Thread: Milling stats

"Yep, if you haven't noticed, I was happy with how these few days went so I'm wanting to tell someone and the boss doesn't seem too interested in my sawdust booger stories"

alright how big and what consistency

Nice work, Sigidi. I haven't bothered to do such a calculation, but with two blokes and the logs set up on 6x6s for feeding, we can get through well over 10 log cubes of hardwood in a day, provided we don't get any nasty inclusions. If we've got large diameter logs, we can do a fair bit better.

I've been doing some experimenting with sharpening though and while I don't reckon it makes much difference on eucs, I do believe it improves the cutting a lot on softer woods, such as pine, silky or camphor. The chips are bigger and the cut is cleaner and straighter with sharpened blades. I suspect that the soft fibres of these timbers don't cut cleanly with blunt blades and the "furry" surface can flex the plate. What I've found with hardwood is that the biggest impact is getting the teeth square and centralised on the plate. Otherwise, the plate builds up dust which it can't clear and is forced to bend, which both buggers the cut and increases the effort a huge amount. The other factor is breaking teeth. I recently cut a spotty which busted all but 2 of the teeth about halfway through and I finished with only 1 still intact. The effort required to push/pull the mill is quite a bit greater, but funnily enough, the cut quality isn't much worse.

Fubar, wasn't sure what you where talking about initially, but you a funny man consistency quite dry in the middle with a mucous exterior, all very black and not quite as big as I thought they'd be, but the wind was in my favour for two days, so maybe this helped in reduction of size production.

Exador, do you really get through more than 10 cube a day? What sizes are you cutting from the logs and what is a large diameter log for you guys? You're running an 825 or 827?

Who knows what the process is for the Sawmill Shootout? do they get a cut list to produce? how much log do they start with? what species is it, hardwood or softwood?

Mathuranatha, you have a swing mill what do you reckon to the stats side of things, have you got some numbers to throw into the ring, or perceptions on sharpening?

I think when it makes better than 250% difference, by the end of the day, that's a significant difference???

Originally Posted by Sigidi

Exador, do you really get through more than 10 cube a day? What sizes are you cutting from the logs and what is a large diameter log for you guys? You're running an 825 or 827?

Who knows what the process is for the Sawmill Shootout? do they get a cut list to produce? how much log do they start with? what species is it, hardwood or softwood?

Yeah, we get through 10-12 cube if we're trying. Average is probably nearer to 2-3 though, since I'm not all that keen on working hard. A large log for us is around 700-800, with the average nearer to 450. Normally we try to keep them around 4-5 m long at most, but we do cut some longer stuff. The longer boards can actually slow you down, since they're too much for one person to lug all day. We do cut a lot at around 2.5m long though. We're running an 827. The big time saver is setting them up on rails so they can be rolled in. I'll do a piccie of the setup when I can. The most common dimension we cut is 200 x 50, although we also do quite a bit of 210 x 30 and 210 x 40. We don't cut that much smaller than 200, except the odd squares and some 100x75 for posts. I think Peterson have a link to the Sawmill Shootout on their website.

Originally Posted by Sigidi

Mathuranatha, you have a swing mill what do you reckon to the stats side of things, have you got some numbers to throw into the ring, or perceptions on sharpening?

I think when it makes better than 250% difference, by the end of the day, that's a significant difference???

Well Ive only got one of those little electric skill mills .They only do a 4'' cut and logs 4meters long. The blades have only 2 tips.First mill Ive owned , just sort of learning I,ve only been cutting camphor , seems up to that ok , haven't tried any hard wood yet , probably be a bit slow as they are only a 3hp elecric motor.

.Haven't used it much in the six months Ive had it as I got an old 20 ton excavator for the property shortly after I got the mill and it became my favorite toy .But now i've knocked out a whole lot of trees I,ve got them all lined up ready to mill.

By the time I learn how to use all my toys properly probably be too old to do much much with em

What timber have you got on your property? I wasn't in my sawdust stage of life when I was around M,bah so I can't remember much of the tree's around there. I do remember having a little walk up Mt. Warning and spending a bit of time out Uki way... geese we get old quicker than we think

Metricky what are your thoughts on the above?

Hi all, Haven't really spent much time thinking about m3 / hr, most of my work is either for my own timber supply or small amounts on contract rates for other people. Speices vary from red gum to pine and also in quanities. I have noticed that the motor runs alot smoother while cutting red gum, tips also seem to last longer between needing polished while the knots in pine really pull the motor back and knock hell out of the tct. Last summer the local tree feller removed a large pine tree, 1.5m at base and 1m 12m up,this log was milled into 200 x 50, 150 x 50, 125 x 40 and 100 x 50, all up spent 11 hours for just over 5.5m3 on my own with temps over 38, not looking for another job like that in a hurry. I am cutting pine at a local caravan park at the moment which is going into 160 x 25, 50 x 25 and also weather boards. at a rough guess if every going well could push maybe 3/4 m3 /hr but again on your own and after work things can change alot. I cut some bushy sugar gum last week, very nice looking stuff but hard as @#$%, could only manage a 3" cut with fresh sharpend teeth, only small log but well worth it though. I can really notice the difference after sharpening the balde, should really try to sharpen more regularly but you know how things are, i do try to sharpen after removing the top of log as i think alot of your edge is lost in the bark and dirt in this area.
On another note had 2 blades retipped and tensioned at Mt Gambier saw works including postaage came to $79, I think that this is very good price,(postage $13.50).
At the end of the day you sure make a lot of saw dust!!