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lucas mill 1030

Started by Mountain Sawyer, November 05, 2013, 09:10:19 PM

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TKehl

They cut stuff in Aus/NZ that is harder than most all of our hardwoods (barring maybe hedge), and the Lucas is made to handle it.  There is always a compromise.  They could make it more rigid, but that would make it less portable.  Now remember, this is sawmilling, not machining or watchmaking.  We're not dealing with thousandths.  1/16"-1/32" is plenty good for most rough cut lumber.  It will get cleaned up in planing, jointing, etc anyway. 

No experience with the 10", but a dedicated slabber carriage would increase the speed, but the attachment is a more feasible method to try it out unless you want to go straight to a dedicated slabber and omit the swing blade.
In the long run, you make your own luck – good, bad, or indifferent. Loretta Lynn

Ianab

QuoteIt just looks like the frame is not going to be very rigid and that might make the cuts less exact or effect that ease of operating the saw. Opinions ?

Don't worry too much. None of the Swing Mills are afraid of hardwood, although some may run a different blade for best cutting speed, and of course you might need to slow the feed speed a little. Like TKehl says, they are designed to cut stuff like Ironbark Eucalyptus, which you can probably guess by the name, is pretty hard. About the same hardness as Osage Orange, but actually denser / heavier. That's up around 2X the Janka hardness of White Oak.

When you look at the cutters on a swing blade will see they are more like little carbide chisels, and actually slice out chips of wood, rather than dust. The hardness of the wood of course has an effect on how they cut, but assuming they are razor sharp and you have the engine power, they are going to cut.

Now because of their light weight and rail design, you can get a bit of side to side oscillation going on in a deep horizontal cut. This doesn't have a big effect on the accuracy though, because the blade is only moving in and out of the kerf it's cutting. It's not changing direction or height. Obviously you don't want this happening excessively, so to avoid this it's common to make the wide horizontal cuts in 2 passes. This isn't as time consuming as it might seem, as a 5" cut can be made much faster than a single 10" pass. It would be close to the same time to make a 5" cut, return and reset the saw, and make a second 5" pass, vs slowly making a 10" pass. In the vertical cuts it's much less of a problem as the carriage weight helps hold the saw in position, and there isn't the side to side sway to worry about.

In smaller dimensions, cutting 2x4s for example, there is no issues, and you can really crank up the pace  8) Make your offloader work up a  bit of a sweat  :D
Weekend warrior, Peterson JP test pilot, Dolmar 7900 and Stihl MS310 saws and  the usual collection of power tools :)

longtime lurker

What Ian said.

Accuracy wise its as accurate as any other mill and probably better than most. If your boards arent within 1/16th or so stop and figure out why: it'll be a blade problem, or the frame is not setup correctly, or a log tension matter. I got a $200k sawline that cant do much better than my Lucas in that regard. I

The slabbing attachment for the 10/30 cuts slabs. I have nothing to compare it against for speed but it works.
The quickest way to make a million dollars with a sawmill is to start with two million.

plantman

Has anyone heard of any problems with the gear boxes ? I'm wondering what the life expectancy is with those and how much they cost to replace. And am I correct in assuming that these machines do not use belts anywhere between the crank shaft and the blade ?

longtime lurker

Neah there's 3 v belts for power transfer from the engine to the box.

Everything wears out eventually and the bottom seal/bearing assembly of the gearbox does too. Mine starting to weep 18 months or so back so i pumped in some heavy grease for a temporary stopgap and a new box then was something like $1200 AUD. Grease did the job and she took up so i didn't worry about it. Figure if i had to replace it that would work out around 12 cents per ton of logs through the mill which is nothing. 

Another swing mill manufacturer has a name for gearbox issues but it ain't Lucas
The quickest way to make a million dollars with a sawmill is to start with two million.

MbfVA

 The seller of my Peterson WPF told me that Chris & Kerris (née Peterson) Brown assured him that they had corrected any gearbox issues seen on Peterson mills in the past. We will see, of course.  It would shock me if they were not on any problems like a coat of paint, given their rep and the quality I see in mine.

BTW my WPF has 3 belts.  'Direct drive", with a 35 hp motor pushing out with all its heart, could pose all kinds of problems, safety and more, IMHO.

I do recall some old threads regarding gearbox trouble on Petersons, the ASM if I recall correctly.  Turbo Saw and Jake Peterson include some claims about their gearbox strength, a hp spec I think, in their current sales stuff, making me think that perhaps they've been through some issues as well. Or maybe they are simply trying to say ours are better.

Research is king, and this forum is a huge resource.
www.ordinary.com (really)

plantman

Is it possible for someone to post a video of their Lucas mill in action ? Yes there are videos on youtube but I'd like to see something made by a real life user of their own mill.

MbfVA

 Not ignoring plantman's question ( I could only post a video of my Peterson, can't help you with the Lucas; I will bet Longtime Lurker has Lucas video), but I believe there is another difference between Peterson and Lucas, gearbox concerns.

I have been told that the Lucas gearbox cannot be worked on (i.e., no parts sold), that they only offer swaps.

Is that true?

There is a detailed parts list for my Peterson WPF gearbox in my owners manual, and a rebuild kit is offered.  I have not paid a lot of attention, because my machine is not in need.
www.ordinary.com (really)

plantman

I'd love to see a video of your Peterson as well as ANY other mills. It's all good to me and I enjoy learning the subtle nuances of any mill. I'd really like to see videos of the mobile dimension mill too. Or the Mahoe.

longtime lurker

You can replace the bearing & seal in a Lucas box but per conversation with Warren Lucas  it never lasts a satisfactory time and they recommend a complete gearbox replacement instead.

I'll stand on my last comment on that... my mill has hours unknown because the taco/ hour meter died years back at around 1300 hours and my guess would be she's well over 5000+ now. If a $1200 box after that long in some of the  toughest timber in the world scares ya... better not to buy a sawmill.

No videos of mine: no one gets to stand around doing nothing that long. We're paid to produce not to look at the thing. :D
The quickest way to make a million dollars with a sawmill is to start with two million.

plantman

Went to view a D&L 1020 mill today. I wanted to post a video but not sure how to do it.  It appeared to work well . It did sway an inch or so left and right when cutting horizontally through oak but that didn't seem to affect it's function. It's a fairly large carriage so it takes some work to push it back and forth but did the job relatively quickly without the need to flip the log as is necessary on a bandsaw mill. It would appear that a swingblade mill has some advantages over a bandsaw, mostly that it was capable of sawing a larger log for a less expensive investment. The D&L sells for around $16,700. with all the bells and whistles like slabbing attachment , planer blade, etc you could spend $20k but that's a lot less than a Woodmizer LT40. Of course you're not sitting in a easy chair while operating it either. I kind of like the circular blade because it eliminates the possibility of waving and is easy to sharpen but I can understand that a bandsaw with hydraulics might be easier to use when you're cutting 8 hours a day.

Ben07

de up.... Talk about scary.
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I just bought a    lucas mill, I am sure I will run in trouble, but going slow  and learning for few days hopefuly will be fine

Nebraska


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