A trip to D&L Doublecut

[Paul_H]

Headed up to Lac La Hache BC Friday to meet Lindsay from D&L Doublecut and see their operation.I have been wanting to get up there for over a year now but haven't had a chance until now.Lac La Hache is a really nice,close knit community and it brought back good memories of my Summers spent there visiting my cousins in the early 1970's.




I met Lindsay around 11:30 am and he showed me around their factory which is located along Hwy 97 at 112 Mile,tucked in among the Aspen trees in ranching country.I took several pics of the shop/equipment and the mills out in the yard and and met another FF member,Raymond(Doublecutusa) who was up in the area.
Lindsay was called away several times to tend to business while I was there but Raymond took the time to let me see the Syncrosaw slice up a Spruce log.
Lindsay came back and we had a wander throught the boneyard,where some of the prototypes of their resaw and scragg saws are sitting and after an hour or so we figured it would be a good idea to drive over to Lac La Hache and grab a burger for lunch then head over to see the original D&L Doublecut factory.

The Following pics are of the original home of D&L I'll show the modern facilities later



The home of D&L was the back yard of Don Flett and his son Lindsay,located on the shore of Lac La Hache





View from the original shop through the porch on the side of the house.



The covered area in front of the building was their first permanent shop and the rest of the buildings were added on as D&L grew.
I still hadn't met Don yet but from the time I first spoke with Lindsay in the morning at their new factory and even more so at the original homestead,he made it clear that his Dad was a talented inventor/fabricator that would build something from nothing and would constantly improve on his ideas. He said"D&L isn't about me,it's all about my Dad.You've got to meet him later"
I think some pretty good traits and talents rubbed off of Don as him and Lindsay worked together over many years.

In the middle of the last pic is the remenants of one of their first mills that they were tinkering with around 1988. I'll try to post some more pics of the early years in the next day or so before posting the ones of the new,modern facilities.

I'm hoping Lindsay jumps in and tells us more about the early years and prototypes.

[Tom]

You're doing good, Paul (Reporter extraordinaire).  I'm anxious to read about chapter two.    ;D   Don and lindsay should get on here and brag some.   That's quite a success story.   

[Paul_H]

Thanks Tom
Carla and our two little girls came along and I told her before i went in that it only would be an hour and a half at most,then we would head back to 100 Mile House and nose around in some antique stores then a picnic lunch before we headed for home.
But the tour was more of a good visit and Lindsay and Raymond took us all out for lunch and the girls enjoyed playing over at the homestead afterwards.

I owe them a picnic  ;)

[Frank_Pender]

Hey ya, Paul, I know tht guy in the Red shirt for sure.   8)  Hello Lindsey.  Welcome to the Forum via a picture. 

Paul, 100 MIle House does not sound like it did when I was there in 1959 or later in 1981 when Alice, the two boy and I were in the area and caamped on Canem Lake and the McNiel Ranch. 8)

[sawguy21]

I know the Lac La Hache area too. Nice country, great fishing and super people. Don and Lindsay run a nice operation.

[DanG]

Good job, Paul! 8)  Like Tom, I'm looking forward to the next chapter. ;D

I had the pleasure of meeting and chatting with Lindsay at Moultrie, last October.  My impression was, "here is a guy with all his stuff together!"  He was a busy fella, keeping 2 Doublecuts and an Eco-saw going, but found time to be "one of the guys" too. 

Lindsay, bring your Dad with you this year.  I'll bring along an extra lawn chair, and we can kick around a few ideas,  eh?   ;D ;)

[doublecut]

