Sawmill Comparisons Disclaimer:
This page has been prepared by myself, Carl Peterson, the inventor of the original Peterson Portable Swingblade Sawmill. Although I may bring an informed bias towards these comparisons, I have taken great pains to present the true and relevent facts as I see and understand them. I have been involved in the portable milling industry longer than most, and take some pride that the entire swing-blade revolution emitted from my own backyard. During the 29 years since I first envisioned the swingblade concept, I have studied every possible avenue of portable sawmilling. I have used the felling axe, drowned in my own sweat and sawdust while pit-sawing, struggled with chainsaw slabbing, tried Pacific bench sawing, twin-saw operation, and use of bandsaw mills. I have sawed in the USA, Canada, Fiji, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea, Australia, and New Zealand, encountering just about every possible type of timber. Consequently, there is probably no one alive better qualified to advise and critique the various milling technologies. I believe I have been gracious and fair in my evaluations. I invite you to share the knowlege I have gained from all these experiences. With this information, you can easily compare the strengths of band saw mills, double bladed sawmills ("quarter saws"), circle mills, and swing-blade sawmills against the requirements of your specific situation. If you feel I have included any annoying errors of fact, I invite you to email me at webmaster@truthaboutax.com so it can be made right.

DISCLAIMER: Neither myself nor my son, Karl Jacob Peterson, haven any financial interests in Peterson Global Sales Limited, the company now manufacturing and marketing the current "Peterson Portable Sawmill".

Comparisons- Circular (Single) Blade Sawmills 

This type of sawmill has been around for ages. They work, and work well, provided they are set up properly, the blade is properly tensioned and sharpened, and a skilled sawyer is at the helm. With this concept, the log is usually made to pass through the permanently fixed-position blade. The downside is that they take out a considerable kerf as sawdust, usually running at around 3/8". As well, they usually require an extensive permanent site, and at least some ancillary equipment such as an edger saw to make them competively productive. Recovery rates for commercially operated circular saws usually range between 40%-55%, with only the latest state-of-art computerized circular sawmills achieving anything close to that 55% mark. The more aged circulars on the market also seem to be famous for cutting boards with a lot of thickness variations, often plus or minus 3/8". In today's competitive market, it just doesn't make sense to buy an old circular mill, spend a whole lot of time setting it up on your site, and expecting to make a lot of money with it. On the other hand, if used solely for your own requirements, running one of these "oldies" can be a fun and enjoyable experience, and reasonable quality timber can be made to fill your own requirements. The Frick mill is included in this category.

There are a few modern versions that are mounted upon easily moveable trailers. These mills can be effective cutting high volumes of small-sized logs. Unfortunately, they tend to be very expensive, requiring the edger/resaw equipment to be built in-line with the major breaking-down saw. The Kara mill is one such example.


Comparisons- Twin Blade (Double Bladed) Sawmills

The twin blade concept came into being in the mid 1950s and has been around ever since. There are a great many different variations using these two blades, which are set at 90 degree variance to each other. With these mills, the cutting blades are usually mobile, passing through a stationary log. A single (or double) board can be cut and removed with each pass down and back upon the log. This concept allows smaller and more stable blades to be used, usually allowing the saw kerf to be reduced to between 1/4" and 3/8". These mills tend to be reasonably heavy, requiring a robust trailering base as a mounting foundation. Major advantages of this type of mill are the ability to saw very large logs with moderate horsepower (often between 20-60 hp) and in automated versions the ability to return the sawn timber or flitches back to the operator.

Recovery rates with these mills can usually average between 50%-60%. And because they make at least two cuts at a time, edgers and resaw equipment are not required.

