LT 300 WM info needed

[Quebecnewf]

Anyone out there running one of these LT 300 woodmizers. We are looking for a new mill and are gathering info. What are your opnions good or bad regarding this mill. How would it compare speed wise to say a Kara sawmill both sawing the same softwoods and both mills set up with proper infeed tables and outfeed tables. I know the yeild is far better because of the band blade but at the end of the 8 hour day which mill would have produces the most brd feet .

Paul

Note this would be full time sawing operation. I guess what I,m asking is which would you pick to win a shootout with both speed and yield factored in?  Sorry about the long question

[Bibbyman]

FiremanEd has one.  But he's not on the forum but every once in a while.


Here is a link to his profile. 

https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php?action=profile;u=1682

He's got his e-mail address on there.

You may be interested in some of his post too.  You can get to them thru his profile.

[FiremanEd]

Hi Paul,

   I've got a LT300, had it up and running a little over 6 months. I haven't got any circle mill experience so I won't try to compare the two. As the 300 comes set up w/ the infeed deck, conveyer and transfer deck I love it. We saw primarily railroad ties/timbers and 4/4 flooring material. SMWWoody just moved down from N.W. Pa to run it for me full time. He just finished his second week and is getting the hang of it REAL quick. We haven't done any real checking on his production rates yet but before he got moved down I was averaging 5+mbf/day running the saw and running the operation. With 2 of us there to keep things moving I expect to average in the 6-7mbf/day and actually think we can approach 8 when things are running good. I've heard quotes of 10k/day but I just don't see how to do that in oak. Maybe in pine or poplar, cutting cants.
    The design of the machine is truely simplicity at work. It is very simple to maintain and operate while being more than heavy duty enough. We've been banging 20+" x 14' logs around on it (makes me nervous as heck) and I checked it last week to find that everything was with/in <1/16" of perfect. All components are simple to access, adjust and replace if required. The material flow is great. They will give lots of help in layout of the building and support equipment. They have several pre-canned layouts that all look good to me and will use their CAD program to customize any layout you can dream up.
    Overall, I absolutely love this mill. If you've never dealt with Wood-Mizer I'll only say that you've missed out. From farming, logging, firefighting, paramedicing and sawyering I've NEVER dealt with a company who is so customer service oriented. Their customer service guys, who know me by name will spend as long as is needed to fix your problem. Even if it's not their machines fault (not that I've used that service.....) and they sound like they're smiling when they finally say good-bye. All of their techs have run every orange WM mill and several have run the 300 extensively. If your question is LT300 specific they quickly transfer you to one of the guys w/ extensive 300 experience.
    I haven't sawed more than a few pine or poplar logs at any one time so I really have no good feel of what we can put out / day in softwoods but I'm confident that if I do my part in machine setup we'd be able to approach 10k/day. We may be doing a few days of poplar next month, if oak keeps slipping. If so I'll get back with you.
    Drop me a note direct if you have any other questions or give me a call, cell 804-690-1007 (US) anytime.

Good luck either way.

Ed

PS: I feel honored that Bibbyman notices how often I'm online    I usually get online on the nights when I"m working at the firehouse Bibby.

[tnlogger]

 Ed glad to hear everything rolling along good for you. I was wondering how SW was doing, figured
he fell in love with the LT 300 and was sleeping with it. :D

[D._Frederick]

Q,

I have seen the LT300 being run at shows and have not seen the Kara but in a video. The circle saws with over 100hp will have at least two times the sawing speed going thru the log as a narrow band. If sawing speed is what you want, go with a circle mill, if you are sawing high value logs then a band will make sense. The Kara uses about a 0.25 saw kurf and the narrow band about 0.080 inches.

In a Shoot-out the Kara will be first in speed and the 300 in recoverage,but the Kara will be the leader overall.

[FiremanEd]

Ed glad to hear everything rolling along good for you. I was wondering how SW was doing, figured
he fell in love with the LT 300 and was sleeping with it. :D

I think he's enjoying himself. I know I'm enjoying having a good sawyer running the mill so I can run the business. Didn't realize how much of a time constraint it was to have to work phone calls and minor projects in during lunch and after "quiting time" (is there such a thing?)   I'm starting to catch up on calls and projects. Woody's doing great, he caught onto the funky joysticks much quicker than I and is really getting the hang of it. It's nice to be able to leave the mill and not worry about production dropping. For those that don't know Woody, either on here or in person, he's a great guy and top notch sawyer. We haven't done any real measure of production yet as he's just aproaching the top of the nearly vertical learning curve, on this mill, but production is going good. Now, if we could just get some $ for the lumber....

[D._Frederick]

Q.,

There was a SHOOT-OUT of this style circle saw that SAWMILL & WOODLOT magazine had back in 2000 or 2001 time frame, check there back issues.  They had a LAIMET mill which is the same design type as the KARA.