biBItE

Since Independent Sawmill &Woodlot Management magazine

began publication in the fall of1997, I have written perhaps adozen sawmill reviews. All werebased upon a day’s visit to a millin operation and a rather inten-sive interview with the owner/op-erator. That, combined withmany years’ experience withsawmills, gave me a pretty fairoverall impression of the mill andenabled me to write articles thathopefully have been useful toyou, the reader.

This review is different be-cause it is based upon six monthsof hands-on experience with amill. During that time, I operatedthe mill, moved the mill fromplace to place, did the periodicmaintenance on the mill, andtrained about 20 others to oper-ate and maintain it. This is an in-depth review and any strengths(many) or weaknesses (a few) ofthe Wood-Mizer LT-15 sawmillwill be revealed.

A Specialized NeedThe University of Maine Schoolof Forest Resources has a three-week summer program that ismandatory for all forestry under-graduates. The course is an in-tensive hands-on exercise, wherethe students learn to operate avariety of equipment, includingchain saws, excavators, skidders,other logging equipment, and,yes, sawmills.

Since the course takes placeon Mount Desert Island and onanother island several miles outin the Gulf of Maine, we neededa sawmill that was extremelyportable. Specifically, we neededto be able to easily break it downinto modules that could beloaded onto a lobster boat andthen be easily reassembled onthe island.

While it was obvious that oneof the chain saw mills or one ofthe swing blade mills met theportability requirement ad-mirably, the faculty consensus

10 • Sawmill & Woodlot

The Wood-Mizer LT-15

!There is more to choosing a

sawmill than a mere listing

of strengths and weaknesses.

You need to consider the

mill’s capabilities, limitations,

and operating characteristics

too—which leads to an ex-

planation of how we estab-

lished a relationship with

this little Wood-Mizer.

SAWMILL REVIEW“Personal Experience”

BY JIM PHILP

A SMALL DOG

WITH A

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was that we would prefer a mill withmore nearly generic operating proce-dures. We wanted the skills that ourstudents learned to be applicableover as broad a range of sawmills aspracticable. Another considerationwas that a band mill was more appro-priate for the smaller size of thespruce trees on the island.

A review of the sawmills avail-able, including ads and Shoot-Outresults in this magazine, along withmanufacturers’ specifications, con-firmed that the LT-15 would meetour requirements. When Wood-Miz-er agreed to lend us a mill for sixmonths, we were more than willingto accept their offer.

Note: Because of some logisticalproblems, at the last minute, wewere not able to move the mill ontothe offshore island, and had to stayon Mount Desert Island, which hasroad access. Still, we are confidentthat it is entirely feasible to take themill offshore; maybe next year.

The MillThe Wood-Mizer LT-15 mill is a no-frills manual band saw mill. The en-gine provides all the energy for saw-

ing the log and you provide all theenergy for everything else.

Note: A labeled drawing of thesawmill, from the excellent opera-tor’s manual, is reproduced here foryour convenience. Also, left andright designations are from the pointof view of the sawyer, standing at,and facing, the mill’s controls.

As delivered, the basic mill con-sists of the sawhead, mounted on acarriage, and two 6-foot-8-inch-longbed sections. This is long enough tosaw 11-foot (3.3-meter) logs. Longerlogs require theaddition of bedsections (asmany as youwant). Threesections are en-

March 2007 • 11

The LT-15, with three bed sections, can betransported on a full-sized pickup truck or an8-foot flatbed trailer (a double snowmobiletrailer is perfect). Here is how you do it.

Wood-Mizer recommends that the legs beremoved from the mill for transportation; Iagree. Raise the saw head just enough toclear the sides of the transporting vehicle andmove the carriage to the back end of the mill(the end where you finish a cut). Lock thecarriage securely in position with the spring-loaded pin nearest to the end of the mill.

While two people lift the end of the mill op-posite the carriage, a pickup or trailer isbacked under the elevated end. Then the car-riage is unlocked and two people roll it upthe bed frame to the end that is in the truckand lock it into position with the spring-loaded pin that is nearest the end. The twopeople then lift the other end of the mill andslide the mill forward into the truck.

If a third bed section is present, it is re-moved (four bolts) and placed in the truck,on top of the bed sections that are alreadyloaded. After everything is secured to thetruck, and the saw head is in the lowest prac-tical position, you are ready to go. Unloadingis done in the reverse order.

If You Are AloneYou may have noticed that the above proce-dure requires three people—one to drive thetruck, and two to do the grunt work. Wood-Mizer has a cleverly designed trailer packageavailable that makes moving the LT-15 a one-person proposition. We had one on our loan-er mill and I moved the mill single-handedlyseveral times—with ease. I towed the mill allover Maine with a Ford Ranger pickup andthe biggest problem I had was forgetting thatit was back there.

