I Built DaVinci's Saw Mill

I have a few constructive criticisms: 1) the transit of your saw frame suffers enough slop that it's actually making an orbital reciprocation. Your cut will suffer from this motion. 2) the tooth geometry of your saw should be revisited. It looks to me that the teeth are filed in a crosscut pattern with a VERY relaxed rake. If you want to rip cut a log (and do so with any kind of speed) then you need to refile your teeth to a rip pattern with a somewhat aggressive rake angle. 3) your results would benefit from ensuring that the saw engages in the cut on the down stroke.

You could always try replacing the water wheel with a walking wheel, which while a lot more manual than a waterwheel, might help you test things while you tweak the design.

I think a new blade would be the biggest improvement. With asymmetric teeth you could get them sharper for a more effective cut

You need a splash guard! All that water will make the components swell and bind. The extra humidity itself will change how the pieces fit together.

Fun fact: Leonardo hated being referred to as "of Vinci" because that's just the town he was orphaned in.

Super cool to see the amount of engineering and joinery being applied. This channel has been through so much, and come so very very far. ❤

A fantastic build! Watching you cut wooden gears with a saw made me think that as you approach the 19th century you're going to be challenged by the most important single invention, the one which the entire Industrial Revolution depends on - the straight, accurate lead screw. Without that you don't get machine lathes and all the things that follow from them from screws to precision gear cutting to all the rest.

Hard to believe Leonardo designed this all while filming for Titanic. Truly inspiring!

The problem with over, is the amount of extreme amount of water spray... swells up all the other wood. It's very impressive that you did build what you built. I only suggest that you look to modify it to use a river run below the wheel. As most (old) mills ran spring to late autumn by having channels divert water and in some cases were able to modify the height of their primary or secondary wheels to account for change in river runs depths. Very few (that I've read about) changed the pitch of blades or bucket scoops. Lastly, there's a significant amount of slop allowing for rotation in your sleds. With cross-bracing and/or oil-soaked rope bindings, you can eliminate that movement and likely will keep the sawmill from shaking itself apart. Best of luck and looking forward to seeing this in April/May of next year.

Can't decide which I'm most impressed with: the successful completion, the ingenuity, or the sheer dedication it took? Congrats!

When building structures like the frame, some diagonal support elements really add a lot of stability to it. Love your series and how you keep going

The feed rate is very ambitious for that blade. Overall this looks fairly well done for a first try. Three things I'd change is the pitch of the teeth on the blade, the rate of feed, and a better crank for the saw head by narrowing the distance between the blocks instead of using string as a keeper for the crank arm. Also, if size was not an issue, some of these mills would have a large enough wheel to fit animals or people on the inside to allow for walking to be the power source.

if you replace the rachet with just a weight pulling down, you would be able to adjust and stabilize the pressure on the saw. All in all i love seeing this idea continue to progress!

A proper saw blade would help. Currently you have points that just rub the wood away, try to slant the teeth in one uniform direction to actually cut it.

Out of curiosity, have you refined your saw sharpening skills? Good sawtooth shaping will make far more difference to the machine’s performance than anything else.

Pretty cool, drop sand bags on the base to firm it up. And make sure the machine is super rigid. When hand sawing, if your wood/fixture isn't locked down it is a PITA to cut. You could also use spikes to rigidly mount the log to the sled. Something similar to dogs on a wood working bench, but with spikes at a 90-degree angle to stick into the log and lock it in.

I don’t know if it would be the right fit for your channel, but I’d love to see follow up episodes about optimizing or re-designing these projects to make them more than just a proof of concept

back in 1996 I made one with a round saw blade direct connected to the water wheel with a driveshaft. It worked great.

I've seen you crystallize sugar in your kitchen. This is a major milestone. What strikes me is that you usually end with a summary of everything thats is left undone and your observarions of faults in the design and execution of your project. This drives you to improve, i get it. But every once in a while, when you reach a milestone like this, don't forget to stop and reflect. Awesome job mate! loving it! Can't wait to see what you decide to do next!

realizing how effecient it works with a low pressure garden hose has me blown away! Know what I'm building next summer for myself!