Thread: lucas mills cant rival traditional sawmills!?

I reckon you are comparing oranges and apples. Advantages of Lucas mills is their portability. You don't have transport costs of logs to a fixed site mill so for someone who has a small number of logs to turn over but needs timber, portable mills are a big bonus. Plus they are speaking directly with the miller so they get what they want.
Recovery rate for Lucas (or portable mills) is often better than fixed site-partic if the log owner wants small dimension timber in order to recover more. A fixed site mill is usually high production and doesnt want to muck about with smaller bits.
Lucas mill operaters will often process the minor species stuff (cut differently depending on figure coming out of the timber or wether the person wants stuctural timber eg Back saw, quarter saw or a combinationetc) wheras the fixed site mills once again are high production so are not as inclined to muck about as much. I suppose that depends on how you've set up your business. If you're cutting a cube rate you don't want to muck about,get it done as quick as possible. If you're on hourly rate and the client who is on site says cut to get everything thats what you'll do. An example to illustrate this is a client with a hardwood log wants 6x1 for produce crates you can chew through them -cube rate vs a hobby woodworker with a red cedar log who wants every scrap of wood from the log -hour rate).

when mobile milling i always cut to get maximum recovery. if customer wants 6x1s and there is a peice lefton the side i will cut it into whatever i can get. i dont like wasign wood. and i charge on an hourly rate.

maby i should be more clear.

i am talkign about running a lucas in one location cuttign logs to fill orders. witch is the only way to do it to get volume out.

just like you said weisyboy "level playing field!"
if you setup your lucas next to a fixed mill of roughly the same size i guarantee you will be more productive.
as far as accuracy i dont know where people get off saying that the lucas is a "BUSH mill." as long as no one has changed the settings on the lucas it should be deadly accurate. its more of the operator knowing how to cut timber.
and efficeincy is more of the operator keeping his head on the job and have a rough plan of what he is gunna do with the log.

I've been thinking about this, since the Lucas I use is set up next to a Canadian and bench saw it'd be easy to do a comparison.

Task: Cut 30 sleepers, using as many logs as needed.
Marks for:

• Timber quality (Straightness, depth of saw marks, sizing)
• Time taken (Important)
• Recovery
• Etc.

If you behave yourself you might be able to watch (Carl you can tail for me)

i aint no tailor

wada ya recon we win ay.

Having worked with both portable ( Lucas ) & fixed sawmills ( 2 man operation with 800mm throat breaking down bandsaw & a 900mm 2 man breast bench ) in HWD log recovery. I would have to say log for log that there is not much between them as far as recovery, productivity or accuracy goes, but the quality of the sawmill produced timber is far superior because of the breaking down process which releases most of the stresses in the timber. To get that quality of timber from a portable mill the timber has to be resawn & as soon as you start that process then the recovery & productivity drops off considerably & then the portable mill is not in the race.
For instance while it has been raining I have been cutting flooded gum for my house wall frames, the studs 100 X 38 & are up to 3.9m long, all of it has cut with the lucas & been resawn from 130 X 230 flitches ( approx' ), which would produce 5 good studs, which have been stacked outside in the weather not covered. That timber is just as straight as when I cut it, beside it are some 75 X 50 X 4500 roof battens which were sawn straight from the log & if they didn't have 200mm + bow & spring in them I'd be suprised. To compare apples with apples the quality is a factor often missed.
Regards inter

that is true.

it is verry hard to saw for tention with a lucas.

but with good logs and a decent operator it shouldnt matter.

flooded gum! thats tuff bows like crap thow.

Originally Posted by InterTD6

Having worked with both portable ( Lucas ) & fixed sawmills ( 2 man operation with 800mm throat breaking down bandsaw & a 900mm 2 man breast bench ) in HWD log recovery. I would have to say log for log that there is not much between them as far as recovery, productivity or accuracy goes, but the quality of the sawmill produced timber is far superior because of the breaking down process which releases most of the stresses in the timber. To get that quality of timber from a portable mill the timber has to be resawn & as soon as you start that process then the recovery & productivity drops off considerably & then the portable mill is not in the race.
For instance while it has been raining I have been cutting flooded gum for my house wall frames, the studs 100 X 38 & are up to 3.9m long, all of it has cut with the lucas & been resawn from 130 X 230 flitches ( approx' ), which would produce 5 good studs, which have been stacked outside in the weather not covered. That timber is just as straight as when I cut it, beside it are some 75 X 50 X 4500 roof battens which were sawn straight from the log & if they didn't have 200mm + bow & spring in them I'd be suprised. To compare apples with apples the quality is a factor often missed.
Regards inter

Thats interesting . What is the "breaking down process"that commercial mills use to"release most of the stresses in the timber"?

