American-Made sawmills vs Chinese-Made

[John TenEyck]

Just curious, you intend to buy and run a mill at the age of 71? Better have an employee to handle all the slabs!

What's your point, Richard? I'm almost 69 and mill at least 5000 bf every year, usually with no help, and no mechanical means of carrying away the boards/slabs. I'll admit that wide 8/4 boards and slabs are no fun, but they weren't 10 years ago either. It helps keep me fit and limber and I have no intention of quitting anytime soon.

John

[Jonathan Pace]

We've put some solid milling time in with TurboSawmill. I was initially worried about making this purchase, but it turned out great. They have got suppliers in NZ and USA. From what I understand, they run their operations out of NZ too.



Source: TurboSawmill

[Zachary Hoyt]

I ran a Turner mill for almost 15 years and was very pleased with it. It did fine cutting wide boards too, provided the blade was sharp and I pushed slowly enough to let the sawdust clear. The widest I could get between the guides was about a 21.5" board, and I cut a fair amount of 18-20" wide 8/4 ash, maple, and red oak boards.

[Maurice Mcmurry]

The turboSawmill video gives me just the confidence I need to use an old 12 volt cordless drill to replace the missing height adjustment motor on the Woodmizer. Without the height motor in place our Woodmizer dives as you saw . Having to keep my hand on the homemade height crank is one thing too many to think about. I also plan to add a manual travel crank to the Woodmizer or change the pulleys to achieve a slower travel speed. I often want to cut at a speed similar to the video. The slowest speed on the Woodmizer is about twice as fast.

[Greg Parrish]

After watching that video, I'd sure hate to be the guy turning that hand crank if the saw chain ever broke. Maybe it wouldn't hit you, but that would be my concern of course.

[John TenEyck]

After watching that video, I'd sure hate to be the guy turning that hand crank if the saw chain ever broke. Maybe it wouldn't hit you, but that would be my concern of course.

That's why chainsaws have a blade catch/brake right in front of the clutch. Folks in NZ seem pretty bright to me, so I imagine there is a similar device on that mill.

John

[John TenEyck]

The turboSawmill video gives me just the confidence I need to use an old 12 volt cordless drill to replace the missing height adjustment motor on the Woodmizer. Without the height motor in place our Woodmizer dives as you saw . Having to keep my hand on the homemade height crank is one thing too many to think about. I also plan to add a manual travel crank to the Woodmizer or change the pulleys to achieve a slower travel speed. I often want to cut at a speed similar to the video. The slowest speed on the Woodmizer is about twice as fast.

Just add a lock on the crank.

IMO, power travel is only good on mills with plenty of HP, and hopefully, yours has enough. On small mills like mine hand feeding seems to be a much more practical approach so you can adjust speed with the type and size of log being cut.

John

[Thomas M Barnes]

Do neither and order a Swedish mill. Those cats know how to mill AND design. Logosol is the big brand