A response to Wranglerstars Video on the Lucas Sawmill

Good day Swedish Homesteader,
I am a huge fan of Wranglerstar and I saw your video pop up on my recommendations, to a certain extent your video proved that the sharpening is much easier and less complicated than a bandsaw blade. That being said for me it depends on what your wanting to get out of a sawmill, the type of wood you will be cutting and the grade of wood you want to produce, ease of setup and just plain ole personal preference.
I sub'ed to your channel and look forward to more of your videos of homesteading, thank you for sharing and I can't wait to see more. I hope you have a wonderful day.

I never liked Wranglerstar very well, and will no longer watch him but it was very nice the way you showed your nice system with out bashing someone else.

Our Woodmizer came with the sharpener/grinder and the set press. One thing that helps a lot is rub a block of hard wood backwards on the teeth to knock the burs off before you set the curf. If I was just milling for our homestead only I probably would not have spent the money for the LT40 HD Woodmizer. We bought it new in 1992 and have milled over 1 million BFT. It is still running fine and making money. The best part about the mill has a very small curf. This alone makes money on the overrun.  have been a millwright for most of my life and I would not even consider any other mill for profit. Now a hobby mill for the homestead I might consider the Lucas mill. I have a few videos up milling big Oregon Sugar pine. Have a great day.

I forgot to mention that my dad and I have been business partners for many years and we live on a 40 acre wood lot. All my sons grew up here. I hope one day that one of my six sons will move home and build a house for his family. Then we will be 4 generations on the homestead. Actually most of my sons have bought their own places. My youngest son is a US Marine but he has a 30 acre homestead already. He is supposed to ship out over seas in December. You must have deep snow and cold weather where you live.

Going back over a decade when my dad, myself and older brother ran a sawmill here in Australia, dad started off with an Aussie made bandsawmill. Dinasaw or something like that, spring set bands weren't really much good for what we were cutting, quarter cut silky oak, maple, etc.... tungsten tip bands were far more effective. So long as no sand or rocks were present on the logs. Amazing how much damage a grain of sand can do really. Later we purchased a Lucas mill, early six" model. Was a great mill and very portable. Never had much problem with it. Then we got our hands on a Finnish made Kara-mill, was ideal for cutting even our rainforest hardwoods. Was interesting seeing your set up for sharpening the bands, ours was very similar. And they do work well. And when the bands wear out, they make great filleting knives as they have the flexibility.

well said Sir

I have a friend that does tree removable. he owned a woodmizer mill. about 5 years ago he bought the lucas mill. I have run both of them and there are many points to owning the lucas. The most important was the ease of set up on site of the mill. It could be carried into any area and is built directly over the log. the log never has to be moved. the second is that it can cut Any size log. the is no log that is too big for it. since the blade mount is flat to the blade, the saw can cut the widest tree with no problem. The biggest advantage to the lucas saw is that you NEVER have to move or adjust the log while cutting. from start to finish the log can stay on the ground where it was fallen. There is No flipping and re-clamping between cuts either. As for the blade. they can be sharpened by any tooling or machine shop. they are easy to sharpen and the cost is very, very low compaired to the woodmizer saw. For cutting dimensional lumber the lucas is hands down the better machine. However, that being said it does have the draw back of only being able to cut slabs of 24" wide, with the stock blade.

Wranglerstar must be doing something right to get you bandsaw guys all excited. The fact of the matter is with the swing blade you handle the board only once. No need for handling a board a second or third time for edging. Two steps saved if you are edging with your sawmill. Otherwise you need another piece of equipment for edging. No turning of the log required. Another step saved. No removal of saw blade required for sharpening. One more step saved. No need to set blade teeth. One more step saved. Over the life of the swing blade mill the cost of saw blades is negligible compared to a band saw. The ability to mill very large logs and large slabs with the slabbing attachment are two more points in favor of the swing blade. Quarter sawing with a swing blade is also much simpler. No need to handle the log multiple times to achieve quarter sawn lumber. Simply cut the board you want. Any time you can save a step it is a huge time saver. All things considered your argument that the thinner kerf blade is of any real advantage is negligible at best. From my perspective, for a one man operation, the swing blade is hands down the best choice.

