Is there any advantage to a swing blade over a band mill if you are not cutting monster trees? We don't have that big oftrees around here and 36" would be just about as big as I would expect.
What can one do the other can't?
I'm just trying to narrow my research down.
Thanks, Larry
With the swingmill, you can eliminate the need to edge the boards. Edging on a manual bandmill is a real chore, but not as bad on a hydraulic.
Larry,the larger the log the more advantage goes to the swingmill,also if you have limited means to move large logs its an advantage.Small logs are a paine in the butt with any mill but a little easier on a bandmill.Swing mill have alot of advantages especially for a part time sawyer,most include saw maint. equip. and can be taken apart and stored in a building or transported easily.If you can see boath in operation for that you can't beat a forestry show. Frank C.
Portable bandmill is most likely a vehicle needing to be registered etc etc. Swing mill is not a vehicle, goes in a truck or trailer. Swing mills have chain slabber attachment options for slabs beginning at 5 feet wide. Swing mill blades are circular carbide tipped blades which are sharpened on the mill, need retipping if metal is hit, and "doctoring" when stressed or burned. Bandsaw blades are relatively cheap but need resharpening with more time and expense than circular blades. Bandsawing with hydraulics and electric feed is much less labor intensive than swing milling where one pushes and walks up and back for each board ( or more if partial depth cuts are being made).
Bandsaws make through cuts, swing mills either through or blind cuts. Hydraulic/electric bandsaws are complex machines relative to swing mills which are much simpler with less to go wrong.
One other thing that has not been mentioned is that the band mills can cut wide boards and the swing mill is limited by the size of the blade.
Another plus for the Lucas swingmill is the ease of blade sharpening. In five minutes I can sharpen the blade right on the mill. The manual swingmill is much faster than a manual bandmill for milling standard dimensional lumber within the blade limitations (six inch for Lucas 618). That being said, for milling smaller (less than 24 inch) logs I prefer the bandmill.
A good resource for comparing swingmill and bandmill is The Sawmill and Woodlot Magazines, Great Portable Sawmill Shootout. I think the event has been held everyother year for the last decade or so. They are one of the great forum sponsors and a link can be found on the left side of the page.
Larry you have lot of opinion here already, I didn't see if you were going to be stationary, I think that is an important difference too.
Also most folks reply based on a Lucas mill, there are other brand of swingmills, Perterson's offering are different, also I have an American made swingmill that uses a frame. That changes things quite a bit, especially when it comes to smaller logs. It is very effective at cutting small logs because the frame can support the setup of several logs at one time, not counting the skids on the side that can hold the deck logs.
I would give the bandmill more wood cutting flexibility and thinner kerf (less sawdust, more product), but with a higher saw (blade) cost. Saws stay sharp for about 500bf.
The swingmill makes nice edges, less wavy cuts, and smoother surface which ends up as a negative because the saw marks showup easier. A slabber attachment is also possible. A snap to sharpen so the life of the saw is very much longer than a bandsaw. It is a flexible saw, like the bandsaw but for me it is less intuitive, you have to figure out the cut pattern ahead of time to make the best cuts.
And no, the swingmill does not limit the cut size by the size of the saw. It has a flush mount so on a horizontal surface the limit of the width of the cut is distance the sawhead can be moved sideways. Which is likely 5-6 feet. But there are limits for other types of cuts such as when double cutting the limit is twice the saw cut depth, on my machine that is 17". There is also a limit to a single pass depth which is related to the saw size.
My advice is to figure out the portability, then material handling (which for any sawmill is what take the most time), from those answers pick a sawmill.
In Nebraska, a portable saw mill is considered a piece of equipment, not requiring liscence plate or stopping at scales. Other things in that category include towed air compressors, log splitters, generators, and such. Not sure about other states or if that is a federal thing. About the swing mill, if you were cutting mostly demensional lumber, i think the swing blade would be more efficient.
they re very different machines.
at the sawmill shootout you guys have the lucas mill was about the best.
2009 results
Lumber Recovery Factor
LUCAS MILL = 1.09 LRF
PETERSON WPF = 0.86 LRF
WOODMIZER LT50HD = 1.04 LRF
WOODMIZER LT70HD = 1.08 LRF
PRODUCTION
LUCAS MILL 10-30 = 583 bf/hr
PETERSON WPF = 528 bf/hr
WOODMIZER LT50HD = 638 bf/hr
WOODMIZER LT70HD = 1,144 bf/hr
so the lucas mill got more recovery from its logs than even the lt70hd and got a god wack of production as well.
considering you can buy a lucas 10-30 for $ 20 000 a wpf will cost you $25 - $35000 and produce less timber and take longer.
im not sure what th mizers cost ut im betting is a whack more then a lucas.
i know witch i would buy.
