The Rock Island Lumber Co. Eldon, Mo.

Bibbyman · April 03, 2006, 11:16:09 PM

On a nasty day a couple of weeks ago Mary and I did a "drive-about". We went to Eldon, MO. to an Amish store there. As we had some more time to kill, I remembered there was a sawmill in town. Literally in town. We'd known about it as it has a Wood-Mizer LT300 setup. We'd stopped in before but it was a holiday and they were not open.

Anyway, as we were about to pull off the street onto a big vacant lot an approaching white Dakota turned around and headed back in the direction of where we remembered the sawmill being. As luck would have it, we followed the Dakota right to the building housing the LT300.

Mike Raynor of Rock Island Lumber Company stepped out of the Dakota and we introduced ourselves. He had heard of us (good things I hope) and welcomed us to take a tour of his mill.

The center piece of his operation is a Wood-Mizer LT300 with infeed deck, conveyor and outfeed separator system. He used an edger and built other power rollers and green chain from a sawmill operation he previously had.

Out on his log lot he has a debarker setup. I could see a clear advantage to debarking the logs before they inter the mill. It sure makes it easier to make a good opening face and it keeps everything a lot cleaner.

Four guys run the mill while Mike runs everything else. He's got a sawyer, edgerman, lumber puller, and material handlier that runs the debarker. They saw grade lumber – mostly red oak. The lower grade goes to the flooring factory while the heartsaws go to pallet manufacturing. He bundles his slabs and sells them to a charcoal mill. The local people get most of his bark. Although a pretty simple setup, everything that comes in – goes out.

Mike had nothing but praise of his LT300 mill. He had run a Woodland mill for a number of years before getting the LT300. In fact, the Woodland sets abandoned in another building. Before the Woodland, Mike ran a circle mill. I assume one he took over from the family sawmill and lumber business. He said his electric bill fell from over $3,000/mo running the circle mill to about $300/mo with the Wood-Mizer system.

We returned to the Rock Island Lumber Co. today to meet with the Walker Machinery Company salesman and get some banding material. The traveling Walker saleman had a regular warehouse in the back of his truck. In addition to about 50 rolls of strap, he had two or three big circle saw blades, a dust blower and bins full of small parts and supplies.

Mike also had an extra set of tensioner and sealer for the plastic we bought from him.

Mike gets on the internet once in a while but he's not found the Forestry Forum. I've invited him and gave him the link but he hasn't found time to come visit. I hope he does as he's got a lot of experience that he could share.

I didn't have the camera along on our first visit but I brought it today...

I took these without a flash so they're not real good but there was a lot of room left around the LT300 system.

They custom built their own saw booth. Note the sawyer has his feet up on the dash. He was keeping track of the St. Louis Cardnal's baseball game.

Working on the first face of the same log.

The debarker setup outside on the log lot.

One can dream can't one?

TexasTimbers · April 03, 2006, 11:31:09 PM

Dream is right. The operator looks like he's got his Reeboks propped up on a desk with a joy stick in his hand....looks like he's really into it. I dunno how he can do it from that distance.

highpockets · April 04, 2006, 07:22:17 AM

Kevjay, I think he has contact lens.

SwampDonkey · April 04, 2006, 07:47:03 AM

I've been in a couple modern industrial sawmills and it's all air conditioned booths with TV and other video and feet up on desks their also. The only guys getting dirty are the cleanup crew on the floor sweeping up stray wood chips and such and those guys doing scheduled maintenance work or the guys trying to keep'r all functioning as they 'force' the wood through the system. Only thing is, instead of 250 people with a job, there is maybe 80 with wages twice or three times as much as each man of the original 250 man crew had.

Mo-Ark · April 04, 2006, 02:19:41 PM

I was raised up on the Osage River about 20 miles from Eldon. This is a great heads-up, Bibby, my next trip up home, I'll call Mike up and see if/when he might have a little time to do me a "tour". Great looking facility. Does their operation have anything to do with the old stave mill located out on Hwy. 54? I couldn't tell much about this location from the one exterior shot, but it looks like flatter ground down around Eldon, proper.

Mitch

Bibbyman · April 04, 2006, 10:29:19 PM

Quote from: kevjay on April 03, 2006, 11:31:09 PM
I dunno how he can do it from that distance.

The sawyer has a pretty good vantage point looking right down on the top of the cant. Plus, the log has been debarked so that makes it easier to judge the opening cut.

I've re-cut one of the above photos and fooled with the color balance so you can maybe make out the laser site and the line it made down the cant.

The headrig is in motion here so it's a little fuzzy but also note the dust in the air around the sawhead. As the board is drug back off the cant, a blast of air is directed onto the cant to blow the dust off. That blast of air is the most noise the mill makes.

MULE_MAN · April 06, 2006, 05:25:46 AM

Thanks for all the picture Bibby That's looks like a REAL nice set up they have there 8)

FiremanEd · April 16, 2006, 05:28:36 PM

Howdy, I haven't been on here much lately as I've been busting putting in a new grinder to finally quite wasting our slabs.

KevJay, the benefit of being up ~2' off the ground is increadible. We're set up w/ the 300 on one end of the building and dad's new LT70 Electric on the other. I'm always after dad to build a box to raise his control pedistal up off the ground so he can see the cant better.

Biddy's right on about the 300 being quiet. Our sawdust blower has been our loudest noise maker. I just ripped it out yesterday to finish the instal on the 60' vibrating conveyer to feed the new montgomery blow-hog that we just put in. I haven't even fired it off yet. We're firing it at 08:00 in the morning. I'm anxious to hear how loud the blow-hog is. They say it'll be quieter than the sawdust blower we had.

Mike is dead on with my findings on electricty. We run about $350/mon if the 300 is the only mill running. When dad runs his 70 we bump up to the mid $400/s. I'm expecting the bill to more than double w/ the 125hp motor running the blow-hog. Only time will tell on just how much though.

Biddy,, you'd better be careful how you let Mary hang out over there,, that saw box is NICE and you're dead on Kevjay, feet proped up and a joystick in each hand listening to the XM. But, the not getting dirty is a misnomer. The sawyer has to get out and get dirty occasionally.

I'll try to get some pics from the sawyer's point of view one day this week.

Eddie

TexasTimbers · April 17, 2006, 07:54:25 AM

Sweet. Wish I was even half as organized. Gotta love that electric motor versus a gas combustion engine or even a diesel too. One day maybe.

Bibbyman · April 27, 2006, 08:31:17 AM

I watch the Tri-State auction ads for sawmill auctions that may be coming up near us. About a month ago I spotted one in Toone, TN that had a 2004 model Wood-Mizer LT300 on the auction list along with a lot of other stuff – including five Hurdle mills.

We didn't make that sale but I have a friend that did. He reported that the LT300 system went for $63,000. Add to that the 5% buyer's fee the total came to $66,150. I did some checking and a brand new 2006 LT300 set up the same way would cost $66,975.

That's what I call a good ROI! ;)