Magicmans sawmill - I have a question

[booman]

Magicman, did I read that you bought your sawmill used and have used it over 20 years?  Cant find where I read that.  Can you fill us in on that sawmill, model, year built, maintenance you have done, upgrades to it, how many bf you have milled (millions of bf), etc.  I am curious and I think a lot of people on this forum are too.  I know you are a humble man so break out of that mode and actually brag on this machine.  It is not bragging if it is true.

[Magicman]

Oh my, I was carpentering after I closed my cabinet shop and having SYP sawed into framing lumber to reduce my cost of various projects for customers.  After loading my trailer with sawed lumber and driving to my job, I got to wondering/deciding that I was on the wrong end of lumber.  The sawyer was making much more than me so I decided to buy a sawmill.  I told PatD that evening what my plans were. 

Of course she had all of the logical questions like; What?  With what?  You have never even seen a sawmill sawing.  How are you gonna pay for it?  Who are you gonna saw for?  You know, just logical women stuff 'cause they just don't understand men stuff.

Anyway, within a week I found my sawmill, a 1998 SuperHydraulic with most all of the bells & whistles that were available in 1998.  The owner bought it to make a living with it and he was set up at a commercial sawmill sawing cants and whatever they wanted.  He said that he had sawed over a million bf in the two years that he sawed.  The commercial sawmill went belly up after two years so the sawmill sat in his yard for a year "for sale" with him still making notes on it.

I paid $22K for it and set up at my farm sawing and selling framing lumber for 3/4 the cost of store bought lumber.  I paid myself back for the cost of the sawmill within a year but by then I had decided/realized that sawing and selling was not for me.  It seemed that I was spending as much time falling and skidding logs as sawing which was not to my liking.

So now I am ending my 21st year of sawing, 20 of which were portable sawing.  I stopped counting when I had sawn the framing lumber for 25 new homes.  I presently have one whole house scheduled for January and another for March.  My total bf is over 3 million.  I am still portable only which is all that I will ever do, but I am seriously reducing my sawing load.  Trying to slow down and I have sawn over 15Mbf in the past 2 months not counting today and what I will saw tomorrow.   The simple fact is that I love to saw. 

I added a LubeMizer, AutoClutch, and FineAdjust Outriggers.  I replaced the original Lombardini engine which had over 10K hours with a non-turbo Lombardini engine from Wood-Mizer.  A few years later I found a 1997 turbo Lombardini still in the crate and bought it.  Sadly it broke a crankshaft last year so I am now back to the non-turbo Lombardini.  It does not have the torque that the turbo had, but I have no intention of chasing engines again and hopefully this engine will carry me to the great sawdust pile in the sky.

[thecfarm]

I like that story.

[booman]

Wow, so that sawmill has milled over 4 million bf.  Correct? 

[Hackeldam Wood Products]

There are a lot of morals in that tale. 
Merry Christmas,
Rich

[Resonator]

Makes you wonder how many miles that saw has traveled on that frame. Back and forth, back and forth...

I see those 90's era LT40's come up for sale once and a while, priced not to different from what Magic paid back then. 

[Magicman]

Makes you wonder how many miles that saw has traveled on that frame. Back and forth, back and forth

About 1/4" on the top of the rail is flat from the cam followers rolling back & forth.  Thankfully it is flat for the entire length, not just the first 8'-12'.  There is no hump.

[barbender]

"The Green Orange Hornet has sawn more lumber than you've lied about"😊

[Ianab]

And even if the rail wore out, a good engineering shop could replace it. You would have to decide if the cost was worth it, vs replacing the mill. But it's possible. In the same way as an engine wearing out isn't the end of a mill. 

A bit like rebuilding WW2 Mosquito planes. They are ~90% wood, and not airworthy, but with enough $$ they can be rebuilt with new wood and fly again. As long as the serial# plate matches it's the same plane?

[Magicman]

At one time Wood-Mizer considered the top rail as non-replaceable but my understanding is that they will now do it but....$$.

The earlier models did not have the harder steel that is now used and would show much more flattening.  The only real problem is that if it was flatten only part of the bed length there would be a hump causing uneven lumber thickness, etc.  I have read where owners would grind the remainder down and level it out.

[thecfarm]

Here's a math question.
I wonder how many feet, miles would be better, that sawmill head has gone?
It goes so called down and then back.
Most times 16-17 feet each time?
Maybe 12-14 feet?

[teakwood]

You know, just logical women stuff 'cause they just don't understand men stuff.

Men, that's a global phenomenon then!! I get that a lot from my wife, they just don't get it!   

[Magicman]

My math comes in @ 300,000 passes for the lumber only so easily close to 400,000 adding slabs, flitches, etc.  That is 12K miles. 

[booman]

What keeps the sawhead from coming off of that track?  Gravity?  Do you take up the slack on the bottom rail?

[Magicman]

There are cam followers on the bottom rail which is round like the top rail.  That bottom rail is the "other" post that keeps Wood-Mizer from being a 4 post sawmill.  It and the bottom cam followers carry the side load of the cantilever design.

[thecfarm]

That's a lot of miles!!!!

[GAB]

That tells me that the ride along seat paid for itself in just the shoes he did not have to buy.  Throw in the value of not enduring the pain from breaking in new shoes and MM is beaucoup money ahead.
From my vantage point it looks like it was a mighty fine investment and added a place to mount his sun and rain umbrella.  MM also has an accessory piece of equipment he can sell, trade or barter and recoup some of his initial investment.
GAB

[SawyerTed]

Shoe money saved!   

Next time somebody asks about the difference between command control and walk along controls, that needs to be on the list.   

That's a lot of trips back and forth!  At least the scenery changed periodically! 

[Magicman]

Probably a dozen+ times per day I ride down just to measure the height of the log or cant.

[jpassardi]

All I'm gonna say is: much respect to Magicman. The Ole Buck is still getting after at it and he's not 20 anymore.
And he's computer savvy no less... 

[Magicman]

I did get me a new hunting shirt.

[trapper]

where did you get that shirt?

[SawyerTed]

As I said to a young (young is relative) woman the other day, "You don't get to be 80 by being stupid."   

Her astonished response was, " You aren't 80!"

I said, "Of course not but you don't get to be 80 by being stupid!"

Hunt on my friend!

[Resonator]

That is 12K miles. 

If my math is right, that's like the saw head cutting a string of logs from New York to L.A. and back again...twice.

[Resonator]

Like the shirt.  
I mentioned in my thread a while back, a friend of mine just passed recently at 94. He was still active hunting in the woods, and had bought a new crossbow when he was 88.