Thank you for all of the replys so far, keep them coming.....
I have been reading so much about so many different mills that I am getting a bit confused, information overload for my limited CPU. ;)
I am in the process of building a house for myself, setting up a new woodshop, and keeping my construction/woodworking business going. These short days cut me short as I have no shop work at the moment, so my evenings are spent here at the computor reading about mills.
One thing I did not mention is that I had an adventurous life, and broke 63 bones in the process, so I am not able to horse stuff around quite as well as I am used to. I still manage, roughed in my house in 3 1/2 weeks, but things hurt a lot more these days. I have broken my legs five times, so walking is not as easy as it once was, so although I am partial to the swing mills for their edging capability, I don't see them with self feed [maybe not right term]. Walking over a bunch of waste may be tough after a while as arthritis is setting in. I do have a decent sized tractor, a 45 hp Boomer, and I am very ingenious in ways to make my work easier, good at fabrication, and not lazy by any stroke of the imagination. But I do have limits that are spireling downhill at a rate I am not happy with.
One of the aspects of the swing mills that I really like is the ability to add a slabber. That is something that I could use as a real advantage in my furniture work, the cost of interesting slabs being so high. I have access to a piece of property that has huge cherry trees with lots of gigantic crotch cut possibilitys, and there is very few pieces of wood prettier than a cherry crotch cut. Would make some awesome tables/desktops. With a reasonable sized bandmill that is not really a possibility if I am processing all of this information correctly.
I do see that band mill as being a less physical endevor if set up properly, and I am not looking to compete with established mills. I can get hardwoods milled around here for $190 a thousand, so it is really a no brainer, even if I had a mill. I make somewhere between $250 -$450 a day in my real job when busy so I would be looking more at specialty woods that would cost me much more than the sum of the board feet. Mills dont want to mess with crotches, and that is the kind of grain that sells product. That is an advantage to the swing mills with a slabber to my way of thinking.
Also on my short list is a wide belt sander with a 42" capability, a compliment to the slabber as well. I have a SCMI finish planer now, but it is limited to a 20" board. Best planer I have ever used , still wish I had gone with the 24" though. ]Don't we always want bigger?]
Anyway..... I have to run and look at a possible job, but wanted to add some random thoughts......
Thank you tons.......
Larry Edgerton
I would say comparing all manual mills, if you get a slabber the swingmill would have it hands down. Not cutting really wide boards of slabs is a disadvantage for the swinger otherwise. You can get them anyway though, but it isn't as handy and you won't get as many per log. For dimensional lumber and framing timbers the swingmill will leave a manual bandmill far in the dust. Accuracy is also really good on the swingmill, without a big learning curve. I do also love the no maintenance aspect of the swing mill, and the blade sharpening.
However the manual bandmills do not really equal the cost of a swingmill, so money-wise it would be more fair to compare them to at least a midrange bandmill, with some hydraulics. Those are pretty versatile and can cut a lot of wood in a day. I think a man with a lot of old injuries might look hard at a mill with hydraulics, and power feed. The swingmill is easy to push, but it can be a lot of walking back and forth, and it will wear on you. The hydraulic features are back savers, but you still have to pile the lumber somewhere ;)
Larry do you have three phase power in your shop?? I have a circular mill and a bandmill. If I was starting over I would get a used diesel three phase genset and a Brand X swingmill head without engine and put a three phase motor on it,build my own track.With your abilities you'd have no trouble putting a power feed.Electric mill are easy to enclose and get you out of the weather in the winter,good for old bones. Frank C.
Like the guys said, the hard work with ANY mill is moving the boards. The faster the mill, the more boards you need to move. Pushing the swingblade up and down isn't HARD work, but you are walking a fair distance in day, and if you have arthritis that may be an issue. But if you can play a round of golf, you should be OK sawing a log. ;) Some husband and wife teams have the wife running the mill as it's physically easier than doing the off-bearing.
At least with the swingblade you are not having to muscle logs and cants around. Small logs you place on the bunks using your tractor, big logs, you just move the mill to them. I can break down my mill and set it up over another log in about 15mins, working alone. If it's going to take me 15mins to move a log, I'd rather move the mill, it's lighter ;)
If you are looking to do wide slabs and table tops, you can even use the mill to finish them. You can buy a "planer head" which is a disc with carbide blades that replaces the saw blade. Once the slab has been dried you sit it under the mill and plane off any warp or imperfections with your 20hp gas powered router. Alternatively you can do what I have done and mount a big electric router on the mill frame to do the same thing. Not as fast, but much cheaper. Either way you can now plane, and even joint, 3-4 ft wide boards.
