Sawmill Shootout

Tom · May 27, 2001, 10:46:34 PM

The magazine Sawmill & Woodlot is supposed to be reporting on the last shootout but I have noticed an obvious lack of interest on wood sites this year.

Last year there was a lot of hype.

Is it my imagination, do folks not really care, or is it that the shootout is seen as entertainment rather than a test of sawmills?

Jeff · May 28, 2001, 08:13:38 AM

What is a shootout?

Tom · May 28, 2001, 10:13:45 AM

It was someone's (?) idea to invite ($) manufacturers of portable sawmills to a site setup with similar logs and get them to compete for "who is the best".

Catagories have been in setup speed, sawing speed, accuracy, volume etc.

Wood Mizer won it then Baker won it and the talk I hear is that Timber Harvester won it this year but there have been conflicting reports with Lucas being mentioned.

They (?) are trying to make this a BIG annual affair.

Kevin_C · June 27, 2001, 02:25:45 PM

Actually there is more than one shoot-out. The first one was in Bangor ME, co-sponsored by Ind. Sawmill & Woodlot Magazine, Northern Logger Magazine, and the NE Forest Products Equipment Expo. You are correct, Wood-Mizer won that event (and has not competed since). However, after that event in 1999, the Redwood Region Logging Conference also started a shoot-out at their show in 2000. Lucas won that event, and won again this year. Competitors for that event have been very limited, but that may be where the "Lucas won" came from. The NE shoot-out was actually won last year by a circular mill from Europe. Baker finished second but was the first bandsaw. And this year, they broke the group up into classes and instituted some rule changes. Timber Harvester was the overall winner.

Tom · June 27, 2001, 05:00:28 PM

Hey Kevin, welcome to the Forestry Forum. I always wondered what the manufacturers gained by a 'shootout'. If they win they advertise and if they lose they L-O-S-E !!

Do you have a Woodmizer? I see you have a Woodmizer email address is that a medal they pin on your shirt?

TnSawyer · September 01, 2007, 10:58:39 PM

we dont care tom. we just dont care.

Bibbyman · September 02, 2007, 04:31:46 AM

After the earlier Shootouts there was a chart published with all the statistics gathered from all of the mills competing. An overall winner was named but about every mill in the Shootout had some category they could claim some victory. So in the ads you'd see things like "Best recovery rating", "Highest board feet per hour", "0 miss-cuts", and so on. I've not seen such a chart published for the last Shootout.

Also, the program has evolved into more of a side by side demo rather than a heads down competition. Manufactures entered more than one mill in different classes and in some setups, edgers were added. I think Wood-Mizer had an LT70 with an edger in one entry, an LT40 and LT28 and an LT15 in yet another. (This is where I noted on the Forum that WM used extra sections of bed on the LT15 and sawed the log on the forward sections while the offbearer positioned flitches to be edged on the back section. Pretty clever idea!)

I wasn't there to watch the Shootout. The only account I've read was published in the Summer 2007 issue of the Wood-Mizer Way. Of course the article was all about the Wood-Mizer teams and how they did.

Link to Wood-Mizer Way

Part_Timer · September 02, 2007, 09:30:19 AM

Tom

I'm going to take a beating for my .02 worth but here it is anyways.

I was at one (1) shootout and thought some of the teams did a disservice to some of the mills. The folks on the teams were so focused on times that the miscut rate tremendous. When the stats were published some very good mills looked very bad.

I don't pay attention to the shootout because it is not always a true representation of what the mills are capable of.

Just my .02

Jeff · September 02, 2007, 07:20:48 PM

I dont think so Part_Timer. I'm in complete agreement. HOWEVER, its a heck of a good excuse to go see a bunch of mills running in one place.

fencerowphil (Phil L.) · September 02, 2007, 07:44:43 PM

It is a good marketing angle, but it is easy to see that the pitfalls
of the shoot-out are tricky.

Often, the best people you could have to do serious competition are
the people who run mills hard everyday. Sometimes it seems that
the ones running in the shoot-outs may be knowledgeable, but not
the best choice. Perhaps manufacturers should have their candidates
compete in a "playoff" before showing the mill in public. They might
want to saw identical logs (or as close as possible) to what will be sawn
at the shootout. (Of course, that means time, preparation, money, oops.) :(

On the other hand,...
I remember one mill falling short, believe it or not, because the scale sticker
on a dial had been adhered with a built-in error which made every board off,
yet no one caught it in time to adapt. Hey I have had customers call me to
task with their measuring tape and straighten me out. The real world teaches
fast and teaches hard.

Phil L.

Part_Timer · September 02, 2007, 09:36:45 PM

It is a great place to get your hands on all the mills. I liked being able to walk back and forth trying to make up my mind.

