Thread: Small sawmilling... well... relatively speaking

You day dreaming again? Thanks for the link. I've seen others where they show the de-barker and other processes including the laying of multiple laser guidelines on the timber for multi rip sawing in more detailed action shots. Amazing technology. I've been meaning to go up and see the soft wood mill on the tablelands in action if they let you see it of course.

[emoji106][emoji106]

I get a great deal of satisfaction watching production lines working to make a finished product but, what really gets me thinking is someone had to devise a method then all the bits of machinery have to come together to make it all happen. One thing that struck me from the vid was the lack of personell. The chirography did away with humans

Have a squiz at this one. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_c...&v=Q1eWUby71Ew

Apparently the only thing that can't be done without human manual intervention is the 'gift wrapping'.

When I toured Willamina Lumber years ago it was still in the worlds top ten sawmills by output... aint now but its like double the output of the Vaagen Bros mill in the link. The maths was that they were doing around 1700 cube per shift, I dont do that much in a year!!!

Similar things go on in joinery
Check out the Hundegger K2i or Robot drive.
https://youtu.be/JNVjqNiCdQE

My Italian Cousins have a K2i I posted on this back in 2010 but all the pics are lost.

Originally Posted by chambezio

I get a great deal of satisfaction watching production lines working to make a finished product but, what really gets me thinking is someone had to devise a method then all the bits of machinery have to come together to make it all happen. One thing that struck me from the vid was the lack of personell. The chirography did away with humans

The labour issue is what kills small processors like me.
Can't increase profit without increasing production, cant increase production without either buying better equipment or putting more people on. Cant borrow money from the bank to buy the machine to increase production because I cant get the production numbers of the bigger machine without actually having the bigger machine. Or hiring the labour to toss at the old one which means that while production increases profitability actually decreases.

Machines are cheap if they replace manpower... install a $300,000 sawline (not big but an efficient small mill) and what used to take six men now takes 3, thats a saving of $150k a year in wages and associated costs which meets the payments and running costs with some left over... and the production increase that comes with it goes straight to the bottom line. And every other industry is the same, which is why Australian manufacturing jobs are dying.

I'm glad my kids arent interested in sawmilling: there's no future in it in Australia that I can see.