Thread: Which Lucas Mill - 6, 7, or 8"?

Sounds like you are set on a Lucas but when it comes to double cutting wide boards Peterson certainly have the advantage. Sort of. Although it takes only a minute to remove the sawdust shield which is far easier than turning the carriage the first cut is with the front of the blade and the second is with the back of the blade but as the blade is angled slightly you will usually have a ridge where the cuts meet. There are tricks you can use but it never goes away entirely. It doesn't worry me, I have a big thicknesser but if all you have is a sander, not so good.

Thanks for your reply. I'm pretty set on a Lucas. Small steps from the lean-in are fine, and better than unnecessary heating of the blade. Just not sure if I could get away with the 6" model (I do however like the price), or should just put the whole idea back on the shelf until there's enough cash to buy the 8" model. But in that case, could I get away with the 7" to get going and then just swap blades and repower later on if i find the 23HP too gutless in dense wood. Also, I'm thinking there should be a way to turn the negative of the need to turn the carriage around for double cutting, into a positive of not ever having to mess with guards, if the process of turning the carriage at each end of the log is made easy. Then there is the little voice in the back of my head saying the 10" will almost eliminate the need for double cutting - but not as portable?

I run two six inch mills on an extended set of rails. Six inch mills can be picked up quite cheaply and are light in rough country or inaccessible sites. Another option is one swing mill and a dedicated slabber on the other end. Makes for a versatile set up.

Originally Posted by rustynail

I run two six inch mills on an extended set of rails. Six inch mills can be picked up quite cheaply and are light in rough country or inaccessible sites. Another option is one swing mill and a dedicated slabber on the other end. Makes for a versatile set up.

Thanks for that.
Hadn't even thought of those options, but sounds a great mix of portability, versatility and productivity. In dense timber, what sort of horizontal cut depth can you get from it in one pass without either feeding slower than a wet week or asking too much of the blade?

The full six inch is no problem in reasonable timber. So with the two mills I'm cutting a foot wide without swinging the head round. For wider stuff I use the slabber for horizontal and a six inch for the verticals. Thus I can supply any width slab with squared and straight edges and a boxed out heart when it comes to it. Love it.

Thanks rustynail.
Hopefully I am reading the prices incorrectly, but it looks as if the dedicated milling trolley is about 2/3 the list price of the entire 6-18 mill. Just those two alone are going to push my budget over the edge, even without the added cost of the second milling head/trolley, a price for which I can't find. However, I wonder if a compromise could be that second milling trolley and a slabbing attachment for it.

Also, how do you get the mill and multiple trolleys to each job? I'm hoping to transport the mill in the back of my ute or on a farm trailer towed behind my tractor.

Looking at the slabbing attachment specs, the one for the 6-18 is about 1.25m cut and the 7-23 is a 1.5m, but all mills have the same log diameter capacity. Anyone know why? I ask because 18HP should be ample for a 1.5m cut, surely? Also, in the specs, Lucas list a log diameter of 1.35m. Does this allow space for the operator to move down the log, inside the rails?

If I were you, I'd be looking around for good second hand stuff if you want to go to a multi mill set up. To buy new will mean a significant investment and you will be tempted to compromise due to cost. I recently picked up a six inch lucas, complete, low hours (35) for five grand and my dedicated slabber with eight hours on the clock cost me three grand. The two sets of rails gives plenty of length and allows for multi log milling which saves a lot of mucking about. So for an outlay of eight grand I can do pretty much anything. The other six inch swinger was bought as a head only, as the owner wanted to keep his rails as he was going to a larger mill. This is a common scenario with sixers and allows one some bargaining room. I only use the double set of rails at home were I have a permanent setup with gantry crane and a forklift for log movement. It would be too time consuming on rough sites to even consider. But a set of extensions in both ends of a standard rail make an easy to transport alternative.

Heck, if you ever stumble across such deals again, please let me know. I have been following gumtree and other places but nothing suitable just yet. Nothing good and used here either.

I went through a similar thought process a lttle while ago. I ended up buying a new 10-30. It cost a lot more than I wanted to spend but I'm happy I went for the bigger option. I was watching Gumtree for a long time before I took the leap and bought new. I did see some decent saw's a short time later though, Murphey's law I guess!
Good luck with the hunt for a decent second hand saw, I'm sure there are a few out there, it's just a matter of waiting for them to become available.

Thanks. At least with the 10" there is no double cutting for 10" boards, can get multiple 10" boards per drop in the right logs, don't need an extra trolley, and have the option to cut 10" deep vertical cuts. But there's quite a step up in weights and costs.

