Rob you asked what I don't like about the new mills.
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It doesn't sound or look like a warmed over 2000 to me, it's a totally new design, said to blow the 2000 out of the water.
Rob
New design I believe, but blowing the LM2000 out of the water I certainly don't believe. The late model LM2000s are almost perfect as far as manual bandmills go. The only way that I can see the new MX mill blowing the battle tested LM2000 "out of the water" is if every mill purchase comes with 2 free laborers.
On the new MX mill I see new cross bunks with low angular rigidity, this I don't like, if I really push hard on that log to slide it sideways down the bunks to slide it into position, and a knot catches, that new bunk will bend well before my current square tube bunks will.
The plastic spout for the water outlet I like, that's good thinking, although I wish it were made of metal though for longevity. I give it 4 months before its broken and being replaced with a 50 cent piece of stainless steel tubing.
The ceramic guides I'll pass on thank you. In fact I know of a sawyer who went from ceramic to a roller guide system because he was getting tired of always dealing with pitch build-up on them. I know that my norwood rollers use 6203RS bearings, a very common item stocked at a local store. When the day comes to replace these, it will take me $10 and I'll have the new ones installed in a couple of hours. If foreign debris breaks one of those ceramic guides, well I better have a spare on hand. I don't want to be down for 4 days while I wait for a new one to come in via express.
I would rather keep my centrifugal clutch over the cable activated one. No setup to worry about, it just works, time after time, and never slips or burns out due to improper adjustment or a cable problem.
The auto water on off is a moot point to me. I am often adjusting my water flow and sometimes using no water, or water every 5th cut, etc.
The new speed style "automatic" setworks bothers me. If I want to make a 1/16" correction but the nearest setworks notch is at a 1/4" mark, will I still be able to make that fine adjustment? This is important to me and would be a major deal breaker.
Norwood dropped the 20HP Honda. If anything they should have added a commercial Honda engine, this would be a 25HP fuel injected Honda if I could have my pick. If I were going to buy one of these new MX mills, I would ask it to be supplied sans engine. I am happy with the durability of my Honda and would buy another one now that I have it running smoothly in cold and damp weather.
Norwood says the new mill has oversized bandwheels. They are 20.25" in diameter. They are not oversized. 24" would be fine, something in the 28" range would be oversized. If they were going to change the bandwheel diameter, why not go a couple inches larger to really make a difference on blade life.
Their new "Extreme Duty" log dog system looks like a joke to me. It looks less effective than the current dogging system. What's more, they haven't yet addressed the sawdust binding issues inherent with having one tube slide over the other.
For whatever reason, they went with an open flat runner system for the carriage to track on. I don't even see any sweepers to clear the tracks. With the current LM2000, sawdust buildup on the tracks is never an issue with its self cleaning design. You can have all the fancy gizmos in the world, but if the carriage won't run true because of sawdust buildup on the tracks, you're back at square one.
I see 3 cables coming off of the same handle, I have enough fun maintaining the one throttle cable in the winter. In fact, the solid steel choke cable became so much of a problem that I removed it completely. My mill is now running like it should be with the choke cable off. Can you imagine having three cables, all having to work properly in unison? No thank you, give me Woodmizer's sealed electrical system any day over that bunch of cables.
As for the roller toe boards, why would they go away from a proven single roller design to 2 small plastic wheels? I think it would work great on smooth hardwood logs, but for the rest of us dealing with irregular and knotty logs on a regular basis, I'm surprised by this.
I see some things on the new mill that I do like. For all those guys needing a portable mill, it has 6 solid looking jacks instead of the old small screw-jack levelers that were prone to bending, and the standard stainless bunk covers is good to see. However, all in all, I am really disappointed that Norwood has gone from producing one of the best manual mills out there, the LM2000, to taking a large step backwards in my opinion with this new MX Pro mill that really does not exhibit many "pro" features at all.
The only saving grace to me is that when the time comes to upgrade, the Lumbermate 2000s should hold their value well and there are a lot of other serious commercial mill manufactures to consider.
To be honest, the biggest question I have about the new mill is why do you, Rob, seem to be trying to sell the new mill? Are you just excited about it or do you have ulterior motives in the success of the new mill?
