Thread: Cheap (ish) Band-Saw Mill?

Originally Posted by Hardenfast

Hi Gents.

I'm absolutely sold on the Lucas swing mill, and in fact have already ordered the 10" mill with all the accessories. Cant' help but be intrigued by this one, though... and from an Australian seller:

Hardwood Mills GT26 Portable Saw Mill - YouTube

Not sure how you embed these You-Tube videos - hope that works.

You guys are probably familiar with these, although I haven't seen this one before and couldn't find any discussions about them here. The price seems OK at AU$4,750.00 fitted with an Australian 1-1/4" bi-metal blade and 14hp Kohler engine. Maximum log width of 26" and length of 5.2m.

I'm sure there's some downsides, but I'm not seeing them at the moment. What do you guys think?

Wayne

Looks good,in fact,impressive..and what a mad price ...very tempting MM

If it can really handle our hardwoods, it might be decent - maybe for resawing cants if you had a large floorboard contract. Make large 10x4" cants on the lucas, resaw then with the bandmill.

Down side of bandmills is the continuous log rolling also the easiness for cranky results from a band - the operator has to be on top of a whole hose of various signs/symptoms to be able to put out decent timber - a lucas makes it so much easier. As well as capacity limits on a bandmill, you have to 'edge' your boards to produce timber, this means more handling.

Forum member Nifty is a long time band miller, not sure if he still lurks, but he can fill you in, I'd dare say a 9.5hp as shown in the video is much to small for the capacity of that mill.

These mills are manufactured in China, they are marketed & sold around the world under a variety of brand names by a variety of companies. here's the Canadian version Woodland Mills HM126 Portable Sawmill

They look to have some good design features for a basic manual mill. The carriage seems lightly built as does the angle iron track, notice its being used on level concrete, if it were off the ground or on wheels you would need to have it on a sub chassis otherwise it would bend.
In a recent thread Bushmiller posted some excelent photos of his Bushmill mill which was built by the late John Laidlaw, notice how rigid & heavily built it is,

cheers,
Dean

I run a large bandsaw with plenty of power. I wouldn't touch these cheaper units that are currently being advertised. You would need a swag of blades as they dull quickly in our hardwood and will wander as soon as they do. Stick with your lucas if you want to bring home a cheque every day.

cheers
Steve

I have seen this somewhere before, but I can't recall where. It is certainly a good price and offers an alternative to a chainsaw mill at only a little more cost (if you have to buy a chainsaw too). The portability is not quite so good. I think it may come in 3m bed sections, but again I'm not sure.

As Al said bandsaw milling is not as easy as a circular saw: Lots more pitfalls for the unwary. I see the turning of a log as an advantage rather than a disadvantage as it can minimise the effects of growth spring (tension) within a log, but it would be manual rotation with this mill using a cant hook. That is not too much of an issue if the logs are a reasonable size.

The motor could be biggerand there is no substitute for grunt, but it is probably adequate. Remember the band is only cutting a 1.2mm kerf.

Would certainly be worth a look and with some modifications could be quite workable. is it made in Australia or is it just an australian distributor?

Regards
Paul

Any bandsaw is only as good as the blade it is running. Once the blade starts to play up there is all hell to pay if you dont know your stuff. Bit of bow in the log and the size is down to poles.
I'll stick with Lucas.