Thread: Bandsaw Vs Circular Swingsaw. Pros and Cons

Hi Paul..the swingblade really has only one downside,that being the kerf..as for not being able to mill wide boards,8-10 inch is plenty (need a tree around 80cm girth+ if you want 210mm wide quarter-sawn boards either side of centre),and i reckon everything should be quarter-sawn anyway..wide back/riftsawn boards will often twist,irrespective of species,though some are worst than others...as for bandsaws ,wish i had one ..MM

Thanks for starting this thread Paul & also thanks to those who take the time to respond with their experiences.

Phill

Every sawmill is a series of compromises, and there is no such thing as a one size fits all sawmilling solution. The best you can do is try and place a dollar value on every variable and try and abide by the 80/20 rule: ie that you should be able to meet 80% of your needs with the equipment you have, and don't spend a fortune trying to handle the other 20.

That said, the business of cutting logs into lumber starts with trees, and the size and type of tree you encounter 80% of the time is going to dictate what the best type of mill to meet your needs is. You'll hear around here all the negatives about a thin band bandmill I'm sure... wavy cuts, limited throat capacity, the need to have more elaborate sharpening equipment etc etc. All these are limiting factors on a small bandmill for sure. But in $ terms this may not make a bandmill less profitable or less productive then any other mill system.

If ...
I cut good clean logs
and if ...
80% of the logs I expected to meet were under 30" in diameter
and if...
I was mostly cutting high value cabinet timbers in cabinetry lengths ( ie 10 foot and under)
...then it would be hard to go past a bandmill.

Swingmills are great, however their limitations are kerf (blade thickness) which can add up to a hell of a lot of money going out the door as waste at times, and they don't do at all well in smaller logs. That's not so much a swingmill issue as the lack of having adequate clamping and turning equipment to counter log stress attached to the mill.

If...
I cut a lot of dirty logs
and if...
I was cutting mostly scantling sizes
and if....
I had the luxury of not having to cut smaller logs
... then it would be hard to go past a swingmill.

And you need to compare apples with apples, based on dollar investment.

this is a long fought issue and althow it comes down to end use i have clear views.

cuircular sawblade mill is the only way to go in australia unless cutting all small high value softwoods.

woodmizer LT40 manual (28hp 36" log capacity) compared to a lucas 10-30 (30hp motor 10" max cut)

a mill cutting 100mm x 25mm boards with a blade mill 6mm kerf compared to a band mill cutting a 3mm kerf will only recover an extra 10-15lm of boards per cube of log, an additional value of about $20/m3 of log. this is the worst differance as teh boards get bigger the differance gets less.

a lucas 10-30 can produce up to 4m3 of sawn boards per day with 2 operators i know this because i can and have done it a few times.
a woodmizer lt40 manual can produce up to 3.5m3 of sawn boarrds per day as per there advertising cannot verify this.

the above is based on a woodmizer cutting american timbers and a lucas cutting australian hardwoods.

bandsaw blades have to be sharpened more often and set,tehy must be removed from the mill and put on a sharpening machine, they can only be sharpened a few times before needing replacement but tehy are cheap +/- $75

lucas blades need only to be sharpened twice a day if the logs are clean, can be sharpened on teh machine in less than 5 minutes and can be sharpened 30 times before needeing retiping @ $50 and the blade never need replacing.

to mill a log with a bandsaw you have to cut cants and move them in and out of the mill and rotate them by hand to get to your required size.

on a lucas you roll the log in and it sits there untill you are finished.

i know wich i would buy

Sorry Carl, but I'm going to have to disagree.
Not with your overall opinion... I own a lucas, not a bandmill after all. But I do have to disagree with your recovery figures, based on cutting 1" stock.
I mostly sit on 27mm GOS when chasing inch, as does nearly every commercial mill I know. The reason for this - and you know this but I'm explaining to those who don't - is because hit and miss of 2mm is quite common, and if we lost 2mm off a 25mm plank, then allow for shrinkage, it's hard to get 19mmm DAR. The quickest way to devalue a length of flooring is to have to take it back to 15mm overlay because of a tiny imperfection in the finished board. So we all cut oversize to insure against that.
27mm + 6.5mm kerf = 33.5mm
27mm + 1.43mm kerf = 28.5 to round it off. Thats based on a 17 guage 5 inch wide band... not a thin kerf narrow one.
So in a 10 x 4 cant a lucas would recover 7 nominal inch boards, the band will recover 8.

The reality is that bands can and do give a recovery increase of around 10% in clean softwoods with band primaries, and 5% in Australian hardwoods (with band resaws behind a circular primary.) A 5 % recovery increase in the average sized Qld hardwood mill doing 3000 cube a year is 150 extra cube a year of recovered boards, and that mate is a lot of bloody money not going out the door as waste at $40 a tonne. Theres a reason all the worlds largest and most efficient sawmills run bandsaws, and this is it.

