Beating a dead horse. HD36 vs LT15 wide.

[shelby78]

Long story short, I'm in the market for a manual mill. Had a lumber mate 2000 years ago but sold it. I could cut perfect with that mill. Other than some annoying head shake I could not complain.

Just had and sold a homemade mill that cut well but was too small. I own a Tree service so I get a lot of wood to mill. I want as much capacity as I can get before I have to use my Alaskan with my dual 660 set-up

Basically I want to know who's happy with the lt 15 wide. I have no interest in a plain lt15 so info on it will not be relevent to me.

I am going to assume a hd 36 will cut just as accurate as my old lumber mate 2000 but will cut wider also.

Big thing with the lt15 wide is it will cut a lot wider than the hd 36 but it also costs a lot more. What I really want to hear is any cons for each mill even if they are little cons. I will basically max it out all the time so cutting perfect at max width is a biggie for me.

Thanks for any help.

[MbfVA]

Is portability not an issue, are you going to bring all the logs to the mill?  Given what you said about maxing it out, are you sure a swing blade mill is not what you need?  Chainsaw stabbing is slow from what I have heard (have not used my add-on slabber yet with my swing blade)   With a manual bandmill, if you make it portable with a trailer, winching big logs might become tiresome?

Of course, if you're going to do all large wide slabs, your mileage may vary and my advice might be irrelevant in whole or in part.

LT15 wide is $700 off right now, but Norwood told me they do some of their best discounts later in the year, closer to Christmas.

The price difference with the LT15 & LT Wide seems pretty high for what the difference in machinery appears to be, but I have not studied them closely.  "Surge" pricing, maybe?

I looked hard at the HD36 before buying my used WPF and thought it was a nice machine, with lots of customization options.  Cost of the newly offered debarker and the failure to release their computerized setworks to date are downers.  Family owned businesses (like ours) sometimes make unusual decisions, some even poor ones.

Just a few thoughts but there are others on here who might have more and better ones.

[shelby78]

Portability is not a concern and even if it was its not hard to throw a axle under either of them. I only cut wide live edge slabs. My feeling is anyone can go to home depot, lowes, home hardware, etc etc and buy a 2x4, 2x6, 2x8 etc etc so I'm not wasting my time for a $2 board.

Dealing with big logs is what I do daily as like I said, I own a tree service. I have a large tractor and a crane. This is only a hobby/side bizz which is why I don't want to spend a fortune on a mill.

Really just want to know if people who know what there doing have had and issues with either a hd 36 or lt 15 wide cutting max width. Example would be bending support brackets, wavy cuts, poor design on a certain functions.

On a side note, with the right set-up chainsaw slabbing isn't that bad. The problem is I probly loose minimum 1 2 inch board to kerf vs a narrow bandmill. That one 2 inch lost board can turn into $350

[scouter Joe]

I would lean toward the one that offers the biggest engine option . Cutting wide cuts needs horsepower . scouter Joe