----mat

edge sawing.

they cut the flitches each side evenly "square the log" when u mill with a lucas yu start one side adn work your way down and u will find the log will hump as you cut down it. and teh boards will bow off it.

I have seen lucasses I have also seen other semi transportable spot mills in operation I have seen woodmizers and mahoes the latter of which I believe would eat any lucas made and I have also worked in large mills milling in excess of 200000 lineal metres of pine boards of all different sizes in an 8 hour shift (thats debarking, breaking down and extracting boards at better than 80% recovery) so just what sort of stationary mill are you trying to compare to?

conventional sawmills.

2 men operating a conventional bench type sawmill cannot produce teh same quantity of boards in a day as 2 men operating a Lucas mill.

quality from a conventional mill will be better. and recovery rate slightly better as resawing with a lucas is a dead loss.

2 men on a lucas sawing HWD timber = high percentage of fencing, sleeper, batten or pallet grade timber, some useable straight structural timber for framing, flooring, beams, posts.

2 men on a breast bench sawing HWD timber = high percentage of long straight usable timber for framing, flooring, beams, posts. Low percentage of timber for fencing, sleepers, battens or pallet timber grade from the remainder.

And also working a bench saw is at hip height with no bending down unless you drop your chalk, green chains bring in & take away all the timber, it takes all of a minute or 2 to load a log onto the log carriage ready for breaking down & you never really carry any timber at all as it always supported by a trolley or benches, waste timber is flicked onto a waste trolley or conveyer beside the bench. As far as output goes my money would be on the benchsaw anytime.
regards inter

Hang on a minute....

so the consensus seems to be a Lucas can't cut as good 'quality' as a traditional mill?

Are you guys serious

I've built almost 500sqm of timber framed house straight off my Lucas, all green NONE RE-SAWN I've had the misfortune to be forced to buy some timber from a 'traditional standing sawmill' (you know the one's reported to produce "high percentage of long straight usable timber for framing, flooring, beams, posts" and also apparently "quality from a conventional mill will be better") and was severely disappointed

As an example these joists;

Attachment 130161

I had to buy from our local sawmill, I won't get caught up on how much they bloody cost, as no-one has mentioned cost. 10 of the 24 joists (over 40% of my order!) where so far out of grading rules and of such poor quality, I rang the mill up to send the 10 back - explained I was a qualified grader and the timber was not only well outside grading rules but I felt unusable. Some had so much twist in them they wouldn't even stand on their edge, bow I wasn't worried about, but the spring they had was phenomenal!! They aren't anything special, just 6x2's standard bloody stuff - I just didn't have logs

The mill sent the owners son out, after an hour the best answer I got was "...the grading rules need changing" ! "the grading rules need changing!!" Now we are talking almost 3 years ago and I'm pretty sure they haven't relaxed grading rules in that 3 years, so obviously no change was needed in the rules and I've been producing timber within grade in the last 3 years....

With the Lucas, I have learned 4x4's are a tricky customer and can be worse than difficult to get straight if taken from small logs and yes some logs will have a good deal of tension and hump up during cutting, but as far as quality produced.... maybe I am blessed with the countries best logs :sarcastic: funny thing, around here I tend to take my logs from sites where this standing sawmill has already been and I get their 'left-overs'.

So here's my example for the Lucas; front verandah - to minimise posts I did some 7.5m spans of 6x2 and 6x3. Other than the 6x3 bearers being a bit thick in the middle (75mm dimension, not 150mm dimension) which I planed back to a consistent thickness, I erected/installed them myself, no extra hands needed, sat in/on the notched posts once I managed to pick them up and I added clamps for safety. I didn't need to get other people swinging off them, didn't need to rotate wicked twist out of them, or work out some way to compress the buggery out of them to get them to sit in place...

My personal experience is I get better quality timber from my Lucas than I have bought from a traditional mill. I definitely am under no illusion I cannot produce the volume of timber in the same time (speed) as a traditional mill, but I can recover more from the same volume of log and produce better quality timber, within grading rules for structural timber and personally I won't give away a truly defined 'fencing grade' piece of timber, it goes to the fire pile.

a lucas can cut exactly the same quality timber from a log as a conventional mill.

quality of timber depends soley on the log quality. all the rest is down to the operator.