camel2019
ArboristSite Guru
Is there any new cricular saw mills or blades.
Circular saw mills
- Thread starter camel2019
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Good question but I don't have a good answer and I feel sure there are many available if you want to buy one I couldn't afford one regardless. I would think you could search Corley. Helle, Mobark, ,,, A lot of the old names have went to the wayside and many new names stepping in.. I thought I saw an ad for new Meadows "Circular" sawmills. Many New circle blades out there..
Lucas mill!
YUP.
I was thinking 60" blades When I read "Criculr" sawmills.
camel2019
ArboristSite Guru
Not really what I’m looking for
camel2019
ArboristSite Guru
Pretty much what I’m looking for the old style I missed out on one at an estate sale a few years ago for $500 it was powered at one time by a farmall. I think these saws are much more productive then the modern bandsaw mills and the Lucas mill.
I am on the edge of taking the 20hp Briggs I go sitting here and rebuilding it to make a stationary chainsaw mill thinking I could get away with 36 inch bar if not bigger.
10-4. I just sold a Mobil Dimension mill that a buddie and I was given. We spent over a year refurbishing it then used it for 2 years before putting it up for sale because he is moving to Warshington. Loved that mill, but my access to timber is hit n miss at best, so we took it to a public spot and put a for sale sign on it, it sold in 2 hrs for $15,500. The buyer lives about 10 min from where we brought it to sell and and was back with cash as fast as he could make the trip home and return! Milling is a lot of work, but I enjoyed it a lot!
camel2019
ArboristSite Guru
I get that circular sawmills are more dangerous etc nothing in life is really safe but as long as you have a little common sense I don’t see the issue. I guess their isn’t much common sense in the world anymore lawnmowers shut off if you don’t hold the handle and them safe stops for table saws etc.
camel2019
ArboristSite Guru
Looks like I will be kicking myself for not buying that one for $500. life story I could have had 50 acres with a 6 bedroom 3 and a half bath house multiple outbuildings and a decent sized pond for $150,000 10 years ago that land alone now would be around $750,000 to $1,000,000
They're generally faster through the log on an individual cut. Whether or not they're more productive depends what your end goal is and what bandsaw you're comparing to what circle mill. There's a huge variety of productivity levels between different bandmills, just as there is between different circle mills.
camel2019
ArboristSite Guru
Something like soft wood lumber cutting 2x or even cedar for siding
I'm thinking of the massive circular saw mill my father used to cut timber for in the 1950s and 60'ss
For a while that mill was the biggest saw mill in Australia..
Cutting only hardwoods, mainly Karri that grew to close to 300 ft tall.
At its peak the mill employed about 400 people - now it cuts mainly plantation softwood about the same amount of timber, but employ ~100 people (mainly in the office and transport) AND only 9 people work the actual mill.
Except for the docking saws, all the big circulars have been replaced by a double sided bandsaw.
For a while that mill was the biggest saw mill in Australia..
Cutting only hardwoods, mainly Karri that grew to close to 300 ft tall.
At its peak the mill employed about 400 people - now it cuts mainly plantation softwood about the same amount of timber, but employ ~100 people (mainly in the office and transport) AND only 9 people work the actual mill.
Except for the docking saws, all the big circulars have been replaced by a double sided bandsaw.
there is a niche market for rough sawn lumber for interiors. there are a couple swing mills (new) out there. Those are used for dimensional lumber. check out lumbermen on line forum or the forestery forums ( not part of this sight) I know of a complete mill up for auction down AL way. if you have around 1/2 mill free
camel2019
ArboristSite Guru
Well I’m possibly looking at buying a small 10 or so acre parcel of land without a house kinda would like to mill my own for framing versus buying it bc when you buy pallet loads you get all kinds of nasty twisted crowned etc .
camel2019
ArboristSite Guru
Also for missing wood for projects.
Timberking in the past has made a tractor pto powered sawmill like I think you are envisioning. I could have bought one for around $5000 a few years ago but it was half the way across the country. They might be able to find you one and tell if they could support it.
camel2019
ArboristSite Guru
Think it was a old frick or foley belsaw or something like that it used a flat belt off the tractor was a huge machine.
ChoppyChoppy
Tree Freak
More dangerous, waste more wood, need a good operator to not burn the blade.
Most I've seen make cants and those are sawn into lumber with a band mill. 1/8" kerf vs 1/4"
camel2019
ArboristSite Guru
My thing with a band saw mill is their slow feed rate already for the manual machines that everyone can afford.
mom not a fan of band saws in general especially when blades can’t be had locally for cutting steel I use a power hacksaw if that tells you anything.
Nothing wrong with a power hacksaw, beats a an abrasive chopsaw. cold saws are faster and more accurate, and band saws are just cheap in the scheme of things. just the time engineers do not like lost motion machines. Not many shops have shapers any more either or if they do it's stuck in some out of the way spot and hasn't been used in years. when i was in high school we did not have any milling machines in the metal shop, but we had a shaper. Slow compared to a mill.
