Big J

WP36. Single speed pump and splitting.

I wish it was. We've had 4 different operators over 2 weeks - me and 3 others, 2 of whom have other processor experience. The verdict is unanimous!

I did. I searched to see what other people thought about it. Did a morning on it today - admittedly, it was also the weather that caused an earlier finish. Overall impression - crappy little timber toy. Just not robust enough for high volume production. I'll explain: * Chain tensioner is largely useless. Have to achieve tension by loosening the bolts and manually setting it. * Clamp for holding log is terrible. The above two faults mean that it doesn't take long for the bar to start cutting unevenly, which meant this morning I had to dress the bar to flatten it again. * The splitter has no power at all. I lost track of the number of times it jammed (on spruce) * It is woefully underpowered. This translates to slow cutting speed and the aforementioned lack of hydraulic power. * Needs a bigger capacity too. Even fairly small butt cuts from the spruce chip pile are oversized. I won't hire it again.

Well that is a hell of a lot quicker than we are averaging. We're getting 15-18 cube per 6 hours (other things to do at the yard at the same time). Today is my first full shift on it, so I shall report back.

Trade off I suppose - slow to process but very quick to dry and cheap too as you get many more cubic metres for your tonnage.

Self propelled. The spruce is fairly dry, which isn't going to help. Knots in dry spruce are particularly strong and it jams quite frequently.

I been using a WP36 on hire for a couple of weeks. Mostly with a three different operators and me a bit as well. I've a full day on it tomorrow. Not an impressive machine really. Slow and underpowered. The clamp for holding the log is not good and the splitter struggles on 25cm spruce on a four way splitter. I'll be very glad when my new processor comes from Trak-met. Jonathan

The hoppus measure is a long way out on dimensioned softwood though. Instead of 20% wastage, it's more like 40%

Narrow band will struggle desperately in very dry timber. Oak is nice enough to cut when wet, but I wouldn't like to think what it would be like on 100 year old beams. I hate cutting dry wood - the difference with elm fresh versus fairly dry is a quartering of cut rate.

Pretty high really. Depends on taper, dimensions of boards being cut and overall diameter of logs. We produced 92 cubic metres of cedar for one job, which came from 130 tonnes of roundlog material. Mixture of larger and smaller diameter timber too. I'd guess it would have been around 150 cubic metres of stock to start with, so recovery was only just over 61%. I'd not a wasteful miller either.

I will do Mark! He is another member of the Association of Scottish Hardwood Sawmillers. He did some milling for me before I got my own mill and has since done a bit of mobile work for me now and again.

180 square metres is a day's cutting. It's not worth buying a mill for that. Frank Gamwell sadly died two years ago. I believe his daughter is still running the sharpening and blade retail side of things.

Speak to Pol Bergius at Black Dog Timber - he is just outside Perth and is a top chap. Very experienced sawmiller too.

That is a lovely stick. Easy to remove. Tree surgeons strip the crown out, leaving anything deemed good enough to mill (I include the upper lengths for mantle pieces etc). Decent sized HIAB comes in and dismantles the remaining stem, piece by piece. Nothing touches the ground, no mess is made and maximum potential is realised from the tree. We do this reasonably frequently with large elm. HIAB hire for a stem that size wouldn't be more than £300 for a large 8 wheeler.

Hahaha! Yep, half German. We are nothing if not precise!

I've been saying to myself for a week that I wasn't going to post this, but the grammar Nazi in me can't take it any more! The thread title should read "Are there any tippers..." and not "Is there any tippers..." Ooooh, that feels better! I've been quietly screaming to myself every time I've seen this thread feature in the new posts section.

There is a school of thought that your workbench should be very finely crafted. It should be your first big project and a great deal of effort can be outlayed. I have seen some stunning work benches over the years. Beech is ideal as a material for benches as it's very hard. Fence posts would look very shabby, very quickly.

A fully hydraulic Norwood is Woodmizer LT40 money without any of the rigidity or production speed. Not to be advised!

Well, it would be a hoppus foot. Which is roughly 27 to the tonne. So £108 a tonne. Or £140 a hoppus cubic metre.

That's not much. Up here at least £6-8. Should haul it up here really. Haulage isn't that much.

Hi there, Photos and dimensions would be very useful. Might well be interested. If you wanted to email them to me, my email address is rstw at hotmail dot co dot uk.

Hydraulics make a bandsaw. You might be able to keep up in terms of cut rate with a manual mill, but every movement of the log is manual and you won't be able to keep that up for long without flagging. To put it into perspective: My best day on an hydraulic bandmill in terms of log count is 82 western red cedar logs, 3m long, average 11 inch diameter. Every log is clamped, cut, rolled, clamped, cut, rolled, clamped, cut, rolled, clamped and then finally cut. So assuming that you have a cylindrical with no taper (taper means toe boards, also hydraulic) you have a minimum of 7 hydraulic movements. Realistically, very few logs are without taper and the toe boards are almost always used. This brings us up to 9 hydraulic actions. Now with a hydraulic mill, this is all done in a flash with levers (no sweat broken). With a manual mill, assuming an throughput of 82 logs, you have a total of 738 times that you will have to manually move or clamp the logs. No human being could do that in a day, and this is where manual mills fall down. The total of 738 assumes that the log is not rolled initially when first loaded to the mill (which to be honest, most are, so a total of 820 movements is more realistic). In short, if you are doing a spot of milling for yourself now and again, a manual mill is worth it. If you are planning to do any more than that, buy an hydraulic mill or hire a mobile sawmill in.

No, it's the Dominator (named after the classic British racing bike) from Champion Stove Company Products Page and it's steel, not cast. Takes a 27 inch log and it's really still a bit warm to have it on!

Softwood (mostly larch) offcuts, though most timbers will do it. It just has big vents, so fires up quickly.

I'll take it at that. Where abouts are you? PM me if you like