Thread: Slabbing mill quiet electric

Can you expand as to the "engineer designed", I would have thought a 3HP motor would struggle with anything over 300mm dia, or is it extensively geared or something?

Thank you for your interest. The Mill was designed and built by a mechanical engineer who worked for a very large manufacturing public company in that capacity. He also built a surfacer capacity 1500x1500 and lathe equivalent of the largest Vicmarc amonst other things. He sold all his equipment and timber inventory to move away from Brisbane.

Regarding the size, speed and capacity of the mill. The machine is not a variable speed but has additional pulley sizes that would allow for different chain speeds if required. Like the Woodmizer and Lucas the preferred method of operation is to vary the timber feed rate rather than the chain speed or band speed. The camphor laurel illustrated is 570 mm wide and was milled with no difficulty at an acceptable speed. Probably the more important variables in the cutting process are the type of and sharpness of the chain, variety and moisture content of the log. A skip tooth ripping chain is being used for its sawdust clearance, better cutting and finish. The finish is equivalent or better than band saws.

If the buyer wanted more power and had 3 phase available it would be easy to upgrade to 5hp. As a generalisation the best operating range would be around 400 – 500 diameter depending on variety and moisture content. At a quarter of the cost of a Woodmizer, Lucas it is value for money. Interested parties would be welcome to see machine demonstrated.

I have seen this mill in operation and was surprised at itscapabilities and it will do what is claimed by “clouds”. It is quite capable of handling the small ‘backyard’ logs that most clubs and individual acquire quietly and efficiently. However,if you want to saw through a timber yard full of mill logs it may be a littleunderpowered.

I have cut with this mill with the builder of the machine who was an engineer.It was built to cut craft timbers in your shed , hence the electric motor. It is quite capable of cutting logs around 400-500mm in diameter with no trouble . I am sure if an interested buyer seen this machine in action ,they would be very surprised at its capability.