The downside is, these mills struggle when cutting smaller logs. The double blades have been known to toss small logs that are not well anchored a fair distance, even causing severe injury on occassion. They also struggle hugely when sawing timbers with high tension. In such cases, it is almost impossible to saw accurate dimensions with this type of mill. Because recovery rates are not competive with swing saws or bandsaws, the twinblade saw should be considered when sawing logs over 20" in diameter, cutting mostly 2" stock and greater, and while cutting logs of generally lower value wood. Examples of twin-saw sawmills include Mighty Mite, Mobile Dimension, Mahoe, Forestmill, and Rimu.


Comparisons- Bandsaw Blade Sawmills

There are scores of bandsaw manufactureres around the world. The bandsaw has found application in every thing from cutting hobby wood in the home workshop to breaking down large logs in multi-million dollar timber processing plants. Bandsaws are at their best in very specific situations. Because of their extremely small kerf, they are ideal for resawing flitches and cants into finished boards. For this purpose, they are unsurpassed by any other practical technology. The market in bandsaws designed for reducing whole logs has profligerated on the back of a whole lot of hype and propaganda regarding the extremely narrow saw kerf and the increased recovery rates theoroetically possible.

Unfortunately, when designed to cut whole logs in a portable operation, a lot of compromises need to be made with this technology. Firstly, the bandmills have to be designed to cut logs up to around 30 inches in diameter. Otherwise they miss out on a great deal of the portable milling market. And when cutting those large logs, the technology struggles to provide accurate and straight cuts. Unless the band blades are immaculately sharp and perfectly tensioned, those large cuts tend to wander somewhat through the cut. Unless the logs are debarked before sawing, the bark, sand, dirt, grit, and small stones lodged therein quickly dull the blade and lead to even more deformed sawn timbers. And of course, whenever the band blade gets dull, it wanders all over the place. You throw that wavey board away, put on a freshly sharpened band, cut another board, and throw that one away, too.

In most portable sawmilling situations, the bandsaws just do not cut it for accuracy, recovery, ease of use, or speed of cut. You have to be an expert sawyer to make it work at all, bandsaws are almost always slow compared to equally priced swingers, they tend to waste a lot of boards due to wavey cuts, they have difficulty cutting stressed timbers (again, a lot of wasted boards), they struggle on large logs, and they require an awful lot of double handling in resawing slabs or edging boards. And on top of all that, most serious bandsaw operators spend a couple of hours per sawing day just resharpening and readying the band blades for the next day's sawing.

Don't get me wrong. There is a lot of great technology employed in the more expensive, automated band sawmills. The point is, it's often the wrong technology for sawing logs into dimensional timbers. It's therefore overly expensive, relatively unproductive, labor intensive, and is simply the wrong application. Now, some of these problems can be minimized by sticking to smaller logs, debarking the logs (a lot of work), and adding an edger (expensive) to the operation. But my back is already hurting just talking about it!

On the plus side, most portable bandsaws can be used effectively and efficiently as efficient and practical re-saw machines. That is, use them for resawing cants and flitches into thinner stock boards, rather than trying to reduce large, whole logs into finished boards.

Examples of popular portable bandsaws include Woodmizor, Baker, Timberking, Cookes, Norwood, MSG, Timber Harvester, and Hud-son.


Comparisons- Swing-Blade Sawmills

The "swingers" have really taken the portable sawmill market by storm. Time and time again they have shown at portable sawmill shootouts, through Lucas and Peterson, to be able to out-gun other mills costing two or three times as much. In most versions highly portable, they have also been able to merge great cutting speed, consistent accuracy, with very high recovery rates; usually surpassing bandsaws in recovery in practical field situations. The swing blade saw kerf is usually well under 1/4", with some special applications possible using just over 1/8" kerf. But the secret here is not in the thin kerf. The real secret lies in the consistent accuracy and consistent sizing achievable. The relatively smaller swing blades distort less than larger circular blades, and are more stable in the cut. And because they have the entire motor horsepower focused on a single cut in each direction, they effectively cut twice as fast as an equivalent twin saw system laboring through two cuts simultaneously.