Setting UpWith the mill parked in the place where youwant to set it up, unhook it from the towingvehicle, unlock the carriage, raise the sawhead a few inches, move the carriage fromthe transport position to the lowering posi-tion, and again lock it in place. After remov-ing the fenders and a safety bracket (onelocking pin for each item), the mill can belowered to the ground using the attachedratcheting screw jack; the axle will pivot asthe mill lowers. After the mill is sitting on theground, the two wheel assemblies and theratcheting screw jack are removed (four lock-ing pins).

If you will be operating the mill at groundlevel, the axle can be left in place, lying flaton the ground, and you will step over it untila little sawdust builds up. If you will be oper-ating the mill elevated above the ground, as Ido, the axle must be removed (two bolts) oryou will trip over it while sawing.

Once the mill has been leveled, using theadjustable legs, which need not be removedwith the trailer package, you are ready to be-gin sawing. The whole process requires lessthan an hour.

Moving the LT-15

Detail of the LT-15 Trailer Kit.

Wood-Mizer’s drawing of the LT-15, from the operator’s manual.

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is the indexing device, which isnothing more than a spring-loadedpin on the crank handle that engagesa large roller chain sprocket. Thebeauty is in the engineering. Eachturn of the crank moves the sawhead exactly 4 inches. Wood-Mizerchose a 64-tooth sprocket, so there isa positive stop at 1/16-inch intervals.This is very convenient for those ofus sawing in inches—USA and Cana-da (depending upon markets).

Once the indexing sprocket is ad-justed, it is easy to set thesaw in 1/16-inch increments.There is a decal applied tothe sprocket that has indexmarks, but no numbers. Theintention was clearly that thesawyer would use the inch-scale, located on the left car-riage mast, for coarse adjust-ment, and the indexing pin for thefinal adjustment. We took the con-cept a step further and added num-bers to the sprocket (see photo-graph) and only used the inch scaleto locate the saw, within 4 inches, forthe initial set. After that we reliedentirely on the sprocket scale.

The inch scale has one very nicefeature. The scale is silver in color,except for the bottom 10-inch sec-tion, which is yellow. When you aresawing in the yellow zone, it is possi-ble to hit something other thanwood—a clamp or a side support.This is a good reminder to pay atten-tion to the side supports and to theclamps.

Since the setworks are incremen-tal, you need to adjust your sawingtechnique accordingly. The kerf ofthe saws that we were using is 0.089inch, a bit less than 3/32 inch. If youcall the kerf 1/16 inch, a real tempta-tion, you will saw boards that aretheoretically 0.026-inch scant. If youcall the kerf 1/8 inch, you will saw0.036-inch oversize.

After just a little experience withthe mill/blade combination, I conclud-ed that the accuracy and the repeata-bility allowed me to consider the kerf1/16 inch. I yielded to temptation,called the kerf 1/16 inch, and never

looked back. One-inch boards wereconsistently within tolerances for thenominal dimension.

This seems like a good time to ad-dress the blades. The 1.25 x 0.045 x158 x 10º Wood-Mizer blades werevery well suited for everything that wesawed with them—I cannot say ideallysuited because it was the only bladewe tried. We sawed white pine, hem-lock, inland spruce, coastal spruce,and various hardwoods (mostly mapleand birch). We had no problems.

Let’s talk about the coastalspruce. This is notoriously hard tosaw and when I want to test a bandsaw blade, I look for some coastalspruce. Quite often the saw will tryto dodge the hard, encased knots.Once the saw deviates, it often doesnot recover properly and begins toproduce a wavy cut. Problems mayoccur with a fresh blade, but you canusually expect them to increase asthe blade dulls.

We had no problems sawing thecoastal spruce—none whatsoever—and we sawed a lot of it. When ablade began to dull, we would hearthe difference in the engine and inthe sound of the saw before theblade began to misbehave. We typi-cally sawed 2,000 to 3,000 feet ofspruce before we needed to change

the blade. Yes, we had very cleanlogs—they were not skidded, butwere brought out of the woods on aforwarder.

I cannot comment on how theblades work in frozen timber. Wenever had any cold weather; indeed,we still haven’t and it is mid-January.

I really liked the 10-hp Yanmardiesel engine. It has more thanenough torque, and we could notcause it to lug—when the blade wassharp—on the size logs that we weresawing—up to about 20 inches. Oneenormous old hemlock did make usslow the feed, but just a bit. Best ofall is that the fuel consumption rateis only 0.2 gallon per hour. A tankfullasts about seven hours.

Although the engine can be start-ed manually (I had each studentstart it once with the struggle stringjust to prove that it’s possible), theelectric starter is very welcome. Theengine always started very easily. Iwould like to tell you how it starts inwinter, but we haven’t had any.

Like most diesel engines, this onecan run backwards; it happenedtwice for us. The first time, we did-n’t know what was going on until wetried engaging the clutch and sawthe blade going the wrong direction.The second time, we recognized the

16 • Sawmill & Woodlot

Sawing a spruce log on the LT-15. His right hand is cranking the feedworks. At right: A view of the blade tensioner (red rubber block with silver washer) and the blade tracking adjustment bolt. Notice Wood-Mizer’s toll-free number posted right on the machine.

A SAWMILL REVIEW “Personal Experience”

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