Wood-Mizer LT70 Super

SAWMILL REVIEW
BY SCOTTIE BARNES
Wood-Mizer LT70 Super
SPEEDS PRODUCTION AT JAYZEE LUMBER
Nearly 20 years ago, Jim Zacharias set out to build a log
home for his family in his native town of Joseph, Oregon.
He soon learned that he would have to travel more than
500 miles to find the 39-foot beams called for in his
design. At the time, there were three big mills in the historic town named in honor of Chief Joseph of the Nez
Perce Tribe. Each employed 60 to 100 people. But none
of them could provide the custom timbers Jim needed.
H
another and, in 2001, he founded
JayZee Lumber Inc. When the
Oregon timber industry collapsed,
the three big mills closed down.
That left JayZee as the only
sawmill in Wallowa County, tucked
away in the farthest northeast corner of Oregon. Eventually, Jim took
over the 10-acre property that had
been home to the Boise Cascade
Photos Courtesy of JayZee Lumber
e soon decided that his best option was to mill the lumber himself. So he bought a Wood-Mizer HD40. Over the course of the
next year, he and his wife, Julie, built a 2,800-foot house entirely
from standing-dead western larch. The home features all open
beams, 10 x 12 dovetail walls up to 39 feet long, and even larch floors and
countertops. And, according to Julie, “Jim cut every stick of wood in that
house, including all the dovetail logs for the walls.” Jim adds that the
money saved by milling all his own lumber more than paid for his mill.
Soon, Jim started a few projects for other people. One thing led to
The crew at JayZee Lumber
arguably has the most beautiful
worksite there is.
4 • Sawmill & Woodlot
Mill. “There used to be hundreds
of sawyers and millwrights working
in the area,” he said. “Now—
except for a couple hobby mills—
it’s just me and my crew of three
other guys.” Consequently, JayZee
mills just about anything a customer requests.
A Diverse Product Line
In with the New,
Keeping the Old
When Zacharias started casting his
eye for a new mill, he was already
determined to stick with WoodMizer because they’re so close
Last summer, the JayZee crew milled and built a 50-foot plank bridge across
the Wallowa River for use by log trucks and other heavy equipment.
(from the remote town of Joseph,
he said, 340 miles is right next
door) and they provide good
service.
He visited the Wood-Mizer facility in Portland, Oregon, where he
learned a bit about the LT70. He
then visited sawyers who operated
them in Washington state. “I made
up my mind to buy it, but the guys
at Wood-Mizer encouraged me to
wait for the new version that was
still in prototype,” he said. “So I
put my name on the list and waited
several months for the LT70 Super.
In 2015, I had one of the first ones
sold in the United States.”
Within two hours of the mill’s
arrival, the guys at JayZee had it up
and running. “That included messing around with the conveyer and
the fact that we’d never had a sort
table before.”
Zacharias kept his HD40. “That
mill allows me to make longer
cuts,” he said. JayZee’s other
equipment includes a Bobcat and
an ASV RC100 skid steer with
quick-attach forks and a bucket. “I
use them for slash busting and precommercial thinning, as well as
around the sawmill,” he said. He
uses an Ingersoll Rand Telehandler
653 to feed the mill. And, of course,
the new baby: the LT70 Super.
Wood-Mizer LT70 Super
Type.........................Band mill, hydraulic,
wide head
Log capacity....................36 in. diameter,
20 ft. 2 in. long
Maximum cut width........................28 in.
Power source............55-hp Yanmar diesel
Edger engine.........................26.5-hp gas
Towing.....................Ball hitch, DOT legal
(standard)
Comments.............Controls on a pedestal
that can be set up on either
end. Optimal use with a
team of two or more.
Weight .....................................4,590 lbs.
In a Nutshell
According to the specs, the fully
portable LT70 Super can cut logs
up to 3 feet in diameter and 20 feet
long. All log-handling functions are
Jamie Zacharias (left) alongside her
father, Jim.
February 2016 •
5
SPECS
JayZee Lumber specializes in custom milling using hand-selected
logs obtained from sustainable local
wood sources. The family-owned
operation stays busy with just about
every activity known to timberwork. Last fall, for instance, the
four-man crew did pre-commercial
thinning, slash busting, and salvage
logging, as well as removing hazard
trees at a state park. They also
milled corral boards, board-and-batt
as well as log siding, hand-hewn
beams, rustic Douglas fir flooring,
western larch house trim, and
bridge foundations and planking.