Swing saw blades are cheap and easy to maintain. They can be sharpened on the mill in less than a minute or two, sharpened perhaps a hundred times before being retoothed, and require only a couple of sharpenings per day. Obviously, a sharp blade will cut faster than a dull one, but at least on a swinger a dull blade will still cut accurate timbers. In the final analysis, the blade maintenance costs on swingers are only about 1/10the the cost of bandsaw blade maintenance.

Another advantage of the swingblade mill is the ability to "double cut" with the horizontal positioned circular blade. With the Peterson mill this is easily effected by first sawing on the left side of the log with the right side of the blade, sliding the carriage to the right, and by then sawing on the right side of the log with the left side of the blade. With the Lucas, the carriage is lifted and rotated 180 degrees to achieve a similar end. Both the Lucas and the Peterson "ATS" are at their best sawing logs larger than 20" in diameter. The Peterson "WPF" is equally at home with either small or larger logs, and also boasts a single rise and fall mechanism.

Lucas swingblade mill has been around in the USA longer than Peterson. The Lucas mill began as an early Peterson-type mill with the addition of two rise and fall winches. It has become a slick outfit, well marketed and supported by Baily's, and generally well presented when new. There are probably five times more Lucas mills in America than Petersons. Second hand Lucas's are far more abundant, and can often be had at a bargain. A good Lucas mill can achieve awsome production on large logs equalling the Peterson, and in most configurations is at least slightly less expensive. On the down side, cheaper materials are used, the machine is more prone to rusting, Lucas blades are more vulnerable to heating and distortion, and the Lucas is generally made for earlier consignment to the scrap heap. From an operator's point of view, there is a lot of walking required, as the winches are located at oppositie ends of the tracks. When used by a single operator, double cutting becomes all but impossible, or at least impractical, as the carriage must be completely turned around. As well, the tracks become dangerously skewed when dropping down one end at a time.

Petersons sawmills boast a lot of precious metal in the construction, being predominantly stainless steel and aluminum. The Peterson blade locking mechanism is reportedly easier to use, more operator friendly, and more reliable than the Lucas gas strut. Double cutting, difficult with the Lucas, is extremely easy to effect on the Peterson. Peterson also makes a 10" cut version, an automated version (the "ASM"), and a small electric version called the "Skillmill" costing only US $3900.

The Peterson "ATS" (all terrain sawmill) uses two winches at one end, saving boot leather and time walking back and forth, and making accurate sizing easier. The "ATS" does not have the constraining top cross member that the Lucas has, which limits the log length ability on large diameter logs.

The Peterson "WPF" is equally at home cutting large or small logs, being transported between sites or in fixed site arrangement, and in cutting short logs or very long logs up to 60 feet long. The "WPF" is Peterson's most popular commercial-grade mill. Although significantly more expensive than either the Lucas, or the Peterson "ATS", the "WPF" mill offers better functionality, more flexibility, easier access for operator and log, and improved accuracy. An electric rise and fall option adds to operator convenience.

"TURB-O-SAW"-New kid on the block. Carl and Jake Peterson have finally released details of their new 12" cut automatic swingblade mill, which has been named the "Turb-O-Saw". This new prototype mill features the patent-pending "turb-o-blade" which incorporates a series of holes in the blade to reduce gyroscopic forces during blade changeover, reduce friction resistance, facilitate blade cooling, allow self-tensioning, and generally provide faster and more efficient sawing. This bundle of benefits allows thinner blade steel to be used and thinner tip widths, providing even more efficiency, faster cutting, and greater size of cut. This blade technology combines with a new patent-pending frame design to allow simple but robust construction, easy operator and log access around the mill, unsurpassed stability in the cut, rapid setup, and quick readiness for transport to a new site. The mill will be publicly demonstrated in public early in the new year, and will probably feature at the Rotorua, New Zealand, A & P Show during the last part of January.
For more details, go to www.turb-o-saw.com .