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Started by Coalsmoke, November 21, 2009, 01:24:34 PM

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captain_crunch

Been doing more listening than talking :-\ Been around logging most of my life but milling is all new to me so I been reading a lot. My mill is more Nostalga than production So I put it on a site where there was a mill in the early 40's here on home place. Sawing logs skidded with same model IH cat on same ground as back then. Piped up when I seen C_S's post to let him know he was not the only newbe
Brian
M-14 Belsaw circle mill,HD-11 Log Loader,TD-14 Crawler,TD-9 Crawler and Ford 2910 Loader Tractor

Coalsmoke

Smoke someone out, me, nawwwww, never, just create a little mosquito repellent is all :D

Captain crunch, you say your mill is more nostalgia than production, but I suspect it could hold its own just fine with that hungry crew of yours working it. I'll say this much, this is my first year on a bandmill. To me, this is production, especially when compared to the chainsaw mills I had before. Measure twice cut once really takes on a new meaning when a single cut takes 10 + minutes, but it will make a person a decent sawyer first if he wants to avoid re-working a bunch of timber due to stupid mistakes.
Visit Coalsmoke's website at www.coalsmoke.com

2008 Norwood Lumber Mate 2000 with Honda 20HP engine.
White 2-60 Field Boss > 65HP Tractor with loader.
Husky Chainsaws 353 and 395XPG heavily modified.
Loving wife who endorses all of the above :)

captain_crunch

C_S
An Alaskan Mill be just a jump ahead of two guys and a misery whip. We could proably get quite a pile thru the mill ifn I could get CREW all in one pile at once :-\ :-\ but Jered has 97 cummins to play with. Kristen has her dirt bike and Shorty is bow hunting. So ole Dad is kinda a one man band. Other limiting factor is I saw up a log then I seem to have to nail the boards up on mill shed ;) ;) ;) So till I run out of nails there are not any boards left to sell >:( >:( I have been around the older mighty mites and mobile deminsion mills. Where they had edgers a 6ft log were not a challange for them. Sawyer just needed a ladder to run saw. I like the sand saw concept but at 2000.00 for the bellsaw set up on trailer with roof and in sawing shape I went with it. Check your Email and see if the pics I sent you came thru
Brian
M-14 Belsaw circle mill,HD-11 Log Loader,TD-14 Crawler,TD-9 Crawler and Ford 2910 Loader Tractor

Brucer

Hi, Coalsmoke, and a belated welcome.

I bought a manual LT40G28 in 2005, complete with the log deck package (and a Logrite mill special cant hook :) ). A hydraulic mill would have been nice, but I didn't have the bucks. I had a pretty lean first year but it started to pick up in the last half and then got totally out of hand, so ...

One year after I bought the manual mill I sold it and bought an LT40HDG28. I had to borrow to buy it, but I had no trouble getting a bank loan. With a year's experience and a proper set of accounts it was easy to write up a simple business plan to justify the loan.

Selling the "old" mill was no problem. As soon as I told WoodMizer the loan was approved, they started referring potential customers to me. Got the loan approval on Wednesday, got a call from a serious buyer on Friday, demoed (and sold) the mill on Saturday, delivered it on Monday on my way to Salmon Arm, picked up the new mill on Tuesday and was sawing again on Wednesday.

Some people told me I should've bought the hydraulic mill to start with. Thing is, I didn't have enough business in that first year to make the payments. One year later I had a steady income -- enough to pay off a 5 year loan in 20 months.

Bruce    LT40HDG28 bandsaw
"Complex problems have simple, easy to understand wrong answers."

Coalsmoke

Quote from: captain_crunch on November 25, 2009, 01:37:49 AM
C_S
An Alaskan Mill be just a jump ahead of two guys and a misery whip. We could proably get quite a pile thru the mill ifn I could get CREW all in one pile at once :-\ :-\ but Jered has 97 cummins to play with. Kristen has her dirt bike and Shorty is bow hunting. So ole Dad is kinda a one man band. Other limiting factor is I saw up a log then I seem to have to nail the boards up on mill shed ;) ;) ;) So till I run out of nails there are not any boards left to sell >:( >:( I have been around the older mighty mites and mobile deminsion mills. Where they had edgers a 6ft log were not a challange for them. Sawyer just needed a ladder to run saw. I like the sand saw concept but at 2000.00 for the bellsaw set up on trailer with roof and in sawing shape I went with it. Check your Email and see if the pics I sent you came thru
Brian

