I'm not a mechanic so I bought new. Turns out I should have been a mechanic. A mill that was supposed to have a 48" cut capacity showed up with 44" max between the blade guides. I asked the dealer(Timberworks Forestry Equipment) about the blade flutter and he assured me that was normal for the bigger blades. Dumb me excited about my new bigger mill let it slide. A retro-fit was made to get the 48" cut and the dealer came back and cobbled it on. It didn't account for the lift chain which would end up skipping a tooth making the head un-level. Another retro-fit was made and sent for me to install. The blade flutter continued to worsen to the point of bolts vibrating out of the muffler mount and set screws coming loose on drive pulleys. With videos emailed to them there was minimal concern at the manufacturer and I was passed around being given different things to try. I did finally get it minimized enough I could make some cuts. Now with 75hours on the engine(well over half being idle hours trying to diagnose problems) I'm shut down again with something broke in the carbuerator. This is the clif-notes..
Lucky me either gets to tear the carb off and take it to have warranty work done or pay the mileage/time for the closest shop to come here.

Almost forgot. As we were setting it up the bolts that tension the power-feed(I didn't realize it then) were dragging on the concrete. The dealer asked for a side-grinder... After making a few cuts I was having to push harder and harder. When I called he told me he calls it more of a "power assist" than a power feed. Lucky me got to find new bolts and the angle irons he had chucked to the side and put it back together.

Get you a
LENOX TENSION METER and a torque wrench, always keep the tension bolt lubricated as this does effect torque setting. Tthis is used to set the blade to it's proper tension. EVERY blade type and brand have a different ideal setting and I recommend asking the maker the blade psi specs...the thumping, pushing,pulling setting is not a correct but a guess tension.ONCE I started tensioning a new brand with the meter and watching the torque setting I was able to consistantly set with only the torque wrench spec. I was a Hud-Son dealer at one time. Some things I loved others....oh well!!!! I now own a COOKS sawmill 52"....better balanced set-up BUT they have issues also. I've tweaked most of mine out.....# 1 is blade brand, I use Munkfors from Kenne-saw, ask for Robert. After hours of adjusting and adjusting my brand new saw with cooks blades, robert sent me 2 blades and it corrected the issues of diving and rising. They do set at a higher psi.

NO a blade shouldn't flutter (new anyway). Cooks has a great write up on trueing your saw. I used it when I had my Hud-son farmboss and made huge improvements.

once you have it running true you'll enjoy sawing!!!!

Check out my website....it does need to be updated as I haven't got to saw in a year and half due to a new to me house and putting my own updates to it.

Happy sawing!!! I did saw a 44" double crotch spalted maple today.....it still runs!!!

Really sorry to hear of your ordeals, Rastus. I talked with Hudson a couple of times when I was researching which (30" log) mill to buy. I never got comfortable with their blade tracking and tensioning arrangement, although many have said they have no issues. I went a different route. Good luck getting it sorted out.

John .

Thanks Tim. I've heard of these tensioners and will check in to them more. After dozens and then some hours of trying numerous things I did finally get the blade to run mostly flutter free. There is still some vibration that causes the adjustable blade guide to move forward and back on the blade that I haven't figured out yet. Mostly just need to go through and check tightness on every bolt to make sure nothing else comes apart. Just very frustrating that its acceptable to send it out of the factory with blade flutter and let the customer who spent a mid level car chunk of change figure it out.

Rastus, I feel your pain as I've been through new unnecessary adjustments with both brands new from factory BUT there are MANY factors to ALL blades running correct, some from factory OR from shipping.....ALWAYS set-up and adjust with a new blade (NOT used on several logs first). 1) first major adjustment without guides touching is to set tracking and blade plane to deck(Cooks sales a guide for that also) on the band wheels. This just gets everything on a true line. Normally you need a slight bandwheel tilt forward due to tension changes as mill runs and blade flexes while operating. 2) depending on your guide setup you make proper adjustments for their settings next.

EVEN with my differences with Cooks with my mill, I still HIGHLY recommend anyone with a mill to go to Cooks website and download their guide to correctly adjusting the sawhead and blade tracking. This is critical to any brand saw or blade. I used it on my Hud-son Farmboss with great results....the little tweaks make huge differences.

If you and I have the same definition, blade flutter is caused in a new machine, with good bearings and straight shafts, by an oscillation or harmonic frequency of the blade. The blade itself has its own frequency, which we can hear when you tap a blade lightly with a hammer. Generally, we want as high a frequency as possible to avoid the harmonic frequency. This frequency changes lower as the blade heats; changes higher as the space between the guides or supports is less, and gets higher as the speed increases. Further, we can change the frequency, making it higher, if we tension a blade, usually dome today with a roller that puts a little curve in the blade front to back, but in the past was done by hammering. The amount of curve depends on the speed of the band. Finally, we can add tension to the blade, raising the frequency; tension is added by stretching the blade by moving the wheels a bit further apart.

Blade heating during the cut causes a quick lower of tension and the blade wants to cut wavy. For this reason, wider tooth spacing is often good, and a good feed speed of the log or can’t. This prevents fine sawdust, which can spill out of the gullet and cause heating. To counteract heating, oftentimes cold water, or sometimes a homemade lube, is dribbled aggressively on the tooth edge of the blade.

So, in your case, change the rpms if you can and use cold water on the tooth edge. You might also find that a different blade manufacturer, with different thickness, gullet, spacing, etc. will fix your problem.