Personally I like the swingblades because they are just so versatile and easy to both run and maintain. Doesn't matter what you want to cut, there is usually a way of doing it. A pile of small logs, set up beside them and roll them under the mill frame and start sawing. OK, no advantage over a bandsaw here, but you will get them sawn with no fuss. You aren't going to be cutting wide boards out of small logs anyway, so the cutting limits aren't really an issue. Then when you do come across big logs, you SMILE, instead of scratching your head and wondering how the heck you are going to cut this thing.
Ian
Just Me, there is another type of mill out there that may be more suited to you than either the swinger or the bandmill. Take a good look at the Mobile Dimension Saw before you settle on anything. I have one that I paid $9000 for on the used market about 8 years ago, and it has served me well. I have used swingers and bands on occasion, and they will work you to death if you're sawing alone. With the MD, you stand in one place and just turn a little crank for adjustment, and pull a lever to make the cut, then the mill brings a finished board back to you. I'm a pretty rickety old cuss myself, but I have no trouble handling lumber if I have things set up right. I just put the loader with forks behind me and let the mill slide the boards right onto it. :)
Don't get me wrong now, I love bandmills and swingers. They are great mills, and either of them will do things that no other mill can. But given the limitations that you describe about yourself, I'd put my money on the MD or one of the other similar mills as the best choice for you. ;) Other brands of the MD type are D&L, Mightymite, Mahoe, and Rimu.
Two added facts concerning wide cuts, without corresponding words of wisdom:
A Peterson or Lucas dedicated slabber costs less than the corresponding swing mill.
Hud-Son makes a bandsaw with a 48" throat.
Ok, Cost.......
Cost is a slippery devil. It is a balance of what income the machine can produce, what I can afford now and in the future, long term reliability of the unit, and because of my declining personal infrastructure, how easy the mill makes it for me to do what I want. The ability to do something out of the ordinary has been the key to my survival through this economic disaster that Michigan is going through.
If I pay cash, I will probably end up with a mill that will not satisfy me [tool junky]for the long term. But on the other hand.....
If I borrow, I am commiting myself to whatever it takes to make this tool pay for itself. And that is part of my problem, I don't really know the economics. I have always bought my wood through wholesalers, so I know what I pay for good wood, but I don't really know what I could get out of the local market without shipping myself. I don't want to get into a position where I now need a host of supporting equipment just to keep the monster fed. You know, the big truck, forklift, and so on....
There are a ton of Woodmizers and equal in this area, so to my way of thinking if I choose band mill I am just offering more of the same and it would not be an advantage to my business. I would be better off to strike up a deal with one of the local operators that does a good job, or haul the logs to the head mill that I have used in the past.
I do not know of a slabber in my area, and I have a fair finger on the pulse of wood products in this area, but there may be one I don't know about. On the other hand, I don't know about it so most other people probably don't either. That is a big plus for a swing mill, the cost of a swing mill being its achilles heel. The lower production of the swing mill does not necessarily bother me as any production advantage of the band mill is overshadowed by what the many head mills in the area can do anyway. seems to me anyway....
I could get a dedicated slabber, but then I would lose the ability to turn the rest of the tree into lumber easily.
I am not really in a hurry, as I said I have way too much on my plate at the moment anyway [always do though], and cash is low because of the new house I have paid cash for. Can't sell the old house because of the market here, Michigan sucks right now, so I can't get my cash out of the old house. If the market picks up however, my new house will be already paid for so what I get out of the old house can buy what ever mill I please. :)
I'm just thinking out loud here, so don't mind my rambling, just trying to find my way through this overload of information and its possibilitys.
I checked out some of the videos of the "Turb-o-mill" this morning, well, as many as my short patience would let me[dialup], and that is a cool looking mill! I am sure it is way out of my budget, but it is awesome to my limited intellect. I gather that it is designed by the same guy that designed the Peterson Mill?
I do not have three phase power where I am at with my new location, I am running my shop off of a 50hp rotary converter. Hope to switch to a Phase Perfect for the smaller tools soon. Waiting for the cost to come down a bit. I am at the end of the line, backed up to a huge state forrest, so the chance of ever getting real three phase is almost nil.
I will check out the mobile dimension saws when I get done with my family stuff.
Anyway...
Gotta run again.....
You know, Christmas stuff.
