Thread: I love my Lucas!!

The various swingmills and twin blade saws sure have their place, especially in a smaller operation. Their versatility, portability and relatively cheap cost (purcahse and running), ability to handle logs of practically any size, good production (speed and recovery) and accurate cutting.

Whats not to like

Ian

Hi Guys,
Sorry guys can't go along with that one. Sounds like someone trying to sell portable mills or promote there use. There is no way a portable mill can produce more timber than a standing mill. I suggest the dockerman might be letting a few knots through.

Cheers
Stopper.

Originally Posted by Stopper

Hi Guys,
Sorry guys can't go along with that one. Sounds like someone trying to sell portable mills or promote there use. There is no way a portable mill can produce more timber than a standing mill. I suggest the dockerman might be letting a few knots through.

Cheers
Stopper.

Neither of us on commission, and actually run mills from oposition companies.

The portable mills can produce more boards from the same log as a big headsaw because the kerf is smaller and things run slower. One more board in every 10 adds up.

If the logs have knots .. then the boards have knots, no difference there

No way you can produce as many boards per hour, but 2 guys with a swingblade can make a LOT of boards

If you want to saw 10 truckloads of pine logs a day, then you need a real sawmill.

If you want to turn an old redgum or macrocarpa cypress log into $1000 of good timber in an afternoon, out in the middle of nowhere, a swingblade mill is your machine of choice.

Ian

Stopper,

the article (actually a research paper from QUT and UQ I think) stated that portable mills had higher recovery percentages, not that they cut more timber. Obviously a traditional mill processes more logs/more volume as compared to a portable mill, but recovers a lower percentage from the volume they process.

I don't see the article had a slant on selling mills or even selling traditional mills - did you read through the link?

I too was talking about recovery - how much timber is produced from the same volume of input. Given the same log a fixed site mill will beat a portable mill every time.
The article is a great read but it is flawed.
The survey failed to compare apples with apples. It should have compared a small modern fixed site mill specialising in high quality timber with a portable mill working on site.
The article itself hints at problems with the survey:
1. Some of the fixed site mills concentrated on volume from poor quality logs therefore reporting poor recovery.
2. The portable mill owners had high quality timber so tried harder for higher yield. etc
3.Fixed site mills using old technology and portable mills using new (bandsaws), saw kerf etc.

Leave aside the many other advantages of portable mills - no freight costs etc and confine the argument to "recovery". And not just raw volume recovered but properly sawn marketable timber.

Knots in logs don't necessarily result in knots in boards. Careful breakdown of the log, a bit of skill on the breast bench and then over the docker goes a long way to removing faults. Skilled portable mill operators can also produce better quality timber with technique but both types of millers know this is often at the expense of recovery.

I also luv lucas mills but they don't give a better recovery than a comparable fixed site mill.

Your thoughts?

Steve

I have had a Lucas for 12 yrs and it can not compete with the big boys for production.

It can however, lay claim to cutting some of the sweetest logs you can find by being so portable and versitile. A job a few years back in Cockatoo (outside Melbourne) I've sliced the best Blackwood you would ever see. 1500mm diameter and 4.5m long log deep in a gully. Hump in and humped out.
A lucky find by the farmer indeed but as a 'one of' log it would never have seen the light of day if it was not for the Lucas. It most likely would have found itself in the fire place I think.

I have done others; a 2.1m dia. Ash in some ones back yard; and a 400mm dia. gum in Brighton that the owner turned into a coffee table.

You can not compare the two units, they were built for different purposes but do have the same results in common.

If i were cutting low quality timber for battens, fencing, landscape sleepers or pallets then the lucas is in the race for production & recovery, but as soon as I have to produce good straight timber for framing, flooring, decking, beams or posts then I have to resaw 95% of the time, occasionally I might have a log with no tension & can cut straight off the log with the finished article. There is not much use for a boomerang in a house frame. Once you resaw the production & the recovery halves but the end product is better than you will find coming out of a static mill, absolutley straight sized timber.
regards inter

It seems everyone is caught up on production. Of course a traditional mill will chew through more than 6 cube of log a day, you would expect it to chew through nearly 3x that amount in one day - this is production. And on production there can be no doubt a traditional mill will be better than a mobile mill

Recovery is how much board can be cut out from 1 cube of log. The figure used for traditional mills is a maximum of 40% I use this figure when talking to clients about jobs and estimating how much timber they will end up with for the cost of processing x amount of log cube. I use this figure 40% because I know I will achieve better than 40% recovery - that is I will chew through less than 2.5 log cube to give the client 1 cube of sawn boards.