Trouble is, and notwithstanding the great ideas and help from various posters, I'm going on perceptions to a certain degree not hands-on experience, so maybe what I perceive to be a potential problem may not be so in real-world use? I mean, is the 10" model significantly harder to transport/set-up, thus less portable, than the smaller, cheaper models? In my case, I work alone, need to transport it on the ute, and jobs range from a windblown tree around the back of a house or one that is blocking the view/sun and owner wants it gone, to parked on the side of a landing adding value to some of the harvest so it doesn't all roll out the gates as logs, to speciality targeted trees for that special project/s. Will I find the 10" a bit too much to be carting around and getting on/off the ute and setting up, especially for those one-off, tight jobs? Will the 6" model be so much more nimble that it's a better fit?

Does anyone know if there is any width or other difference between the 6/7/8/10 models that would preclude running, say, a second trolley of a different cut capacity so that it could be set up with a 10" trolley for when the job needs it, and a 6" trolley when being portable or lugging the whole shebang round the side of a house or over a fence or down a gulley is the only option to get over the log?

If real-world portability of the 10" models is not significantly less than the 6" models, then it probably comes down to the cost and finding a proverbial hen's tooth second hand costing within what I have in savings to put towards it. Buying a 10" new ain't happening. I'm seriously debt-adverse and the finance companies have minimum borrowing amounts that are way in excess of what I need to fund such a purchase and they have some pretty steep penalties for early repayment too. It's understandable, but I'm not borrowing a cent more than I absolutely have to.

Then there is the production volume element. That because I mainly work alone, I'd be leaving so much potential volume on the table if I had a 10" mill. I'd be paying for a heap of volume capacity I'd seldom use. Every rev that 30HP motor is doing while I'm doing everything but making chips, is just wasted potential/capacity.

Rustynail's suggestion of a multi-mill set-up sounds great, especially if a bigger mill will be just too much for a lone wood-hack to easily move/set-up. I was thinking, how about no dedicated slabber, just 2, 6" trolleys and the second of them can be for a blade/slabber/planer/sander when the need arises. A bit of a compromise, but it at least keeps the main trolley immune from most readjustments (e.g when the planer goes on the lead/lean-in needs to be flattened out and then put back in when the blade goes back on, etc). But I see the 6" slabber attachment cutting width is less than the bigger mills and not as wide as logs I already have on the ground that I want to slab and leave live edges on.

Further, I thought maybe I could use the slabber on the 6" to cut 10" high cants, turn'em 90 degrees and double cut to get 10" wide boards from them. But the cut heights of all the slabbing attachments don't seem to go much beyond the blade cut capacity. E.g. the 6" mill slabber cut height is about 160mm and I don't know if this can be tweeked to get to 10" if need be. Does anyone know please? Maybe it's just a matter of making up different brackets and blade hub stubs for the sprocket to get more height?

Decisions, decisions. Anybody else actually hate the process of buying new gear? So many things to take into consideration, always the worry of screwing it up, or being screwed.

This might be useless advice, for I've zero experience, but have you considered a Logosol mill?

If portability and hand-hauling is important, this may be of value. (I've been looking myself)

Thanks for the suggestion. Certainly very portable, but for dimensional lumber I'm pretty set on a Lucas.
*editing to add* I've been keen on their Laks framesaw for a long time. Put one of those on a trailer and feed it cants all day long. One person can sure knock out some lumber with it. A pity about the price though. Would need to have plenty of ducks in a row to justify it. One of those slow...but fast machines, in the right wood.

I can't comment on any other size than the 10". I can move it and set it up on my own, but it's pretty big and heavy. The part that I find hard is not the set up of the mill it's self but the handling of the timber. Rolling logs is a bugger on your own and moving each cut piece of timber once it's milled. If you're on your own you have to lock the trolley, lower the revs, walk around the mill, grab the timber and stack it, then walk back and start the process again. With two people the time spent milling drops dramatically.

I figured I'd go the biggest saw I could get at the time because I don't want to have to upgrade in the future. I understand not wanting to go into debt to fund the purchase also. I think a decent quality second hand unit would be a very good option, it's just a matter of deciding on a size that will suit your needs. It really sounds like the 10" is what you need as that's the biggest saw and you want to cut to its maximum capacity. I believe the 10-30 has a bigger gearbox to suit the blade so I don't think you could put a bigger blade on a smaller saw.