Large band mills production

[CX3]

I took a trip over to Ellington Missouri and watched 3 large Baker mills do their thing. I am interested in the large bandsaw because of ease of use to operators.  I feel like I could put some guys on one and I could log while they saw. I don't feel like I could leave guys with my circular mill and come back to it in one piece.

The lumber and ties were exceptionally well cut and tight tolerances from the band mills.  The only real downfall I could find was the edger man could smoke a pack of cigarettes between boards. I mean these things are slow. Anybody saying they saw 8000 board feet a day on one must be working 24 hr shifts. I really thought they would zip through a log pretty quick. It was taking in between 9-12 seconds per cut.  My buddies lt40 will do that!

I guess I was looking for a little more production out of a $100,000 mill.

I somehow feel I am missing something or else nobody would have one of these things. I couldn't hardly see that making an extra board ever 7 or 8 cuts would make it worth while. I am still optimistic as I like the accuracy of the machine. But it just looks too slow from the outside looking in.

[JB Griffin]

I run a Dominator for a living and can honestly say that I can saw 10mbf in an 8hr shift. Most of the time thats sawing pine bridge timbers. Sawing oak ties, cants, and grade I average around 5-7mbf, with days I hit as much as 9-10k.

[JB Griffin]

I will also add that my lt40 would be broke into many many useless pieces if I tried  to run it like I do the Dominator.

[CX3]

I would love to hear more about your operation. I would be sawing ties and grade along with custom beams up to 20 ft long or so. All oak

I forgot to mention I felt like the mills I saw could use a more efficient operator if that's a nice enough  way to put it 

[paul case]

The operator can make all the difference.

I have heard Mr Cook say that you can saw a tie from a 15'' log on their mill in 4.5 minutes. So I timed myself on the old LT40 and I can do it in 7 minutes. That is not just 4 cuts as I did cut the side lumber out. I do all my own stacking and such so I cannot keep that 7 minute per tie all day, but if you have the help a tie could be cut every 7 minutes. In 8 hours that would be 68 ties. A bigger machine should do better than that.

Watch this guy.

Wood Mizer WM 4000 production sawing!! - YouTube

He is on track to cut 190 ties in 8 hours. I dont think your edger man would be waiting on boards to edge.

PC

[CX3]

Ok now Paul this is what I was expecting to see happening. I would be extremely happy with that kind of production.

Does anyone think a top hand at the wheel could make one of the larger diesel powered mills turn out close to this video?  I understand they have a 3 phase mill but could a diesel perform near this?

[Percy]

Ok now Paul this is what I was expecting to see happening. I would be extremely happy with that kind of production.

Does anyone think a top hand at the wheel could make one of the larger diesel powered mills turn out close to this video?  I understand they have a 3 phase mill but could a diesel perform near this?

Check this out. 
Running the new mill - YouTube

[paul case]

I think so. It really depends on how the logs are getting to the mill and how the lumber and ties go away from the mill. Same problem with a circle mill like yours. It is just the center piece in a log jam. In order to cut 100 ties per day you must have a good system for loading logs on the mill and dealing with the lumber, slabs, and ties coming off the mill. Those are important to get down. I think the diesel will probably cut as fast as the electric, maybe?  

A guy has also to think about the logs coming in. I think 100 logs would be like 2 1/2 TT loads? To saw that much 4 days a week is a lot of timber. We find for every 20  ties we make more than a ton of slabs and about 600 bdft of side lumber.   That requires some thinkin on how to make it work. After 4 days of sawing 100 ties you would make 2 semi loads of ties, 24000 bdft of side lumber and more than 40 tons of slabs. That is a yard full of stuff.

PC

[4x4American]

You must get bigger logs than I do cause we usually get in about 50 logs on a tri axle.  It's hard being close to two paper mills to get any decent size low grade logs in

[paul case]

Me I just dont like cutting 11'' logs. A 12'' would possibly tie but an 11'' will not. Cutting 11'' logs for a day will pile up more slabs than lumber. SAD.

PC

[nativewolf]

and not everyone has a half dozen 300' long chicken houses to push all the lumber into.   :D

[paul case]

They are 400. We pronounce it ''o v e r k i l l''.

PC

[nativewolf]

They are 400. We pronounce it ''o v e r k i l l''.

PC

English sure is a funny language.  Here we pronounce 400' "J E A L O U S"

[Dave Shepard]

It sounds like J U S T   R I G H T to me.  :D I've always thought a good mill shed should be 30' wide and 900' long. 

[paul case]

May as well make it a thousand or would that be Mfeet long?

PC

[JB Griffin]

Me I just dont like cutting 11'' logs. A 12'' would possibly tie but an 11'' will not. Cutting 11'' logs for a day will pile up more slabs than lumber. SAD.

PC

I can and do cut good ties from 11" logs on a daily basis,  with the right logs I have cut ties from 10.5" logs. Not my favorite but its fast, saw 5 lines and on to the next one. My personal best is 75 ties in a day,  we only sort by species so the tie logs and cant logs are all mixed together. 

[4x4American]

I get in alot of 10"-12" logs.  Heavy at 11".  I can sometimes weasel a tie out of an 11" log but its tight and I find it to be awful slow having to line it up juust right to where I can get my 8" of flat in the rail bearing areas.  my favorite size tie logs are 14" because you don't have to worry about slabbing too heavy you just roll it on and stick the blade in the wood and offya go

[CX3]

I wasn't jealous of Paul Case because of the size of his mill mansion. Only because his wife was stacking slabs when I was there 😁😁😁😁😁

[paul case]

Cant have her, SHE IS MINE!

PC