Shanemac

5 hours ago, trigger_andy said:

Quatersawn would be very nice but overkill for exterior cladding Id say, you would have significant waste as well

 

To allow for warpage and cupping Id mill them thicker than 25mm, 30-35mm would be my thinking although Im yet to mill for T&G so I can only suggest what Id mill at 

 

Plenty Houses cladd in 150mm in Norway so I cant see the issue

4 hours ago, Woodworks said:

I used to work on getting 25mm boards to finish at 20-21mm when planed up in my furniture making days.

 

As for widths I made some through and through cut larch T&G for our doors at 100mm wide and they go from tight as a tight thing in winter to a few chinks of light in the summer due to seasonal movement. I should have put larger tongues and groves on them in hindsight. Quarter sawn would expand and shrink a lot less but as said would be wasteful. No experience of using sweet chestnut myself

That's good to hear, quartersawn seemed like a lot of hassle!

Friends have used secret nailed siberian larch on properties and had  problems such as yours with movement and the groove shrinking back past the tongue - they resorted to face nailing to try and limit it. 

I hoped chestnut might be more stable.

Thank you both for your help.

Hi,

I'm quite the novice with regards to milling in general having only got my mill a few weeks ago, so I apologise if these are silly questions.

We're in the early stages of building a house and have a reasonable quantity of exterior timber cladding to do.

We have lots of Sweet chestnut on the farm which I hoped to use for the cladding, once air dried and t&g profiled(by third party).

My questions are;

What size should I cut the boards, allowing for planing/moulding etc and limiting movement once fixed etc? I was going to cut 150 x 25. Some say if doing t&g, finished face should be no wider than 120mm excluding tongue and groove but not sure if thats correct?

Should the boards be quartersawn or does it not really matter?

Should the order of events be,

Mill - Dry(to what moisture level)?- Mould for t&g then ready for use?

Many thanks 

17 minutes ago, Big J said:

Woodmizers are OK. A tidy product with excellent marketing and there some advantages to the one post head system, but accuracy of cut isn't one of them. 

 

They stuck doggedly to their design for a long time, but they are having to respond to a drop in market share by offering mills with a larger throat and a more stable design, incorporating rails and posts on both sides. 

 

I had the first Trakmet sawmill in the UK. I went out to the factory in Poland a couple of times. They are a pretty decent company to deal with and their machines are solid. Not very sophisticated and their engineering tolerances at the time were lacking a bit. They made up for that with steel. Lots of steel. 

I put 1100 hours on mine before I sold it and the guys who bought my business have added another 6-700 without issue. They are much cheaper than Woodmizers but certainly their equal. 

 

If I had the money I'd go Mebor though. That's a lovely mill.

 

I had the Trakmet, with the Logmaster LM2 prior to it and the Woodmizer LT40 before that. The Logmaster was the stand out mill being both solidly made and well engineered. 

 

Fundamentally, go for as few electrics as possible, as many hydraulics as possible and as much steel as possible. Also, as wide a band as possible. There is no substitute for power either.

Thanks for your reply. I think I read in another thread that you had the bigger tts-800? I'm assuming that was electric drive?

Was that purchased before they appointed  an agent in Hereford? 

Thanks everyone for their input, and experiences with different mills. My reservations with wood-mizers was the cantilever head, (although that's mostly listening to others opinions as I've never actually seen it in person) and as far as I can see they don't actually have a very big log capacity in the lt20/40 range? I did think about an lt15 wide version, which doesn't use the cantilever design but the petrol option was an additional £3,000+ if I remember correctly. No hydraulics available either. But I'll certainly give them further consideration.

Have 30+ acres of mostly hardwood and some larch on the farm and an 8t swing shovel to extract the wood, and potentially load a sawmill but clearly not as good as a telehandler etc for that job.

Although I'm no professional, it will have quite a bit of work to do.

No 3 phase so either engine or generator powered.

I am drawn to the trakmet as it just looks and sounds like a good solid piece of kit.