Having said all that I do totally agree with you. On typical eucalypt logs it just doesn't add up on the small scale level to save the extra boards as the volume recovered doesn't justify the costs. But the guy is in New Zealand, and the industry there is based mostly on pine I believe. Bands loveeeeeeeeee​ pine, so long as the bark is off or clean.

In A 17 gauge saw the actual steel of the band is 1.48mm thick plus 1mm of set each way gives a 3.48mm kerf.

My figures were based on cutting 106 x 27mm boards for feedstock.

Based on 50% recovery you should get about 170-180 lm of feedstock per cube of log so a bandsaw will increase recovery by about 7%.

7% increase in recovery dose not make up for the increase in maintenance and labour involved in producing the boards.

Now if we are going to get into resawing cants then that's another thing but I'd still have cerc saws for hardwood.

Originally Posted by Bushmiller

but the intention was for an entry level machine primarily intended for own use only or the occasional cutting of timber for a neighbour.
Paul

Hang on fellas' the context of this thread was clearly stated by Bushmiller (quoted above), now your talking about m/day, 2 operators, 3000 cubes a year, this is all commercial stuff. I dont feel its the "kerf" or the m/day throughput issue that will be the deciding factor for phill-nz.

The basic options he has are (not in any order) -
1. engage a portable milling contractor to mill for him
2. buy a new mill & do it himself (maybe re sell afterwards)
3. buy second hand mill & do as in no. 2
4. build his own mill & do it himself.

Can I explain my personal situation & thoughts. Over the last 10 years I've had a few logs to mill into timber for various farm projects like stock yarsd etc. A couple of time I engaged 2 locals who own a 8" lucas & they did good work, I helped out, carted the logs to the mill & tailed off for them etc. but I liked the milling process that much I decided I wanted to do it myself. I hinted a bit to them "if they ever want to sell their 20yo mill anytime please let me know first please" etc etc, no bites were forthcoming. So I then kept my eye out for a second hand Lucas but noted they hold their value really well & were still out of my price range considering it was only for my own use.
One day I was at an agro forestry field day and watched a Norwood bandsaw mill working on cypress, blackwood & a casurrina, the Norwood performed very well & I considered that it would be quite capable for my own uses which are mainly cypress, some blackwood, and a bit of mesmate & the occasoinal exotic whatever, problem was the Norwood was just as expensive as a good used Lucas.
So I got thinking, why not build my own bandsaw mill, I like a challenge and it seemed quite achievable so I started to research this idea. well 18 months later & $2000 spent I'm now milling my own timber, its not the fastest mill around but it works well. And finally the way I see it, some of my mates go play golf on the weekend with equally priced golfing gear. Me, well when I toss a log on the mill I'm having just as much fun and at the end of the day it I got something to show for it

Here's a link to my build, I need to update it because I've made a few changes https://www.woodworkforums.com/f132/h...update-163906/

cheers,
Dean.

Originally Posted by spray-tech

Hang on fellas' the context of this thread was clearly stated by Bushmiller (quoted above), now your talking about m/day, 2 operators, 3000 cubes a year, this is all commercial stuff. I dont feel its the "kerf" or the m/day throughput issue that will be the deciding factor for phill-nz.

The basic options he has are (not in any order) -
1. engage a portable milling contractor to mill for him
2. buy a new mill & do it himself (maybe re sell afterwards)
3. buy second hand mill & do as in no. 2
4. build his own mill & do it himself.

Can I explain my personal situation & thoughts. Over the last 10 years I've had a few logs to mill into timber for various farm projects like stock yarsd etc. A couple of time I engaged 2 locals who own a 8" lucas & they did good work, I helped out, carted the logs to the mill & tailed off for them etc. but I liked the milling process that much I decided I wanted to do it myself. I hinted a bit to them "if they ever want to sell their 20yo mill anytime please let me know first please" etc etc, no bites were forthcoming. So I then kept my eye out for a second hand Lucas but noted they hold their value really well & were still out of my price range considering it was only for my own use.
One day I was at an agro forestry field day and watched a Norwood bandsaw mill working on cypress, blackwood & a casurrina, the Norwood performed very well & I considered that it would be quite capable for my own uses which are mainly cypress, some blackwood, and a bit of mesmate & the occasoinal exotic whatever, problem was the Norwood was just as expensive as a good used Lucas.
So I got thinking, why not build my own bandsaw mill, I like a challenge and it seemed quite achievable so I started to research this idea. well 18 months later & $2000 spent I'm now milling my own timber, its not the fastest mill around but it works well. And finally the way I see it, some of my mates go play golf on the weekend with equally priced golfing gear. Me, well when I toss a log on the mill I'm having just as much fun and at the end of the day it I got something to show for it

Here's a link to my build, I need to update it because I've made a few changes https://www.woodworkforums.com/f132/h...update-163906/

cheers,
Dean.

