The thread about sawing London Plane wood with a swing blade and hitting metal brought this question up.
Here is the thread.....https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php/topic,43696.0/topicseen.html
I know band mill owners usually charge for the price of a band, what about you (us ;)) swingmill folks?
Thanks, Fish
Hi Fish,
Speaking from a Peterson prospective only.
Our hardwood blades have 6 tips, each tip is about $3.70 USD to purchase, then you have your time to weld it on etc.
The good thing is if you only loose one or two tips you can keep milling, and get good boards.
From experience and feedback to send a blade to a saw doctor for re tensioning and re tipping can cost anywhere between $60.00 - $80.00 USD inc frt.
It may well be different for a Lucas though, but hope this helps a little.
Cheers
Lee
It depends on how much the blade has been used (how much life left) and my level of ignorance that led to the metallic strike. Average is $30-$40, I usually "pro rate" for blade use and my level of responsibility for the event.
Captain
I tell customers that I charge $20.00 for metal strikes, but have never actually charged anything. I have only hit metal in customer's logs a couple of times and both were such large jobs and such good people (did all the off bearing and just generally helped out) that I didn't think of charging them. However, I will explain my thinking in coming up with this amount. This will pay to have the blade retipped, but will not pay shipping on the blade. However, I normally send in several blades at once. Most need something done because of my error. I figure the shipping on a blade damaged in a customers log doesn't add that much.
Funny you should ask today... :( >:( :-[ :'(
Took Bo Derek for a drive this morning and wouldn't you know it... ate metal in my first log of the day!!! First bit of metal she has found :( I lost 2 teeth and chipped two more only leaving 1 tooth with both corners still complete. On inspection the two teeth I lost had almost totally been shattered, but there was still a slither of TCT in the pocket, about 0.5mm thick on both teeth, so thinking I would find more metal, and as the pocket was still protected by the TCT, I left the blade on.
I ended up slicing up that first log and 3 more logs for the day before swapping out the blade on the last log of the day. I swapped it for the last log as I was cutting 8.5"x1.5" hardwood boards, so figured it would be nicer on the gear and would give a better quality of board using a good blade.
So yeah you can still cut with them even if you loose some TCT.
This blade (although it has only seen 17 engine hours of life) will go to saw doc and have 5 new tips put on it, tensioned checked and re-tensioned if needed. I don't bother changing 1 or 2 tips on a blade, if it goes to saw doc it comes back as brand new as possible, all new teeth and tensioned properly. I figure I can't tell what stress the other teeth have been under, or see if there is microscopic damage to them, also even though the blade has only had 4 sharpens out of a possible 30 or so, the remaining teeth are 'smaller' than new teeth. So it will cost me around $50AU at my local saw doc (no freight) but he has messed me around a bit with taking a long time, so may have to post it off to someone else and get it done.
Normally I charge the customer the cost of repairing the blade, unless I know it has done a heap of work already, then I will wear the cost, but for this blade, I charged for the full re-tip.
I kind of pro-rate it too. Just by a rough estimate, usually I let it slide unless the blade is new, or they lied about something. (like slipping a yard tree in a woods pile)
Wow I didn't know this was the big draw back to the swingmill, almost like a bandsaw if you have to have a whole new or few blades laying around to be assured you can fininsh the job. At 300 a wack, I'll take my $2.00 inserts and keep on running. Can you even sharpen your blade if it becames dull? If I hit metal which I do sometimes it would cost me a total of $12 if all the inserts need to be replaced. Most of the time it's just a tooth or two and I can just resharpen the rest. Again another great advanced to the Mobil D.
Hitting metal wont always kill the blade. Sometimes you get through it clean, sometimes it will chip one or 2 teeth, sometimes it will wipe them all out ::)
The teeth are easily sharpened while on the mill, and a diamond wheel sharpener and a spare blade come with all the mills. If you make a habit of sawing lag bolts and insulators you can buy a couple more spares. Re-tipping is pretty simple and can be done yourself with a gas torch and simple jig, or any good saw doc can do it cheaply.
Hitting metal is not good for ANY sawmill, not even swingblades are immune to it, but it's not a show-stopper.
Ian
Quote from: NWwoodsman on June 19, 2010, 09:05:08 PM
Wow I didn't know this was the big draw back to the swingmill, almost like a bandsaw if you have to have a whole new or few blades laying around to be assured you can fininsh the job. At 300 a wack, I'll take my $2.00 inserts and keep on running. Can you even sharpen your blade if it becames dull? If I hit metal which I do sometimes it would cost me a total of $12 if all the inserts need to be replaced. Most of the time it's just a tooth or two and I can just resharpen the rest. Again another great advanced to the Mobil D.
