Modern circle mills

[bandmiller2]

I have never been around a modern mill with a cab for the operator.Can you feel the saw,how do you know if you hit tramp or you need to sharpen,can you tell if the log is stable on the carriage??From vidio I've seen it looks like everything is at warp speed.Frank C.

[James P.]

Bandmiller, from my brief experience of only a few months, You can tell when the saw is starting to dull. There is resistance and the carriage doesn't feed the same. The controls I used were hydraulic and depending on the amount of motion controlled the speed of carriage. After sawing 8 hrs a day. you know when its having trouble. Plus. the booth I was in wasn't sound proof. Just like a crane cab you can hear the saw. It having an electric motor obviously helped. I never hit any metal so couldn't answer. Glad of that. I only had 1 log move on the carriage and really was to big to be sawing in the first place. Luckily it slid out from under the dogs before I started sawing.  I miss all the automatic advantages. Like having the offbearer belt table drop down and send boards into a trough and down to the grinder. Not to mention every other advantage of sitting and focusing on sawing. Its harder to go from automatic to handmill. I hate to hear my diesel run while I am busy clearing a few boards or hand dogging the log. makes me feel very inefficient.

[Jeff]

My feed controls were all manual over hydraulic, meaning you controlled the valving directly via manually activated controls and yes, I could feel how my saw performed through the controls, and even the seat of my pants. In a mill like the one I ran, you learned to know every sound and feel every vibration. Changes in those accustomed senses could tell you many things. Some times they simply told you something was not right.  You learn to watch many things too. The speed at which the saw comes to a stop is a big one. How it looks and reacts as it slows can tell you any number of things.

Many of the newer mills have went to electric over hydraulic feed. I've got to think you loose some feeling there, but I don't know, and the manually activated controls is what eventually led to my demise as a commercial sawyer.  Hopefully the newer ergonomically correct controls save the new guys from suffering the same things that put me out to pasture.

I'm sure our logs are much more stable on the carriage as we can flip em around with ease to make sure, where if you are doing it by hand, you might get to the " thats good enough" point and start sawing.

[Jeff]

Old memories.

http://www.forestryforum.com/media/cmc.mpg

[Ron Wenrich]

I've sawn on several mills that have had a booth.  Here's my current setup.



I sit right in beside the saw.  I can see if the saw is pulling, or if its pushing.  I have a vertical edger, and that will tell you very quickly if you're sawing on line or off.  You'll either leave a mark on the next board or you'll leave an edging strip hanging on.  I can also see how things are moving past the board splitter, and I can see the sparks come off of the dirt left on the logs by the debarker.  It comes off under the log, and you can't see that on a handmill type of setup.  I see the side of the log as it comes past me to determine whether to turn or saw.

My left hand buttons control my taper for each headblock, set, forward/reverse on the headblocks, and the downturns.  The handle is on a joystick that controls the carriage direction and speed.  You can crawl as slow as you want, and you can really put the smoke to it if you want.  But, you have really good control.

Right hand buttons are for dogs up and down, dogs in and out, and for the log turner.  I use a bar type turner.  

Center console includes the computer to build your stacks and to control the size of cut you want to make.  I also have the controls for the vertical edger, and a control for the slab dump.  We use a trip plate that can be activated from the booth, and a timer.  We can go either 1 or 2 seconds after the plate has been tripped.  It helps for different slab lengths.  We saw 8' to 23'.

You can hear the saw, even if you're listening to the radio.  The saw will tell you if its dull, or you're feeding too hard.  When you hit metal, you can feel the pull.  You can also hear the tick from when you aren't sawing wood.

Some guys go faster than others.  Too fast and your lumber suffers.  Some depends on species.  I can saw 8' logs at 2-3 minutes per log.  I average about 5-6 lines/minute in softer woods; and that includes loading and turning.  Harder woods usually mean 4-5 lines/minute, but I saw larger blocking in them, which means fewer boards.

No, you don't lose the feel on the electric over hydraulic.  You also have a better sense for the equipment.  I can hear every vibration and anytime there is something going wrong with either the mill or the support equipment.  You use all your senses when you saw, not just your eyes and ears. 

[D._Frederick]

Ron,
Since you are running the mill with a genset, does it have the same feel as running on the grid? Do you have or use an ammeter to tell how much load you have on the drive motor?  Which kind of power do you like the best, grid, genset, or diesel?

[bandmiller2]

Thanks guys,I've always wondered if you got feed back now I know.Probibly the most stuborn cantankerous sawyer that had to go automatic wouldn't go back after he got used to the booth.Frank C.

[Jeff]

Yuu get to where you get disgusted if you even have to touch wood for some reason. 

[zopi]

Much like getting to play with a big new turbocharged skidder...I'd love to play with a commercial setup like that...but I much prefer my little mill and tractor to move logs.

[backwoods sawyer]

With the addition of deviation monitors, even the bandmills have a lot of control over the saws when sitting in a cab. Can you “feel” when a saw is getting dull? Absolutely!!! This set up is electric over hydraulic, it is all push button and touch screen.

Old memories.

http://www.forestryforum.com/media/cmc.mpg

Jeff.
I ran a set up like you show here only it had a single bandsaw with a pair of vertical edger saws in place of the round saw.
Old memories.

[Ron Wenrich]

Ron,
Since you are running the mill with a genset, does it have the same feel as running on the grid? Do you have or use an ammeter to tell how much load you have on the drive motor?  Which kind of power do you like the best, grid, genset, or diesel?

I've only run off of the grid a few times.  The power is there all the time.  But, with the genset and the diesel, you'll get sometimes get a lag where the governor kicks in.  As long as you know its coming, you can get your rhythm to where it doesn't affect you.  Sometimes when something big goes through the chipper, it'll pull the power down. 

I don't have any gauges for the headsaw, but do have one for the output of the genset to the whole mill.  It lets me know if I'm starting to have problems where the genset won't keep up with the mill demand.  Its usually caused by a fuel problem.  That's usually caused by either low fuel or dirty filters. 

If the output gets to be too low for about 5 seconds, the generator turns off.  Sometimes we get a clogged chipper pipe, and that will pull the genset down.