Thanks paul.It was great to have you and your family here. Hey frank.Hi everybody.
Well seems only yesturday that we got started in this business and here we are in our 10th year of manufacturing .Our family has been in the sawmilling ,building and owning business for over 50 years.
The prototypes, well where do we start. We are always into  R&D .We have alot of ideas to offer that i haven't seen any where in the world.
We first spent quite some time on the twin saw models to let them sit as we moved on to another idea my father had . He would get one built then on to the next. As his mind was constantly going.
One of the first mills was built to be able to lift the log to the saw (smaller logs to 16" to 20' length) The carriage had a chainsaw bar which was run with a verticle shaft  20h.p engine.It also had 2 small circular saws blades that sawed in front of the chainsaw bar to edge the lumber that was being cut by the chain saw bar.A different idea . We only sold a few of those before we then changed the chain saw bar to a circular saw which was direct drive and was moved horizontally to be able to saw from either side of the log. This option allow for faster cutting and to cut a good size of log with a small circular saw.
The request and demand for more production and larger diameter logs moved us to further the Twinsaw design. We did take a year to build and test a band saw but that never did take off for our company.
My dad was a constant thinker. We would needed a metal chop saw he built one from a skill saw.We would need a cement mixer he built one from a old washing machine.
I can remember piling lumber when i was 9 years old from of the mills that he owned. A green 2x6 20' long that weighed more than i did. I asked how much lumber he sawed  and his response was he quite counting after 3 million ties (7x9) that pieces, and 50 million board feet.
I have some 10 years of video of all the prototypes that he built before we started manufacturing 10years ago. Our R&D have produced designs now that we can't get to as we are so busy with current production. One is a circular horizontal resaw. My dad's health has progressively worsened and  he removed himself from the business and retired 2 years ago. He and I still  draw up ideas as he lives with us here now right behind our plant. It is up to myself now to do the manufacturing of the proto types as he has a hard time to walk.  
I run the business now but always refer  to it as his.
From 1985 to start of production 1995 we spent in the R&D of sawmills. Some very trying times. We are the only manufactures of this style of mill in the world which we are very proud of.  
It has been the circular design that has been our main focus and has done well for us.We have over 450 machines in the field now right across canada and the usa.
We are working on a completely new design for high production to be released early next year . We are a family run business  with 15 employees and growing.
I wished i had more time and must appologise for not getting on the forum more often but after 16 hours I'm looking for my bed.
We plan to do the Moultri Geargia show as well as the shoot out in ohio.We really hope to meet more of the forum members there as well.
Thanks Again Paul and to everybody else.
I will try to be on the forum more often
doublecut

[DanG]

Thanks for that interesting history of D&L, Lindsay.  Your Dad sounds a bit like my Dad....need a grinder, by an arbor and build it from that, a 2x4 and a washing machine motor. ;D :D  He's more of an artist type, though.  He does one piece based on an idea, then he's through with it, having proven that it works.  Move on to the next idea. :

Look forward to seeing you in Ohio, and again in Moultrie.

[Paul_H]

proto type feed drive for early sawmill.Don told me what model this mill evolved into but I can't remember which one it was,other than he was experimenting around 1988.



3rd addition to the original shop was this painting booth


This was the main shop and there is still a frame jig sitting under the metal.Lindsay,how about hopping in and explaining how this,became this...





and this

[doublecut]

Well the first pic is from the original friction feed system that my dad built and to try out the original twinsaw.I think we built some 6 models before going to market. It had a 110v motor and it was run with a hard phenolic wheel. Built with parts of what he had.
The 3rd pic is the expansion we did which  gave us a 41ft of bay to be able to build the longer trailers in.We put in cement and thought that was the greatest.
The 4th pic is of the main shop where we built one of our earlier models circular doublecut cuts.We sold over 30 of those machines and built them on the jig that is now baried with well stuff.Can't say junk as dad has attachement to all of it. We ran our welders over head which we still do today.
The remaining pics show our plant now and some equipement we have , our machine shop where we have 2 machinist going full time and our truck which we use to get our equipment to the shows.
The new facility has really helped our production and exposure.We are located right on the major hwy heading to alaska. I was born and raised here and find it hard to find a prettier place to live.
We are in the process of aquiring more land across the road from us to start another plant to increase our production. We are also looking at doing another expansion of our currrent facility.
I wished i had more time to get to more shows to meet more people and our customers but as busy as we are i just can't get away.
I did manage to get away and do as show in braselton georgia at our dealers ron rogers and had a few of our customers come down where i was able to meet them.I find that one of the most satisfying parts of this job is being able to meet alot od good people.
Mr. ed showalter came down form virginia and we had a nice visit.A few others i have done business with that i have talked on the phone and finally recieved the chance to meet.

