By Leroy Stutzman

Hi Folks,

I hope all of you in the sawmill industry are doing well. Warm weather makes me look forward to next winter, sitting by the fire with a cup of hot chocolate. This month we will be discussing the pros and cons of a grade resaw.

First, let’s look at the advantages of a resaw for grade lumber. Number one: thin kerf. ⅛-inch kerf versus the circular mill’s ¼-inch kerf is a big difference. A walnut log cut on a circular mill produces a lot of “high quality” sawdust that nobody wants in the first place.

Number two: continuous flow. A resaw has continuous material flow through the machine, while a carriage mill has to reverse the carriage at the end of each cut, thus losing valuable cutting time. A wide-band double-cut mill, such as the Lumber Pro built by Cleereman, has greatly improved this issue by cutting the log while the carriage is in forward and reverse. One thing about Cleereman though, they are just like the rest of us; they like to get paid for what they do.

If you are using a circular mill and expand to include a grade resaw in your operation, you will probably notice a few things as follows. Your production will “or should” rise. The circular mill now only needs to square the log instead of fully processing the log. More yield per log due to the resaw’s thin kerf. There’s no need to make so much “high quality” walnut and white oak sawdust.

You will now have one more employee just to operate the resaw, not counting any extra help you may need to stack the higher volume of lumber. So if your production goes up and your yield per log goes up, your profit margin should increase as well.

Here’s another perspective. What is your production when the circular mill breaks down? Zero board feet per hour. Same as before you had the resaw, but now you are paying more employees to stand around waiting until the repairs are done. What about when the resaw breaks down? Depending on the setup and “Git ’er Done” level of the employees, it will also be zero board feet per hour. Very profitable IF you get paid enough for all the fish you catch when you go fishing!

Imagine replacing the circular mill and resaw with two bandmills. Same number of employees, but if any of the mills break down, production will drop only 50%. There will now be no employees standing around, as anybody not needed to operate the one mill can help repair the broken mill.

Let me clarify my point on the number of employees needed to make a repair. Often when something breaks down, there’s not enough room for more than two or three employees to work on it. Here’s one example. Let’s say you have half a dozen to 20 employees and something breaks down that shuts off the whole operation.

It’s probably going to be a bearing down in the sawdust and dirt, behind a few guards, and in a hard-to-reach place. First, you take off the guards, shovel out some of the sawdust and dirt, then get your smallest employee to crawl under the machine to fix it. Your smallest employee will be that young lad just out of school who probably hasn’t seen a bearing before. Now you hand him the tools while he tries to get that stuck-on bearing off the shaft while the rest of your crew sits on the lumber packs drinking Mountain Dew.

It’s at this point that you think of your idle Bass Tracker you haven’t taken out to the lake in the last 3 days. If you had two bandmills, the rest of your crew could keep on sawing lumber while you make the repairs.

Here’s another point to consider. In the circular mill and resaw operation, if a log is too big to fit through the resaw, the mill will cut a few boards to get it down to size. Remember the high-quality sawdust. In the twin band mill operation, you will be using a thin kerf blade, no matter how big the log. Unless, of course, the log is so big you need to split it in half with the chainsaw and cut one half at a time. But the circular mill will have the same issue with big logs.

On the production side of the story, how much can a resaw produce in a day? How much can a bandmill produce? I believe “board feet per day” numbers can be very misleading due to production varying from operation to operation, region to region, and also from sawyer to sawyer. I will not include any numbers due to that reason, but I strongly encourage you to make your own calculations based on your own research and experience and also for your area.

So which bandmill is the best mill for grade lumber? Why don’t you ask at least 5 different sawyers? You might get 10 different answers. My personal favorite is a 2-inch band on a slant with air controls for the carriage. Why the 2-inch band? What happens with any wood-cutting blade when it cuts a tree step left by a careless hunter? You will probably tell me that is what a metal detector is for, but most small- to medium-sized operations are not willing or able to invest in a metal detector.

When a circular blade cuts the tree step, at the least it will lose maybe 4 teeth, $4 per tooth, totaling $16. At the most, it will ruin the whole $3,000 blade. A band does not have replaceable teeth, so the whole band is ruined. A wide band costs up to several thousand dollars, while a 2-inch band costs between $30 and $50.

Of course, the 2-inch band will not cut as fast as the circular blade or wide band, but if you calculate the percent of time the blade is in the log, often you are spending more time reversing the carriage and turning the log for the next cut than actually making a cut. That is why I like a slant carriage with air controls. I believe being able to turn the log and prepare for the next cut in a timely manner is more important than the cutting speed.

Enough for this time. I am open to comments or ideas if you feel led to share your knowledge. If you get that bearing changed and your Mountain Dew sippin’ crew back to work soon enough, you can spend some time on the lake with your family before hunting season!

Leroy Stutzman lives in south-central Michigan. He enjoys hunting, camping with friends, and discussing the sawmill industry. He can be reached at 517-852-2106.