The article states that the recovery figures for mobile mills is 8% higher when compared to the recovery of traditional mills, nothing about production

Exador, you keep good records of your milling volumes, what's your average recovery rate you achieve? (I'm asking because I already know you come out better than 40%)

Glock you are involved in a traditional mill setup, what is the recovery rate you guys work to when processing logs?

Inter, as for re-sawing 95% of your milling, please don't take offence, but you're doing something wrong.

As an example; A building with a footprint of 94.5 square metre on ironbark posts, platform sheet floor, flooded gum and pine frame, hardiplank w/boards, 302 pattern VJ internal lining, cut on my 618 from salvage logs (not high grade saw logs, traditional mills had already taken what they wanted before I got the leftovers) I replaced about 12-14 studs in the whole job due to bad movement and this is the 3rd of such buildings required for our family home. The first two had hardwood bearers and joists straight off the Lucas, B's 8x3 up to 6m long, J's 6x2 up to 7.5m long. The first two have passed all council inspections to date without any concerns arising from timber.

The building has taken 3 truck and dogs of pine, 1 truck of pine and 4 trucks of hardwood. Finished size is 405sqm (27x15m) with approximately 130sqm decking, all decking coming off the Lucas too. Only re sawing I have done in the whole 8 trucks and 3 trailers of logs has been 4 posts I cut oversize as the log was giving me too much grief and then re-sawed to size.

As I said, please don't take offence, it's just what I've experienced

Sigidi, myself being a carpenter, the time it takes me to saw & get quality timber saves me time & money later, my first project with a lucas was a 150m2 shed cut straight off the logs, (14m3 of sawn timber from 30m3 of logs in 4 days of sawing). That was B & Js, studs, plates, lintels, roof beams, rafters, battens & weatherboards. Honestly the time it took to cripple, clamp & straighten the timber to give a half decent job was immence. I am now 3/4 through building my house, sawing all the timber with the 827 lucas, there is 50m3 of sawn timber in it. Only the roof & wall cladding are not sawn timber.There are big sectional sizes I am using & there is no way I can straighten them later. So I am after a quality product, I have to resaw
I sell timber to a local mill when they can't fill select species orders also, they will reject any sawn timber that has excessive bow, spring or twist, again thats why I have to resaw
Now when I cut timber for fencing or sleepers thats a different thing, it all comes straight off the log & it doesn't matter if there is a 10mm spring in a 2.4m post or sleeper & nine times out of ten thats how much the timber will pull
And thats the reason why static sawmills resaw after breaking the log into flitches, to get rid of the tension in the timber & produce a quality product, otherwise they would just cut slabs straight off the log with say a big bandsaw setup with a 3mm kerf & then saw again with a smaller bandsaw with an even smaller kerf, you could not beat that recovery with anything, but then again you could only use the timber for pallets!
Regards inter

Originally Posted by Sigidi

It seems everyone is caught up on production. Of course a traditional mill will chew through more than 6 cube of log a day, you would expect it to chew through nearly 3x that amount in one day - this is production. And on production there can be no doubt a traditional mill will be better than a mobile mill

portable mills dont have a dozen people employed and 4+ saws running. there are quite a few sawmills in qld selling up all there gear and buying big auto swing saws.

Found another reason to love it today. My rails live on top of my car and while looking for somethhing to set the SCMS up on site for a screen job today I thought, they look nice. 6 metre Lucas rails side by side = perfect SCMS cutting stand

quick everyone go and buy a lucas and throw the rest away

ok Carl, you start

Good one Mike, that'd come in handy at times.

Weisy, you a smarty pants aren't ya?

Bob you sure you don't wanna start?