Hello my friend from the state's. great channel new sub now. very good information on the band saw.

The wind noise was so annoying that I quit watching.

great video sir

No need to remove the circular saw from the Lucas mill and only takes minuets to sharpen. I know I own one..

you just gained a sub :)

I timed myself with my Lucas the other day. It took 3 mins from the time I stopped the machine till the time I started it again, to sharpen the swing blade.

The chainsaw slobber is slower (say 10 mins) and this had a larger Kerf so there is a case for live Edgar slabbing I expect.

Awesome man.. Great video..

my dad has the same machines for his woodmizer if I remember correctly a small magnet is used to stop the sharpening process once a full revolution is made.

I just found this channel. Gonna hit subscribe. Where and how much is that sharpener? I simply took my pedestal mounted bench grinder and form dressed a wheel with a diamond dressing wheel dresser to the tooth shape. ( If you've never heard of this tool they're cheap from any import tool company or Amazon. I've had mine 20+ years) Then start at the weld and manually grind the face and back of each tooth with the wheel formed to do both in one lick. After doing say four blades you're sure ready for a rest. I'd love to have one of these automatic sharpeners. I need to post a video of shaping the wheel and grinding a blade because my wheel is about worn too small.

Super stuff, now zip up your fly :D

Excellent machine! I love this.
I would love to see your sawmill in a future video.

wranglestar sub too. You seem like a class act. Im looking forward to your vlogs. I rarely had much to do with logging in Ireland but knew enough to use quality safety equipment when we did. regards D

Wranglestar's ok. I would rather see videos from a gentleman as yourself. It's easy to homestead when you can buy or have everything given to you. All the latest and greatest gadgets certainly make's life easier, but that's not realistic to most people looking to move into this lifestyle. Hell, like the new tractor he has with every attachment known to man. I haven't seen to many people getting into homesteading that could afford something like that. Thanks for the videos and am looking forward to more.

Cool stuff. You make it look so easy and take out the word complicated in it all. Cool trick compressing the blade.

Just discovered you guys, subbed, and working my way through the great videos! I have a LT15 that I enjoy very much for hobby work and some building lumber here and there. I learned to fold my blades by using the way I fold long v-belts (push-twist), now I need to try the way you showed because it looks more fun!
Also- when unfolding a new blade the first time, I had it open backwards and thought they had sent me a 'left-handed' blade! Took a few minutes to realize it was inside out.
I think the best thing about a band mill is that when you open up a log, if you are sawing for grade or specialty wood, you never know what you'll find inside. Very often I end up turning logs just to get a certain aspect of the grain. The Lucas is maybe faster for dimensional framing lumber, but I'd never give up my bandsaw.

I gust found your channel this week I have watched a lot of your videos you have a great channel my neighbour has a woodmizer mill its how he makes his living he gets 5 or 6 sharpening's out one blade before they break how about guys? I have to get a video up of his mill set up great video.

I'm looking forward to seeing a video of the band saw blade actually being sharpened. I couldn't understand how the machine works.

Thanks for the great video. I've been having this debate with myself recently, trying to decide which type of mill would be better for me. I'm interested to know about your sharpener. Is it homemade, or is it something that is available commercially? I agree with ArtM...I'd like to see it in operation as well.

Hey look it's so easy to sharpen the blades.. You just have these 2 large machines ready to go and in 2 days you'll have sharpened blades too. smh

hey I can clean all the floors in my house with any toothbrush why use a mop..

Keep up the good work. When I had a sawmill. I would eat my dinner while sharpening my blades. Getting 4 to 5 blades ready  for work. then sharpen the chainsaw. So much work to be done to prepare for the next day. A Lucas  mill makes  a fine home dimension mill. I just would not recommend  it for grade wood cutting. Just my opinion. Depends how hard you want to work.  Stay humble my friend, Don't become a shill as Cody's channel has.

During phase 1 you implied that it sharpens automatically, how does it knows it's finished (counts teeth)?
On phase 2 you were indicating that you bend each tooth but it looked like you were doing every third tooth?
Thank-you for the time.

