4 year review of my Hud-Son Forest Equipment Hunter/Sawyer portable sawmill by YouTube Channel Down Stream Studio
Hello everyone! Welcome to downstream studio. Today I’m going to do a review on the Hud-Son Forest Equipment
Hunter/Sawyer portable sawmill I bought four years ago, and we’ll talk about a couple things.
We’ll go over and show you a couple of modifications I did that made this thing so much better.
First things first. Four years mechanically this thing has been awesome. I’ve replaced the spark plug one time.
I’ve changed oil every season. Every spring I will change the oil before I use it. I’ve used it heavy. I’ve went through a lot of blades.
I’ve re-sharpened blades and I’ve not worn anything out . I’ve kept everything greased and you know maintained.
I cannot complain about it there’s nothing wrong with it. This engine has been spot on I was planning on putting a bigger engine on it a twin cylinder engine on it, but I wanted to
get the life out of this engine. Here I am four years later, and this engine will still crank up.
I just took the tarp off it to just show you some stuff and I know it’ll crank up right now.
Put a little gas in it. A couple pulls it’ll fire right up. First things first about this sawmill, it’s kind of the entry level, personal use band sawmill.
When you get this sawmill, you must put it together. At least I did and it comes with a track system just like this.
This is one of the tracks. It’s a three-piece design so it comes with three tracks that you put together. One, two, three, on each side.
It works great. It fit in one box you and everything came in one crate, on a pallet. It’s a great design but the thing is with this is when you roll your log when you’re making your cut,
the wheels must transition twice every time you go down. So, the wheels must go over this piece, to this piece.
It doesn’t matter what you do you will feel a bump and it will show up in your boards.
So, what I was doing was constantly shimming, constantly putting treated pieces of shims under here loosening the bolts and constantly trying to get an
even, smooth roll on it. That was the first flaw I did not like. Really, it’s the only flaw that I did not like but I knew when I bought this that this at max, you’re only going to cut, I think.
10 foot maybe nine and a half feet with this track system. I knew I was going to upgrade the track system so what I did. I’ll show you up close in a minute. I put two pieces of 20, I think this is 21-foot-long steel. This is two inches, that’s three-inch angle. I had the holes pre-drilled for the log dogs and then I took my track system that came with it and cut it up.
I made more cross-member pieces for my locks, and I’ll show you that as well. The track system that was the biggest thing now I can cut up to 18-foot-long boards, 18-foot-long logs no
problem. That was the big thing. Another thing is, I did break one of the handles of my log dog on the back which doesn’t affect it. I just take the axe we can’t hook and hit up against it.
Just driving into the log, a little bit. I was going to weld it back I’ve just not got around to it and I’ve used it like that for two years right now and it works good.
Okay I’m going to show you a couple things right there. It is that’s this the track that came with it compared to the track I put on it.
This is three inches by three-inch angle iron steel and it’s perfect. The wheel rolls perfect on the track or the track I made and then I had the holes cut out for the log dogs.
Aluminum track is what comes with the Hud-Son Forest Equipment Hunter/Sawyer track(although now it come standard with 4′ galvanized lag down track 3 sections with each purchase) comes with the purchase. This is steel that I’ve got now. I made more cross members for my logs and put big log screws in them. That’s more pieces of the track as in one thing I did do on my sawmill.
One of the best modifications I did do to this, and I did this first year I had this machine. It seems like when you go to cut hardwood it’s like you don’t have enough power if you’re in a thick piece. It’s like the engine’s bogged down some and it’s mainly because it’s at factory settings. If you see that there’s the screw with a spring on it and if you’ll screw you back it out.
What’s happening is when you get it your throttle will only go that much, so you back the screw out, so you’ll have more throttle. So, you’ll get more or more rpms out of
the engine which equals more blade rpms. Way better cutting now. I know I ran it for a while. If I’m cutting pine, I’ve got it there. Or if it’s just like six inch or eight-inch cans of oak or something you know I might leave it there. If I really need it and I hear it bogging down, I’ll open it up. It won’t go all the way open about right there and I can hear the engine, so nothing hurt, and I’ve been running it like this for three years. Keep the oil changed and a lot of stuff with this similar engine on it and these engines are great. The engines are knock off Honda engines. They’re tough and it’s like the predator that harbor freight has. I mean you can even see I’ve dropped boards on the air box. This thing’s been beaten and battered.
The tanks never piece. I mean the tank is flaking, dropped the whole thing and this is how tough it is. These came loose and I had it you know to stop the track to stop it from rolling off the tracks. A big windstorm came thru and set the sawmill off the tracks. I have a big piece of steel keeping it from rolling. Big upgrade guys are the tracks being able to cut 18-foot-long logs.
is awesome and, I want to show you the old piece. With a good blade this thing can cut thin, and you can cut 1/16th inch pieces off. Just veneer I mean nothing almost paper thin.
Especially with this new track system is smooth all the way. Because it normally when it crosses a different section would be a bump then when you back it out. Same thing, some of the track pieces even had where the transition was you’d even started wearing the aluminum down, so it made the bump even worse.
All right example right here’s one of them with it wore down and that was the end piece. I didn’t cut that and that was where two tracks came together and that’s where the wheel was making that transition and making a bump. It’s no big deal I mean I understand and for what you get for the money for what you get.
Oh wow, this machine has already paid for itself many, many times over. So, this has been an awesome machine after four years and I would do it again. I would buy another one in a heartbeat. It’s a great machine. Hud-Son Forest Equipment Hunter/Sawyer portable sawmill.
Okay guys.
Thanks for watching.
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