Having not seen many machines in the flesh, does anyone know how straightforward it would be to replace an electric motor with a petrol or diesel engine? 

Generally speaking, is the price the price with sawmill dealers/manufacturers or is there room for negotiation?

1 minute ago, topchippyles said:

Different league of saw the trak-met shane. How far are you from hereford ? 

I'm in Cornwall, so a few hours?

4 hours ago, topchippyles said:

I know pawl who is the dealer in hereford and used his machine which is the electric version TTS-800 Premium,Its wrong to say they are dealers as they are not really.To me a dealer is someone who has all spares in stock and has all the machines on display for a future customer to buy and view, this is not the case with the uk so called dealer. Pawl is a very helpful guy but is just a middle man who takes payment and speaks direct with the factory as he is polish and the the sawmills and made in poland.I myself would go down the hydraulic route as most of the top mills (wood-mizer/ timber king/forester/trak-met) all use hydraulic loading as i have used all 4 for a couple of days at least so had the feel of using them. 

 

Budget is your main factor here but in fairness to trigger he has the logosol 751(toy) and its a very well built machine and will handle the log size your after milling.Good option would be a small folk lift with the b1001 

Anyone who spends a day using a tool like the wood-mizer LT-20/40 would never look at the manual handling saws if budget allows the  hydraulic option.

Thanks for your reply. What was your opinion of the Trak-met you used? And in comparison to wood-mizer for example? I spoke to him briefly a week or two ago and got a price list, 16 week lead time roughly. 

Budget would be as little as possible, realistic, but I'd rather buy the right machine first time around. 

Although I'm only expecting to use it for home use really there would be a fair bit of work for it. Second hand would be good but don't see much around. 

4 hours ago, trigger_andy said:

Yeh, looking on the website there does not seem to be any hydraulic options? Im sure there was before so thats a bit odd. Unless they have removed them for the new setworks Rough mentioned?  I was under the impression the setworks is for adjusting the saw head height and feeding it through the log, but it seems like more options are coming at a later date. 

 

Will this work off of the petrol model thats used in remote locations? No idea? 

 

But I do have the winch on my 751 and its very good. Makes very light work of loading and turning big logs. 

Looks a good set up and obviously works well for you. Do you get much flex in the bed? Interestingly I noticed that the b1001 with the trailer came in at under 750kg as its unbraked. In comparison the trakmet standard ttp-600 with no hydraulics and no trailer comes in at 1,250kg! There must be a lot of steel in it.

4 hours ago, trigger_andy said:

For 90cm Logs you'd do a lot worse than the Logosol B1001. Hydraulic options can be retrofitted. Great build quality, great service back-up, parts readily available. Cheap to trailerise. (cheaper than doing it yourself) 

 

Worth a thought. 

Thanks for your reply. Someone relatively local kindly showed me around their b1001 last week and it does seem like a well made machine, in my limited experience. Cut well and easy to use. The prospect of manually handling big logs all day put me off slightly though. I couldn't see any other handling options other than winch, ramps etc?

5 hours ago, Rough Hewn said:

Yeah as Andy says b1001.
Hydraulics are out, electric log handling is in!

Thanks. Why would electric log handling be better than hydraulic in your opinion? 

Hi, this is my first post but have been reading the forums for a while to gain useful opinions and advice.

I'm basically looking for a bandsaw mill that will accommodate up to around 90cm log, preferably have hydraulic handling and have the option to run off a petrol or diesel engine.

I have my own 8t swing shovel but hydraulic log handling looks like a worthwhile option. 

Being mobile would be beneficial but I expect I could implement those modifications myself. 

The Trak-met ttp-600 premium looks like a good solid machine, and they do a petrol version but just wondered if anyone had any experience with them? I understand there is a dealership in Hereford, but people have voiced concerns over parts backup etc? 

Or would I be better looking at a different machine? I looked at logosol but no hydraulic handling as of yet. 

I should add that I'm an amateur, and it's primary use would be milling mostly hardwoods on the farm. 

Many thanks