It was not very clear how the sharpening gizmo worked. I, too, would like to see it in action.
It is good that you can go off to other projects while all those teeth are being sharpened. I thought you might have mentioned that the kerf is much smaller with the band saw mill so less wood is lost as a by product. Of course, for you, that is not necessarily an advantage since you have a greater need for or ability to use wood chips and sawdust than Cody does.

I agree that all mills have their advantages and disadvantages. basically any swing mill with the blades with 3 4 5 teeth cut the same meaning if the blades are sharp the horsepower is the same you get pretty much the same result. That is where the comparison ends. All the other stuff like how easy it is to use, load the logs into the mill etc make the difference.

I think the bandsaw mill is far superior to the circular. My brother has a bandsaw mill (not sure if it is a woodmizer) and the same automatic sharpener. It may be a little slower on the feed of the blade but, it cuts very accurately, a lot narrower kerf from the blade. Requires very little planing afterwards if you want dressed lumber, less time handling the material, less wear and tear on the planer. I think it is a great machine! My father had an old stationary mill when we were growing up, it wasted about 1/3 of the material by the time the wood was dressed.

I agree with both of you. With your machine and when it's adjusted right it's quite simple and not very time consuming! I believe you machine was made by your dad or some other very smart craftsman. Which means most people won't have access to that machine or if they did it would probably be a $1500 machine. Or they would be taking a lot of time or sending them out like Cody said. :) Wish you much success!!

Your woodmizer is a GR8 sawmill and so is a Lucas they both have there sweet points

What you didn't do is explain the blade setting properly. You set every other tooth on the blade you were working on, you then need to turn the blade so the teeth are facing the other way and set the other teeth. What was the make of the tooth grinder please? And how do you stop it sharpening the teeth it's already sharpened, does it have a counter or do you just mark the blade and watch for the mark to come round?

I've seen the Lucas mills in Australia and they are gteat

A lot of Amerikan factories have Swedish and German machine tools. One lever marked "schnell' and one marked "ein-ricten". Must be good machines because they are 50 years old.

Wow, very nice perspective as there are always at least two sides to every "story". Good stuff. How much does the sharpener and tooth straightener costs? I'm sure they aren't cheap? thanks.

it's pretty complicated and fancy setup to sharpen yours vs the Lucas setup. And takes a lot of shop space.

Wranglerstar, not a recommended source for useful info. Very good at pumping out videos. Use to watch that channel. Better sources for information are available. At times it seemed as though one was being misled. The channel is for light entertainment nothing to be taken seriously. Swedish Homestead is an humble honest channel.

Thank you, Swedish Homestead, for these videos. I find these really interesting. Och hälsningar från Finland. Danke!

I think a band saw blade is also safer. I have seen circular saw blades fly apart. The replacement cost of a circular blade is also more.

Just bumped into your video and found it interesting. can you tell me the make and model of the grinder you are using? From Elliot Lake Ontario Canada.

Yes, very neat sharpening machinery but one of the main advantages of the Lucas is that you can sharpen the blade anywhere, well anywhere where there is a 12 volt battery and it is so easy to touch the blade up when ever you feel the need as the sharpening process can take five minutes or even two minutes if I am trying to prove a point (forgive the pun!)
The Lucas is a machine that can be wheeled/ carried into difficult terrain if there is a special tree inaccessible to normal machinery. It has fewer moving/wearing parts compared to a band mill
However it does waste more wood by cutting a wider kerf and the band mill is a far quicker and less wasteful slabber than the Lucas slabber

I have more wood than I can deal with after a Winter of storms so I am not worried about the kerf, and slabs are only occasional so for its main work of producing a nice straight say 8”x1” board or 2”x2”, 3”x3” posts or anything up to 8”x8” gate posts it is hard to beat
On top of this there are the options of a planer, a sander and a lap board maker
Different horses for different courses as we say in England!

Does it set the teeth in both directions at the same time?

There’s automatic sharpeners for the swing blade as well they just don’t come with the Lucas mill, you use to buy them separately and they cost extra.

Very interesting