood do you cut and what type of mill do you have? I'm thinking a small one may be in the future for me.

Egon

 

[Jim1764]

Thanks Dave,

That is exactly what got me thinking about converting the gasoline engine to hydraulic. I see lots of commercial logging and firewood equipment using this same idea.
Looking forward to hearing from you.

Thanks,

Jim

 

[Jim1764]

Egon,

My dad and I have this type of sawmill,
WoodBug
But we bought ours from Victory sawmills in BC Canada.

We use it mostly on weekends and use the lumber to keep up the barn and make furniture. We cut mostly white pine but I have cut some red oak also.

You might also look at the Alaskan Portable Mill,
Alaskan
We also have one of these and used it for many years, works great.

Jim

 

[uhmgawa]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( Hello list,

I'm hoping someone out there can help me out or point me in the right direction on a little project I've been thinking about.
My dad and I have a chainsaw sawmill, works great only problem is the fumes and the constant refueling and oil fills on the saw is starting to take the fun out of it.
So I've been thinking of changing the power head of the saw to either hydraulic or electric. The saw were using is a Stihl 066, (7 hp) on the mill.
I have found some conversion formulas for converting gasoline HP to hydraulic HP and Electric HP to hydraulic HP but I'm not sure about RPM and Torque specs.
Anyone have any ideas or thoughts?

Thanks,

Jim
)</font>

You can get hydraulic motors to do the job, but you will
need to power them somehow -- either by gas or electric
driven pump. There is also the loss of efficiency in the
conversion process which can easily be 20% or more.

I guess the question I'd ask is are you really sold on
using a chainsaw to cut? You will still have to lubricate
the bar, have a really wide kerf, and need to buy special
rip-cut chains. To me that's a lot of work for a chain-saw
quality cut.

You might want to entertain using a bandsaw mill. Kits are
avaible for some and if you are the warrior type you could
even fabricate your own. There are plenty of designs around
to get you started.

 

[Egon]

Thank you.

Egon

 

[MossRoad]

http://www.fairmont.textron.com/ makes hydraulic chainsaws.

 

[Anonymous Poster]

Jim,
Looked at the firewood machine tonight (finally stopped raining for a little bit). The chainsaw is belt driven. Only thing on the whole unit that's direct driven off the engine.
Sorry I couldn't help you out.
DaveL

 

[Jim1764]

Thanks for checking Dave. I'll keep looking.

Jim

 

[Jim1764]

Thanks for the link MossRoad. Gives me some hope.

Jim

 

[Boone]

Had a boom truck from the Asplund Tree Service in my yard clearing branches from around the powerlines. The chainsaw the boom man had was hydro powered.

 

[MossRoad]

Yeah, that's how I got the idea to search for hydraulic chainsaws under "arborist supplies". Most of the tree trimming trucks for the utilities and their sub-contractors use hydraulic chainsaws in the bucket trucks. They already have the power supply at the bucket(the hydraulics), they have a built in tether in case they drop it(the hydraulic hoses) and there is no centrifical clutch needed like a gas chainsaw. When you let go of the trigger, the chain stops right now and it can't spin because of high idle like a gas saw. It is either on or off.

 

[Magnum]

The forumula for Horsepower is Torque (lb/ft) X RPM Divided by 5252. As an example you want 50 lb/ft of torque at 2000 RPM it requires 19.04 hp. Hope this helps. You can also determine the RPM of a hydraulic motor by knowing that there are 231 cubic inches in a gallon. If you have 10 gpm per minute going into a hydraulic motor that has 3 cubic inch displacement, you will have 770 rpm.

 

[jimbob123]

here is a good link on a gas chainsaw conversion to hydraulic power if anybody is stiill interested home made hydraulic chainsaw