Kelvin · September 02, 2007, 09:48:59 PM

One thing that i don't quite get is there are no prices on anything. It would be nice to compare some things, and its hard to find out very fast on your own. Same with the splitters. I"d simly like to know how much, and for add ons. The magazine does a good job in its normal reviews of equipment they present having the info. Thats what kills me on shows like "This old house" They barely ever mention anything about cost. "whoa, that would cost a lot Kevin!" How much? Augh. I guess it could only have something to do with different mark ups or something from different sales points? Oh, well. Its good to see the different numbers on mills. One thing they didn't explain was the 23% over run with the skillmill. Quite odd, but no explaination in the magazine that i saw. Most circular blades are taking out a bigger kerf, and it does seem they have lower recovery in general, but skillmill had the highest of them all. What accounts for it? Oh, well.
KP

Bibbyman · September 02, 2007, 10:16:02 PM

One guess on the Skillmill overrun. Did they happen to get small logs? It's easier to get big overun numbers when sawing small logs scaled on the Doyle scale.

fencerowphil (Phil L.) · September 02, 2007, 10:18:15 PM

That is interesting about the recovery rate with the SkilMill.
I would assume that the tiny blade on the SkilMill is about 1/8" kerf,
so the high recovery wouldn't be too tough. All of the swingblade
designs are capable of very good recovery in the part of a log that
would be slabbed off by some bandmillers. That would be particularly
true if, they are operating without an edger, or are in a hurry and don't
want to be dealing with edging groups of flitches on the mill by resawing them.

You can waste a slab on a swinger, too, but it is very easy to get the "goody"
out of that part of the log,...
if you make the effort, and ...
if you artfully skim just
under the bark for those extra boards! ;)

My 10" Peterson has a kerf over a 1/4", but the same basic principal - relating
to recovery - applies. I can sometimes make up for the kerf by getting those
extra very high quality clear boards just under the bark. (Often too narrow for FAS,
but great for molding quality stuff!)

Phil L.

Brad_S. · September 02, 2007, 11:01:12 PM

I wonder if Tom still feels this way. The original post was 6 years ago!

Bibbyman · September 03, 2007, 02:58:37 AM

Quote from: Brad_S. on September 02, 2007, 11:01:12 PM
I wonder if Tom still feels this way. The original post was 6 years ago!

I didn't even see how old the original posts were! TnSawyer sure went back a long ways to find this one.

Cedarman · September 03, 2007, 06:12:58 AM

I'm with bibbyman on this one. Didn't even notice the 01 posting. Nice thing about getting older, everything is starting to look new.

Bibbyman · September 03, 2007, 08:24:16 AM

Quote from: Cedarman on September 03, 2007, 06:12:58 AM
I'm with bibbyman on this one. Didn't even notice the 01 posting. Nice thing about getting older, everything is starting to look new.

I only got about a dozen books. When I get them read I just start over again. :D

Brad_S. · September 03, 2007, 09:05:53 AM

Quote from: Jeff B on May 28, 2001, 08:13:38 AM
What is a shootout?

I looked at the date line after reading "Guest" Jeff B asking what a shootout was. :D

Jeff · September 03, 2007, 10:38:36 AM

Yea, you know its old when you see me as a guest. Thats way back in the early days when I inadvertently deleted myself with the original software. :D

sawguy21 · September 03, 2007, 10:57:47 AM

:D :D I got a kick out of seeing you as a 'guest'.

Wife · September 04, 2007, 12:20:56 AM

Oh this is such a hoot. I was wondering when someone was finally going to ask how I managed to beat all the bandsaws in recovery - Oh I'm gonna enjoy this!

The Skillmill does have a tiny kerf - 3.5mm or just over an 1/8th of an inch. With no waves and no tapers. The only culled boards were my "experience" boards at the start until I figured out what I was doing! ???
But wait, there's more.
Called taking your time and getting recovery. No rushing. After all, the Skillmill is not a high production mill, so why strain myself? I was the only one in my heat not sweating. ;) And I was getting every last teeny weeny board out of those logs. I got smallish logs, but still out of the same pile as every one else.
And there's still more.
Called being clever about your equipment. Use even it's not-so-good points to its advantage. My Skillmill can only do 4" wide in one horizontal pass - 8" if I wanted to do 2 passes. But why go for wide boards? Aren't wide boards cut down to dry straight anyway, and then laminated back together? So I went for little 1" x 4" boards only. Easier, faster, and better recovery. :P
The trick?
Shootout rules specify you can undercut a width by 1/4". I undercut every single board by 1/4". ;D The bandsaws were doing a lot of 12" boards, saving max 1/4" for each one IF they were confident enough to undercut on their mills. Which I doubt many were. They were going for speed.
I was doing THREE 4" boards for every one of their wide 12" board. Therefore I was making up 3/4" of an inch for every one of their boards, because I was saving a 1/4" on each board. And because the Skillmill was so accurate, it could do it consistently. Even with a desk jockey like me :D Actually I did tell Dave Boyt this, so am surprised its not in the write up... :-\

OK, back down to earth now, Kerris. ;D

Any other questions, feel free to ask.

logwalker · September 04, 2007, 01:14:13 AM

Kerris,
May I be the first to say that is really cool. Somebody came up with the rules and you just play by them. You made my day. Joe

Cedarman · September 04, 2007, 05:55:34 AM

Understanding the rules is so important. In a niche market each customer has their own "rules". (What they really want). Knowing the customers rules lets you price accordingly and saw accordingly and the customer gets what they want.

Wife followed the rules and gave the judges exactly what they wanted. And it makes the miller look really good. 8) 8)

fencerowphil (Phil L.) · September 04, 2007, 09:26:31 PM

Amen, Cedarman!

What the customer wants become the rule.

I had one customer who wanted all 1/2" thick by 10" interior paneling boards:
Knotty Southern Yellow Pine. Of course he brought me crooked 8" logs, and even
some yellow cedar(?) which had to be 6," and plenty of gigantic top logs with
knots so big they would reach across an entire 10" board.

Yep, yep, yep. (He complained that not all that I cut was up to his "spec."/

Phil L. Kerris, Thanks for the story!