NWW, it's not such a drawback, I've only had one job I couldn't finish and that was another miller I was workin for :-X >:(... I took 4 fresh blades with me, middle of the third day, I had one and a half teeth left on 1 of the 4 blades, the other 3 blades where totally toothless. so I left a bit early on that one, there was still around 1 full day cutting left. On my 6-18 I ended up carrying 8 blades due to my local sawdoctor being too slow as far as I was concerned - some blades where taking over 3 weeks to be done, so I needed extra blades to make up for it.
I've been able to sharpen a blade 30 times before it lost so much TCT the cuts wouldn't intersect properly, if need be you can alter the settings a tiny bit to get around this, but I've always had another blade so I don't play around with the settings. Having said this I tend to need re-tips way before the blade gets worn out - it's just the nature of the logs I get to cut, as I said yesterday - 1 log out of 5 had a nail in it, it's been the only metal I've hit for the last 6 months, sometimes it just happens
$12.00 per tooth that is damaged, no matter how used the blade is, (their log + their metal=damage to my saw and they pay)
I've yet to have anyone complain.
woodsteach
Gday
This is a Good topic James ;) ;D 8)
With my pricing in Custom sawing recycled timber & yard trees its built into my price which is $660 au per m3 sawn or $1.55 a bft for Me and the Lucas ;) Me doing debolting/metaling on recycled timber is charged seperatly on an hourly rate plus consumables ;) So it more than covers the odd metal strike ;)
My rate on Pine changes though as its at between $100 and $120 per m3 sawn ( $0.23 to $0.28 cents per bft sawn) but i do like to know where the logs have come from Plantaton and Farm Windbreak logs are fine ;) but i try not to saw any logs from yard trees unless its for a costom job in which case it goes back to $660 ;) :D ;D
Saw maint costs have never realy been an issue for myself though having two Uncles who own a saw shop ;) ;D 8) they usualy just say we'll get it out of you later on which is cutting stuff for them ;) ;D 8) 8)
Now with the Retipping Jig it takes me about 1/2 to 3/4s of an hour to do a full retip at whopping total cost for tips of $11 au per saw plus abit of gas and my time so you might as well say $36 for a full retip if your doing it yourself ;) ;D 8)
Most Blokes with Lucas Mills here are running at between $88 and $110 per hour on Portable Sawmilling work so you can basicly not worry to much if you wipe out a set of teeth on a saw per day which vary rarely happens ;) ;D 8) 8)
With swingers the things that will do the most damage like wipe out a full set of teeth are large and hard like a 1&1/4 bolt ,Auger Bits, horse shoes and things of that nature ;)
Wire fencing , nails and smaller items will generaly knock of just one tooth and maby chip another sometimes you can grind out the damage and still have a full set of teeth
Mild stuff like led shot and bullets generaly make a noise but dont do anything to them most of the time ;) ;D
just watch for staining around the timber as with swing mills you can usualy pick metal before you hit it if your in small sizes if your say cutting a 6' deep cut for 1" boards and you see it in the center to top half of the vertical face shift it over 6 and cut a bearer out of it if your worryed ;) or just ease up on the feed speed around that area and be ready to push the carriage back quickly if you hear that noise ;)
I have 6 saws for the 10-30 and still have 2 new saws and 1 that im keeping with about 1/2 tooth live for sawing hardwood ;) and 3 that i have retipped or about to retip due to hitting two coach bolts at full tilt ;)
Allan In 40hrs of runtime on Lethal Lu ;) :D ;D 8) I have had 4 lite metal stikes in about 25m3 10625 bft of pine and the two heavy stikes in 20m3 8500bft of mixed Ironbark Box and Stringy and recycled bridge & sleeper timber aswell ;)
And I reckon thats not a bad average for a Solo sawyer of 1.125 m3 or 478 bft sawn per hour in target sizes ranging from one order of 4250 bft of 5x1" & 6375 bft of 8x3"x8s in Pine to 26' of 10x1"s to 8x3"s through to 10x10s ;)
there was also about another 2 to 3 m3 (850 to 1275bft )0f recovery sizes but you dont count them do you Mate ;) :D ;D 8) 8) 8) 8)
Regards Chris
I charge $25 for fod (foreign object damage) that damages the blade. That's what it cost me to get the whole blade re-tipped, $5 per tooth. If the the fod causes more damage (like chips the seat, I eat it. If I only lose one tooth then I back off of the $25 charge, but the $25 is up front charge.
I did have a blade that the saw doc wouldn't rebuild because of too extensive damage to the seat. He said it would always be weak and didn't want the liability. It was my own log too. Just under $200 for a new blade for my 8-27 from Baileys.