Hey Brian, got the pics, thanks. That misery whip reminded me of a story I read about BC logging history. Late 1800s: A sawmill company hand cut with misery whips enough wood to build a steam ship so they could float all the parts for their steam mill up the river. BTW, Have you ever seen that video documentary "alone in the wilderness." What Dick can do with a handsaw and elbow grease is impressive. I figured if you haven't seen it you might enjoy it. One of my favourites.
Visit Coalsmoke's website at www.coalsmoke.com

2008 Norwood Lumber Mate 2000 with Honda 20HP engine.
White 2-60 Field Boss > 65HP Tractor with loader.
Husky Chainsaws 353 and 395XPG heavily modified.
Loving wife who endorses all of the above :)

Coalsmoke

Quote from: Brucer on November 25, 2009, 02:39:25 AM
Hi, Coalsmoke, and a belated welcome.

I bought a manual LT40G28 in 2005, complete with the log deck package (and a Logrite mill special cant hook :) ). A hydraulic mill would have been nice, but I didn't have the bucks. I had a pretty lean first year but it started to pick up in the last half and then got totally out of hand, so ...

One year after I bought the manual mill I sold it and bought an LT40HDG28. I had to borrow to buy it, but I had no trouble getting a bank loan. With a year's experience and a proper set of accounts it was easy to write up a simple business plan to justify the loan.

Selling the "old" mill was no problem. As soon as I told WoodMizer the loan was approved, they started referring potential customers to me. Got the loan approval on Wednesday, got a call from a serious buyer on Friday, demoed (and sold) the mill on Saturday, delivered it on Monday on my way to Salmon Arm, picked up the new mill on Tuesday and was sawing again on Wednesday.

Some people told me I should've bought the hydraulic mill to start with. Thing is, I didn't have enough business in that first year to make the payments. One year later I had a steady income -- enough to pay off a 5 year loan in 20 months.



Hi Bruce, thanks for the info. That position you started off in is the same position I am in now. Trying to do things in a methodical order. I'm also paying off loans from my post secondary education. Down to about $45K left.

I went back and found some of your posts on the LT40 manual mill to try and get a feel for the mill's capabilities. I appreciate that you told it like it was, not downplaying its effectiveness or suitability for that stage in your sawing career.

My biggest question I have been thinking through these past couple of months is, would I as a 1 person non-mobile sawyer be better to upgrade to a LT40 manual mill in the coming year and run it for a few years before going to hydraulic, or, should I stick with the Norwood LM2000 I have now, (20HP manual bandmill) and work it for a few years until I can afford to roll the extra money into a hydraulic mill. Now, where did I stick that crystal ball. :P
Visit Coalsmoke's website at www.coalsmoke.com

2008 Norwood Lumber Mate 2000 with Honda 20HP engine.
White 2-60 Field Boss > 65HP Tractor with loader.
Husky Chainsaws 353 and 395XPG heavily modified.
Loving wife who endorses all of the above :)

John_Haylow

Welcome to the forum Coalsmoke. Lots of good people here.
John
2004 Wood-Mizer LT40HDG28

Hilltop366

Hi Coalsmoke and welcome.

I was wondering if you ever thought about adding hydraulics to the sawyou have, even just to load clamp and turn the log would speed up things a lot, I know I spend more time doing those things than cutting with my home built csm, I tried a guys LM for a bit once and found that it raised and lowered quite easy and almost pulled itself through the log, so I figure log handleing would be where the time and back savings would be. I also see by your great web site that you seem to have the talent for those kind of things. It looks like a lot the great folks on here seem to like the 2 plane clamp and the chain turner set up best. Could be run 12v electric hyd, a small 4 or 5 hp gas engine with hyd pump or 110v hyd if you are setup near a power supply and not wanting to go mobile. Just some ideas,

Cheers

customsawyer

Don't forget there are alot of used mills out there you might be able to get a good used hyd. mill for about the same as a manual. I just bought a LT 70 used from WoodMizer with less than 600 hours on it for about $15,000 off of a new one.
Two LT70s, Nyle L200 kiln, 4 head Pinheiro planer, 30" double surface Cantek planer, Lucas dedicated slabber, Slabmizer, and enough rolling stock and chainsaws to keep it all running.
www.thecustomsawyer.com

nas

As you can probably imagine, I agree with customsawyer.  I don't think an LT40 manual is a big enough step up from your Norwood.  Save your money until you can find an hydraulic mill in your price range.  I paid less than half the new price for my LT40 with a sharpener and setter and no tax 8)13% in Ontario >:(. 