The prototypes shown in the first pic was mostly dismantled to make room for expansion.I will see if i can round up some video of the older mills we tried and some pics from them to put on here.Thanks again i really enjoy the forum
DOUBLECUT

[doublecut]

I should mention that th friction feed shown in the first pic worked in principle like the old feed works in the head saw days with the car tire. Pull back on the handle and that was forward push and that was reverse. So dad had used the same shaft to run both forward and reverse.
Just for the head saw users in the crowd
DOUBLECUT

[Jeff]

I'm looking forward to the Shootout. We'll get to meet Lindsay and get to see the Ecosaw in action that D&L Doublecut is manufacturing. 8)

[Paul_H]

Here are a couple of pictures of Doublecuts first resaw.It will take a 8" cant and the kerf is 3/16".


The cants are fed from the operators station(far end) and pass through the saw on the left side of the pic and are flipped by the person on this end and are sent back through the saw on the other side(right side of pic)





I only took one pic of the scragg saw.My camera is kind of fake-aloo and it won't let me take wide angle shots.

[doublecut]

Some more proto types. We tried alot of things. But that was part of the fun. Hey jeff we may have to get paul a new camera? Just kiddin.Your pics were excellent. We hope to have the resaw up and running by late summer.  We were designing it for the pallett industry as a economical machine to run with high productivety.
The scragg was to be combined with the resaw for the smaller logs 14" and down in  diameter to 12' long. The 2 mill together we thought would make a good combination. We have also were testing 2 blades on sawing at once. It worked pretty good but still in the testing.
We used 2 blades on our twinsaw models .We cut 2 1x10's at once. That was pretty amasing.We cut about 5000bdft like that. It really sped up production and It sure made the mill alot louder!
We have the resaw patent pending right now and that is a always a process in ahalf.
We  are surely excited about coming to the shoot out. And we hope to see everybody there.
We should startt a thread and have everybody that is coming sign it so we see who is coming?
How about it!
doublecut

[Paul_H]

Raymond (Doublecutusa) was busy sharpening teeth on the Syncro Saw when I first went out in the yard to look around.I believe it is a Baby Jolly sharpener and it has a jig that slides onto a pin on the frame.There is another pin over by the edger as well and it looked to be a pretty good setup.







Then Raymond fired up the Syncro and finished off a Spruce log that was sitting on the deck.







That machine made my old 127 MD look sick.The Syncro blasted through the log cutting 1x6 at a good clip.I checked the boards to see what kind of finish they had and they were clean.There is a gauge on the crossfeed as well that is adjustable and allows for kerf.





Hydraulic dogging system on the Syncro saw.

[doublecut]

Hey ray you look like a real lumber jack sawyer standing there
doublecut

[doublecutusa]

Thanks Paul!  I would not go so far as a "real sawyer" there Lindsay, but I am pleased to report that I made it back to Montana with ALL my fingers and toes! :D  If you are a red-neck transplanted from Louisiana, that's important if you ever need to pick your nose! : It was a good visit.  Each time I am around the products, (now going on 5 years), it is encouraging to see both the stability and the progress.  It does not look promising for my attendance in Ohio BUT I will be in the small PA town of Mifflintown on the 25th of June for a demonstration of a new mill delivered there.  I am looking forward to the Moultrie show as well and DanG thanks for keeping up.  Lindsay, it was good to see your Dad.  Thanks to all at the forestry forum for the venue.  It is an astounding resource.   8)

[DanG]

Well shucks, Raymond.  I was hopin' Lindsay would drag you along to Ohio with him.  I didn't get in near enough visitin' time at Moultrie last year.  I've about taught them Peterson folks all I know about sawmillin', though, so I plan to get around more this time. ;D

[doublecut]

I think ray will be at the moultrie show again this year and we sure look forward to havin ya there with us .
doublecut

[DanG]

Somethin' really really bad gotta happen to make me miss the Moultrie show!   I'd like to lay my hands on your big mill and make a couple of boards with it.  I wuz gonna go up to Ron Rogers' place for the demo day, but didn't get the word till it was all over. :'(  Oh well, I got a sister-in-law near there and we're about due for a visit.  Thought I'd go over and see Ron at that time. ;D

[Gilman]

DoubleCut,
If you ever have those videos edited into a documentary, put me first on the list of buying one.  I love the process of invention.

[doublecut]

You bet .We are working at it now will keep you informed.
doublecut