I think everyone has responded in context to the thread Dean..dont forget,information is empowerment....particularly from folk that have done ALOT of milling..

Originally Posted by weisyboy

In A 17 gauge saw the actual steel of the band is 1.48mm thick plus 1mm of set each way gives a 3.48mm kerf.

My figures were based on cutting 106 x 27mm boards for feedstock.

Based on 50% recovery you should get about 170-180 lm of feedstock per cube of log so a bandsaw will increase recovery by about 7%.

7% increase in recovery dose not make up for the increase in maintenance and labour involved in producing the boards.

Now if we are going to get into resawing cants then that's another thing but I'd still have cerc saws for hardwood.

Yeah, i got out in the yard and realised I'd made an error about band kerf there Carl, and wandered back at smoko to edit. I used to work with a West Plains 500 system and that had a kerf of 2.2mm on a 5"band. Once I pay the kara off I'll be working with another one

Originally Posted by spray-tech

Hang on fellas' the context of this thread was clearly stated by Bushmiller (quoted above), now your talking about m/day, 2 operators, 3000 cubes a year, this is all commercial stuff. I dont feel its the "kerf" or the m/day throughput issue that will be the deciding factor for phill-nz.

Dean.

Dean

It's a good point and I think it just goes to show how contentious the rivalry is between the two camps.

I would point out that the bandsaw is not so forgiving as the circular saw. The local mill in Muswellbrook where I used to live used a bandsaw (about 150mm from memory) for breaking down. They would not contemplate milling Ironbark, for example.

When I first started milling, bearing in mind it was my livelihood, I had the bandsaw. Within a few months I realised that it was not going to do the job I wanted (building material, stockyard rails etc) as I just couldn't cut enough timber per day. It was at that point I bought the swingsaw as well.

The original intention was to cater for the man who was mainly cutting for himself and the relative pros and cons such as phill-nz, who became the catalyst for the thread. Cubes per day is not a big issue as that person will just plug away until he has enough for his purpose.

He may also have some tiddler logs up to a couple of metres long, but is specialty species. A swingsaw will have a good go at breaking your ankles with these logs unless you build a frame to secure them, so it was these types of issues I was particularly alluding to for the "weekend" miller.

BTW all the bands we are talking of are small. tidlers even Carl's band for his saw (WIP) is a tidler.

This is a band Band blade.jpg

Having said all of that I do find it very interesting to hear the relative pros and cons of even the commercial mills. Just as an additional comment, a lot of possibilities become available once you have mechanised handling of the timber.

I make no apologies for stating yet again milling is more about the way the timber is handled, both before and after the sawing, than the sawing itself. My own experience has been that cutting the timber is the easiest part.

Regards
Paul

Paul, I'm with you in that. Looking after the timber once cut is most important part of attaining decent timber.

Personally, I'd love a band mill to compliment my Lucas if supplying feedstock contracts.

For flexibility and initial learning curve I'd suggest a mill like a Lucas. My perception of the learning curve with band milling is very steep before decent repeatable products can be guaranteed.

Originally Posted by Sigidi

Paul, I'm with you in that. Looking after the timber once cut is most important part of attaining decent timber.

Personally, I'd love a band mill to compliment my Lucas if supplying feedstock contracts.

For flexibility and initial learning curve I'd suggest a mill like a Lucas. My perception of the learning curve with band milling is very steep before decent repeatable products can be guaranteed.

Al

You're right on the money there. I'm still on the steep part of the curve .

Regards
Paul

Originally Posted by Sigidi

Paul, I'm with you in that. Looking after the timber once cut is most important part of attaining decent timber.

Personally, I'd love a band mill to compliment my Lucas if supplying feedstock contracts.

For flexibility and initial learning curve I'd suggest a mill like a Lucas. My perception of the learning curve with band milling is very steep before decent repeatable products can be guaranteed.

Ahhhhhhh... now the one I lie there at night thinking about is a swingmill... on axles, with the full hydraulic deck and self load capacitity of a high end bandmill.

Originally Posted by John.G

Ahhhhhhh... now the one I lie there at night thinking about is a swingmill... on axles, with the full hydraulic deck and self load capacitity of a high end bandmill.

JG

Not quite self load capability but this is getting close for automation and a 300 x 200 cut. I really love the board return. I could live with that.

Interestingly, they used to have a computerised model that self-loaded, rotated the log and dogged it hydraulically and could cut more than a cube per hour and it was portable. Somewhere I have a video of it doing just that, but a quick glance on U-tube showed nothing and they certainly don't list the model any more. I think it was called the 2000 or something similar.

Mahoe Sawmills Supermill 2013 - YouTube

But I digress from bandsaws and swingsaws .

Regards
Paul