Nick
Better to sit in silence and have everyone think me a fool, than to open my mouth and remove all doubt - Napoleon.

Indecision is the key to flexibility.
2002 WM LT40HDG25
stihl 066
Husky 365
1 wife
6 Kids

Coalsmoke

Thanks guys for the welcome and the opinions. The info is appreciated. Hilltop, I certainly have thought about that, at least just adding a hydraulic log turner and clamp, but I think as has been mentioned that for the time and cost involved, I would be better to just find a used hydraulic mill. My main thoughts at this point are, is a larger mill a wise payoff for someone in my position, and if so, at what point (in terms of increasing production) does it make sense to upgrade. Here's what I mean...

I find, (as I'm sure many other 1 man sawmills find) I only spend a portion of the day with the blade in the wood. I spend a fair bit of time pulling logs out of the log decks and taking them to the mill, pulling boards off and stacking them, trimming logs to length, dealing with the mill byproducts like firewood, sawdust, woodchips, dealing with customers, etc etc. This to some degree makes me wonder how much production increase in the overall daily picture I would see by going to a larger mill, considering that I am a 1 person outfit. I definitely like the idea of hydraulics for the larger logs, but most of my logs are mostly 15 - 24", quite manageable with a peavey. If I upgraded to a LT40 hydraulic lets say, I might go from the 200 bd feet per hour I get sawing 2x6s with my Norwood to 300 bd ft sawing the same wood with a LT40HD28. However, I find currently I only average 100bd ft an hour when looking at the overall daily average, because the other half of my time is spent doing everything else associated with running a mill. The 100bd ft / hour increase I would see from the upgrade to a LT40HD28 would maybe only be 50 bd ft and hour over the day.  Maybe the margin would be even less than this, or maybe more. I've never run a hydraulic mill so I'm not sure.

What I did do though was time some of my cuts this morning. With my Norwood with the 20HP Honda, cutting 6" wide Douglas Fir and a blade that already has about 2 hours of cutting on it, I am consistently traveling around 1 foot per second, or 60 feet per minute through the wood. Anyone with a Woodmizer in the LT40 range have any cutting speed numbers they can compare this with?

Thanks for the great forum. It's nice being able to find other sawyers who have done the small scale commercial production before and know what they speak of. :)
Visit Coalsmoke's website at www.coalsmoke.com

2008 Norwood Lumber Mate 2000 with Honda 20HP engine.
White 2-60 Field Boss > 65HP Tractor with loader.
Husky Chainsaws 353 and 395XPG heavily modified.
Loving wife who endorses all of the above :)

Brucer

Quote from: Coalsmoke on November 27, 2009, 05:11:35 PM
I find, (as I'm sure many other 1 man sawmills find) I only spend a portion of the day with the blade in the wood. I spend a fair bit of time pulling logs out of the log decks and taking them to the mill, pulling boards off and stacking them, trimming logs to length, dealing with the mill byproducts like firewood, sawdust, woodchips, dealing with customers, etc etc. This to some degree makes me wonder how much production increase in the overall daily picture I would see by going to a larger mill, considering that I am a 1 person outfit.

Yep, that's exactly the issue that many folks overlook. Increase your sawing output by 10%, and all those other things increase by 10% as well.

I was lucky -- when I upgraded the mill my customer's employees were taking care of most of the side activities. Now I'm running entirely independent and have to do it all myself. But the mill is paid for.

What I'm doing right now is finding better and faster ways to do the non-sawing tasks. Some examples:

  • I just finished a season using third-generation slab racks. Each version was made from wood. I've finally got it right, so this winter I'll be building a couple of new racks out of metal.
  • My timber outfeed table worked great for two years, when it was "someone else's" job to take away lifts of timbers. Now I have to assemble and store multiple orders. Since my loader is rented by the engine hour, I've redesigned the outfeed table so I can use it to move timbers to different piles.
  • I rearranged my slab and side-lumber handling methods this past years. It works a lot better, but I figured out that I can still improve it, so new fixtures are in the works this winter.

Of course there's a couple of other factors to consider as well. Can your log sources keep up with a higher demand? Can your markets handle extra supply (including the by-product markets)?
Bruce    LT40HDG28 bandsaw
"Complex problems have simple, easy to understand wrong answers."

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