While many people will associate Wood-Mizer with portable sawmills, it certainly has plenty to offer at the larger end of the market. As we found out during a recent open day at Novar Sawmill near Inverness.
WHEN it comes to Wood-Mizer, it’s a name many will immediately associate with portable sawmills. But it has plenty to offer at the larger end of the market too.
That much was clear during the first of three open days held in the wonderful grounds of the Novar Estate in April. While the usual crowd-pleasers were there, including the LT40 Mobile and LT15 Mobile (and please the crowd they did), it was something a little bit bigger that stole the show, the rabble rushing towards its timber-clad building whenever it roared into life.
Installed by the site’s Novar Sawmill last year (to replace its own LT70 Wide), the WB2000 industrial sawmill is the antithesis to Wood-Mizer’s mobile range, a permanent fixture in the mill’s yard and capable of cutting logs up to 7.5 metres in length. Throughout the day, it barely broke sweat as it milled 4.9-m-long Douglas fir, cutting the fallen boards off before sending them down its line and into the jaws of a MR200 Multirip, which subsequently produced 150x200 mm boards for cladding.
“We wanted to showcase this,” said Keith Threadgall, Wood-Mizer’s Scotland and north-of-England representative. “We have another one which has been in the country for a number of years and people have always wanted to come and see it. When this was installed a year ago on the Novar Estates, it was a good opportunity to showcase this mill in action.
“The guys on the sawmill are really happy with it. Previously they had a standard LT70 Wide, which was good and did what they wanted, but they just needed something a little bit quicker to produce timber.
“It can do smaller logs and bigger over-sized logs, capable of cutting up to 1 metre in diameter. It’s a very dynamic machine in what it can do. With the 100 mm blade it has on it, it is very accurate in what it does.”
You can watch the machinery in action on our YouTube channel. Simply click on the player above
According to Wood-Mizer’s own blurb, the WB2000 features heavy-duty construction, low maintenance requirements, and efficient operation. The mill uses wideband 75 mm blades or 100 mm stellite-tipped blades (Novar’s has the latter). When using 75 mm blades (available with 22.22 mm and 28.50 mm tooth spacing) the sawmill is “especially cost-efficient in terms of blade maintenance costs”.
“They aren’t pushing it flat out here – it’s only working one or two days a week – but it keeps up with their demands with ease,” added Wood-Mizer general manager Dave Biggs. “The other machine that’s down in the Scottish Borders has been used to its max, but they haven’t been able to run it full speed because they can’t keep up with the process.
“They couldn’t keep up with the next stages. If that was going flat out, they just got bottlenecks. To be able to really see its capabilities, you’d have to be somewhere where labour is 10 men a penny. It’s incredible how fast it is. It’s a really nice set-up here at Novar.”
Understood to be the first time in nearly a decade a WB2000 had been shown off in the UK, it was little wonder it attracted the most interest throughout the day.
With contractors, firewood processors, and foresters among those present, there was a genuine tinge of excitement at the sight of the machine. For its owners, it has allowed Novar Sawmill – situated at the heart of the historic estate’s nearly 20,000 acres – to add more strings to its bow, going from its previous modus operandi of sending logs away to the highest bidder (usually the local James Jones and Sons mill), to offering the opportunity to branch out into more bespoke construction projects.
“It’s a significant investment,” Martin Phillips, Wood-Mizer sales representative for north-west England and Wales, said. “Everyone knows Wood-Mizer for the portable mills, but we need to get into the big boys’ game and really push machines like the WB2000.
“Not so many people will know us for industrial sawlines like that. Look at the footprint of this building; it’s such a small space and you have your raw material coming in and product going out. And so quickly as well.”
Speaking during a tour of the estate on the eve of the first open day (which you will be able to read about in a future Forestry Journal), current custodian Ronald Munro Ferguson and his son, William, were certainly impressed by the WB2000, and excited by the possibilities it now afforded their business.
However, it wasn’t only the larger end of the scale that was well catered for during the event, with Keith and company ensuring those who braved the surprisingly warm sunshine (which, predictably, turned into a relentless April shower by the afternoon) could see much of the Wood-Mizer range up close and personal. As well as the aforementioned LT15 Mobile and LT40 Mobile, Keith had brought along his own LT70 Mobile – which effortlessly chewed through some Doug fir – while an EG300 Multirip board edger, LX250 sawmill, and MP280 planer/moulder were among the other machines on display.
“Everybody always looks at the mobile range and a lot of people are realising we do planer/moulders as well,” Keith said. “People are always looking at value added. Yes, you can still associate sawmilling with cladding and fencing materials, but they are realising the value added in the secondary processing in terms of using an edger.
“I used to have an LT40 with a diesel engine. The one we have here is a petrol one. It’s the one everyone knows in our mobile range. It’s a good, versatile mill and is mostly what contractors use.
“I have an LT70 Mobile. It’s a bigger jump up and a wee bit more expensive, so you do find people may be on budgets and not able to stretch. The LT40 is a good all-round machine.”
Keith added: “Open days are always good to get people together to meet with others and get talking. You get people here and they may meet someone who can offer some advice or ideas. Hopefully, that then gets the ball rolling further down the line.
“People want to see machines in the flesh. That’s the whole idea.”
A relatively new machine and key to the WB2000 set-up, the MR200 double arbor multirip is particularly vital for sawmills that are looking to improve efficiency on their site. As Martin explained: “Any larger debris that comes off drops in there and it is chipped and goes up your extraction spout.
“This is fairly new and was launched for its public experience last year. It’s something that needs pushing hard in the UK. There is one in Wales but this is certainly the first one in Scotland.
“This will save so much time sawing on your main sawmill as part of secondary processing. Instead of it taking half an hour plus, you have your fallen board off and then it’s through here and done. It takes 10 to 15 minutes.”
Based on the MP260 unit, the MP280 is also another recent addition, and one that can easily turn boards into flooring, panels and door frames. Equipped with an “intuitive control panel” with the switches engaging all motors and the feed mechanism separately, Wood-Mizer says it allows for lower energy consumption and noise emission. The 13,78 kW electric motors drive the cutter heads at 6,000 rpm, ensuring the best possible finish of the board surface.
“That’s a pure Wood-Mizer machine,” added Dave. “We took the 260 and the 360, put them in a box together and came out with the 280. It’s a really nice machine. I put some boards through it yesterday and it was lovely.”
Elsewhere, Jas P Wilson was exhibiting during the open days, having brought along several of its firewood processing machines. Leading the line-up were the Krpan CS4218 and Posch 375, but it was the new Botex 583 crane on a Valtra 234 that got tongues wagging.
“It’s great to be back on the road again at our first show of the season,” said sales manager Simon Clingan. “The 583 is our newest crane in the range. It’s been out for just over a year and is fitted with a new HYDAC control valve and X-Crane arm-mount rested minilevers.
"It gives us the latest performance and smooth precision. It’s now taken us as close to forwarder, purpose-built machinery as we can get. It’s probably performing equally as well as some of those.”
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