Certainly not a dumb question...
from where I sit, a Lucas wins hands down, I had a pretty serious work accident 10 years back and have been sawmilling with my Lucas for 7 years now. A great thing I found was my fitness increased nice and steady with my increased learning curve, now I mill at a much faster rate than when I first began (as you'd expect) and my body has had 7 years to 'get in shape' for how fast I can mill now, but having said that obviously I don't mill like that every time she is switched on, just nice and steady.
The versatility and ease of using my Lucas was what won me over, you'll also find it fantastic while you are building, I certainly did, drop me a line if ya wanna know more 8) ;D ;)
The best thing is experience.
I found a Lucas owner who was willing to work with me using his mill for a few hours. He was confident enough in me to let me rent it for a week after that. Like you I needed a mill for building my house. I used a pile of logs left behind by a logging company 4 years before.
If you can work with a swing mill owner and a band mill owner -- maybe just helping out on one of his jobs, you'll get a quick feel for what you like and need.
Since you are building a house, my own preference would be for a swing mill for dimensional framing stuff, but again only you know what feels right for you. I own a band mill that I built, but am considering building a swing mill as well.
House is roughed in, windows going in today. Its too much of a pain in the butt to use rough around here because of the building codes, and I am a licenced builder so I don't want to get on their wrong side. I went with western hemlock. My new shop on the other hand will be post and beam, and I will do it my way.
Scouring the internet I found a couple of adds for swingmills that mention a new gearbox. Is this their achilles heel? I have not seen a detailed drawing of how the gearbox works but from my years of off-road racing I know that anywhere that power changes direction there is a weak point. I replaced so many rear gearsets/half shafts that I could do it in my sleep.
my lucas has done 3000+ hours and still going fine.
i belive the peterson mills have/had a probelm with the bearing housings on the flogging out, but that was caused by not having bearing on the shaft and relying on the gearbox bearing to take the huge side loads.
where did you see the refrences.
No trouble with my Peterson gearbox yet either. I had a couple thousand hours on it before I upgraded to a larger size with no trouble whatsoever, and have close to a thousand on the new one. I do think I am stressing the new one more, because the output shaft is longer, so I don't know if I will get the life out of it I did the other, with a shorter shaft. :-\ But they are pretty easy to rebuild, from what I understand.
you can get a kit to fit a pillow block bellow your gearbox, tehn it will last forever.
the gaerbox dealer in aus i know replaces heaps of them.
he sends out steel ones when he dose instead of alloy.
New gearbox may mean that with newer, higher horsepower engines being available the gearbox needed upgrading. That is generally my impression when gearboxes are changed.
I have never had any personal gearbox related problems. I have witnessed many and various problems usually related to a lack of service, improper gear oil, or an unrecognized fluid loss problem.
Also a word on shootout results. Many members remember the year that I sawed in the Shootout for Peterson (2005). We had dismal results that year due to a new vertical scale provided on the mill being inaccurate. Many of our boards were not tallied because their "go, no-go" thickness sizing scale was "tight" on the boards.
My point is unless you were there and knew all of the details, the results of the Shootout competition can be quite misleading. Boy, I would love to have a do-over, we had a GREAT cutting time with literally no miscuts, or so we thought.
Captain
I was there and saw what went on, Captain. I also saw that the big bandmill folks were allowed to use their edgers, which is basically a second sawmill. I thought the '05 Shootout was a sham, and the results gave nobody any useful information on which to base a purchase. The purpose of the Shootout is advertised to be a way for potential customers to make an informed decision, but it was anything but that.
On swing mill gearboxes - I had my first Lucas for 6 years and replaced a gearbox toward the end of this time, I found milling in winter right until dusk and then switching off apparently built up condensation in the gearbox over a few weeks solid of doin that, this ended up being turned to steam inside the box when being used and blew a bit of seal between drive pulleys and gearbox, slowly lost oil and ended up killing the box. So yeah in my case, more so operator issues than the gearbox havin a problem.
I figure with any machine, there has to be something which 'lets go' or the thing will blow up!!!
Is this the type of gearbox they use?
https://www.surpluscenter.com/item.asp?Item=1324
No. Peterson uses a box manufactured in Italy. May be Baldini?
My manual says Bondioli for the 2010 10" mill.
Thanks, that is what I was trying to think of. ::)
Bondioli and Pavesi
I was standing there when they disallowed boards when they went in tight in the go-no-go gauge but then disallowed. That was just plain wrong. If they went it, they should have been a go. That is what a go-no go gauge does. Gotta agree completely on that.
By the way, I may have some news in the next couple days on the next shoot-out. :)
So Jeff, c'mon...where's the news? ;D :D
It's rat here. :)
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