We bought a brand new Norwood 2000 to saw up limb wood that is too small for our big saws and it works remarkably well considering that you can buy a brand new one for about one-tenth the cost of a big portable saw.
You can cut larger logs on it too but if you were going to do much sawing I'd get a much larger machine - but, in all fairness, it does work well on larger logs - it's just slow.
The one we bought came with a 23 or 25 hp gas engine, I believe. I sure wouldn't't get any engine smaller than that for sure.
Here's the bad news: These machines come unassembled and in a million pieces. (bags and bags and bags of small parts). After several days of having my employees try their hands at assembling it we finally just hired a professional machinest after hours to get it going. That worked out well.
If you are mechanically inclined and can keep from getting discouraged, this machine is a real bargain. Nothing out there under $15,000 comes close to it. I think we paid about $6,000 plus $1,800 for assembly + S&H so it came in under $9k in all.
The few other people I've spoken with who also own one of these all complain about the irregular and problematic cutting with theirs. Once they run our machine, and see how well and fast it cuts, they realize that their machine must be way out of kilter. One 2000 owner we know hired this same machinest to tear his apart and put it back together properly and now his work fantastic too.
As much as I like this machine it's like putting together a 50,000 piece jigsaw puzzle. However, it does come with a great photo rich instruction manual of about 150 pages.
To other Norwood owners who may disagree with my take on the complex assembly: if you put yours together yourself and it works properly, my hat is off to you. There aren't a lot of people who can do this on their own - but no one would EVER want to do it again, I'll bet.
If you are ever in my area feel free to stop by and use mine for a day before buying one.
Thanks. Dennis