Cooks Sawmills - any good?

[farmerjohn]

On 10/05/2019 at 17:58, Big J said:

My inclination is that if you are finding that you've a ready supply of large diameter logs, that having a chainsaw based log halver fabricated would be the way to go. 

 

Before I got the Trakmet saw, I used to halve all of my larger logs with a chainsaw mill with extra long uprights. It's not that easy, and isn't something you'd want to leave your employees doing. 

 

£7-10k would probably see you to getting a carriage based chainsaw mill. Spec it with a 120-140cm throat, and it would mean you could halve just about anything. Or, you could mill it through and through if you are feeling masochistic. 

 

I can't stress enough how stable boards are from large logs, with one side straight edged through the heart. They mill really quickly on the sawmill (you just stand the half up vertically, mill through until you're a board shy of the heart and flip the cant) and you eliminate 95% of all movement and drying defect. It's brilliantly easy for your customers to select bookmatched boards as you'll have thousands of them, all of them with a perfect straight edge (not a rough and ready edge from free hand halving). 

If I were milling hardwoods again (which I won't) then that is the way I'd go. Wide throat bandsaw technology is hit and miss, and you'll get perfect cuts until suddenly the blade decides its' blunt halfway through a cut and you waste £200 worth of timber. 

 

If the carriage based chainsaw mill is interesting for you, I've got a little one coming from TCF engineering next week which could be scaled up I'd have thought. Mine's only 3.5kw 240v on an 18" throat, but you'd fly through the timber on 10-15kw three phase.

Hi BigJ,

I would be interested in getting a price for scaled up wide cut sawmill from TCF please.

 

[farmerjohn]

35 minutes ago, Big J said:

I'll ask him. What throat would you need?

I am in a similar predicament to Squaredy i have wide logs to mill. I do also have a wide chainsaw mill.

i would be interested in a cost to be bale to cut a slab 1000mm and 1200mm if he can do that wide.

Regards, John

[Mikesmill]

I also did a lot of investigation on this subject, as I wanted to cut large slabs efficiently. After weighing all the options I went for a Peterson Dedicated Wide Slabber. I'd tried the clip on Slabber with my older Peterson and although it could cut huge slabs, it was slow and hard work. I took a punt on the DWS being as fast as they said and I'm not disappointed - in fact I was pleasantly surprised! The hyperskip chain goes so fast that it can cut a two foot wide slab within a couple of minutes, and yesterday I quartersawed a 3 foot wide oak quarter into 3 inch thick slabs on my own within 2 hours, something that would have taken me all day before. I cut 5 foot wide pine slabs for a customer the other week, and it got through that quite quickly considering, too. 

[Mikesmill]

2 minutes ago, Big J said:

It's a useful bit of kit certainly but is better as a stand-alone mill as it's unable to break down large logs into quarters or halves due to the lack of vertical throat.

That's right, the larger logs that I want quartersawn have to be cut first into quarters by hand with a big chainsaw. But as Squaredy says: "I do have a need to produce wide double edge slabs though"

[Mikesmill]

6 minutes ago, Big J said:

Things in life more unpleasant than chainsaw milling: 

 

• Forensic tax inspection
• root canal dental work
• hand quartering logs

Indeed. Although I think you're getting a bit hung up on quartering the logs when the issue I'm interested in, and I think the thread is about, is cutting double live edged slabs from oversized logs. But please correct me if I'm wrong ?

[Mikesmill]

1 minute ago, Mikesmill said:

Indeed. Although I think you're getting a bit hung up on quartering the logs when the issue I'm interested in, and I think the thread is about, is cutting double live edged slabs from oversized logs. But please correct me if I'm wrong ?

Actually, I'll correct myself: it's about a big band mill and I've weighed in with my chainsaw mill love. I apologise, but I'm still buzzing from cutting a 500 year old oak on it yesterday. I love that reveal of the grain!

[Rough Hewn]

Things in life more unpleasant than chainsaw milling: 
 

• Forensic tax inspection
• root canal dental work
• hand quartering logs

[emoji848][emoji51][emoji12][emoji23][emoji106]

[Mikesmill]

If you've had a go with a DWS and not been impressed, I'd be interested to hear about your experience ?

Otherwise it's just a generalisation.

[Mikesmill]

5 minutes ago, Big J said:

Fair point. I'm just thinking from the point of view of production milling, putting large quantities of high quality and easily handlable boards into stick and into stock. Getting 1 - 1.5m diameter timber, quartering it and then resawing with a conventional bandmill is one of the best ways to do this. Double waney edge slabs are OK for low volume markets, but they are a (profitable) niche and I wouldn't want to exclude the possibility of producing quarters if I was wide slabbing.

 

Any timber is more stable when quarter sawn, albeit with some timbers you might lose some of the figure. Anything pippy or burry for instance.

That makes sense, and this is good stuff for me to learn for the future. Thanks

[Squaredy]

3 hours ago, Big J said:

Any timber is more stable when quarter sawn, albeit with some timbers you might lose some of the figure.

Indeed you will lose the most striking and amazing grain of all timber, with the exception of the beautiful medullary rays in Oak.  Even quite boring timber like Beech and Lime can be stunning when slabbed - the first few slabs off the top and the last few slabs from the bottom anyway.

 

As you say though it is a niche market but one which suits my business model.  The large majority of the timber I sell is not slabs of course!