They recently built a 50-foot
wooden bridge across the Wallowa
River. “We cut and peeled the logs
and planked them with decking,”
said Zacharias. “These are heavyduty bridges for log trucks and
other heavy gear.”
But that’s only the beginning.
“We restore old cabins where
they sit, move them and rebuild
them, or simply provide chinking
services,” Zacharias explained. “We
also build cabin kits for owner
assembly.” Whether it’s fencing
material, a specialty beam, a rustic
archway for a ranch, or enough
beams for a timber-frame home,
the JayZee crew can do it. And,
since adding a Wood-Mizer LT70
Super to their operation in August
2015, they can also do it much
faster.
SAWMILL REVIEW
fully hydraulic. Two loading arms
move heavy logs onto the cutting
bed. The log clamp and two vertical side supports keep logs in place
while cutting. A bidirectional
chain-turner rotates logs and cants
and a return system keeps boards
coming off the mill. Two hydraulic
toeboards allow the operator to
level the log. To begin sawing, the
operator engages the saw from a
joystick controller. A debarker travels ahead of the blade clearing
bark, mud, and rock out of the way
before they reach the saw, and a
system provides precise bursts of
lubrication to both sides of the
blade. The computerized setworks
calculates board thickness and
moves the head into position.
Zacharias is pleased with the LT70 Super’s high production capacity. When cutting various dimensions, his crew can mill as much as 1,000 BF per hour. His
German shepherds are a constant presence at the 10-acre lumberyard.
Troubleshooting
Because the machines were so
new, Wood-Mizer asked Zacharias
to start a list of any problems he
encountered so they could be corrected. “I guess I was kind of a
beta tester,” he said. “We had
some hydraulic leaks at first, but
nothing that the techs in Indiana
couldn’t help us fix. They were
really good at getting the bugs
worked out quickly.”
Zacharias is particularly
impressed with the speed of the
hydraulics. “All the functions on
the mill are extremely fast,” he
said. “Almost hard to keep up with
at times.” To capitalize on the
speed, he runs the mill with a crew
of three.
“Since I’m the business operator, I buck and feed the mill with
logs. That way I can choose which
logs go on the deck and also keep
the other two guys working.” A
second crewmember stands at the
pedestal control and keeps the mill
working, while a third stays at the
end of the mill tailing, stacking
boards, and cleaning up sawdust.
“That frees me up to talk to customers if they pull in,” he
explained. “If I can get a few logs
on the mill, I can stop and do business while the guys keep cutting.”
Zacharias said that several
6 • Sawmill & Woodlot
The crew milled the boards for this beautiful basket-weave fence, which
takes advantage of the wood’s flexibility to simply weave spaces between
the boards.
sawyers have called with questions
about the mill and said they wanted to use it solo. He discouraged
them. “It would be very difficult to
operate alone,” he explained.
“With a walk beside, you start the
blade and then move as it travels
down through the log. While it’s
doing that, you can be right there
to pull a board off and stack it.”
But the bidirectional LT70 Super
cuts toward the operator. At the
end of the cut, the head then pulls
the board away from the operator
and drops it on the conveyer. “If
you’re trying to run it yourself,
then you have to go to the other
end of the mill to stack the lumber,” Zacharias continued. “You
have to keep your hands on the
controls, or the mill stops. So it’s at
least a two-man operation.”
The three-man crew has optimized JayZee’s production. “It’s so
fast, especially when we’re milling
a variety of products,” he said.
Which his crew does every day.
The Spice of Life
Zacharias doesn’t have a “commodity item” in which a customer buys
500 of a particular product every
day. “On a typical day, we may
work on as many as six different
orders. Everything is custom. The
only thing we stockpile at the yard
is fence stays. We cut a lot of those
for the U.S. Forest Service.”
On any given day, Jim’s crew
may cut a couple hundred 2 x 10 x
16 corral boards for a ranch 150
miles away. On the same day, they
could cut 2 x 8 corral boards and an
order of 1 x 6s. Meanwhile, they
February 2016 •
7
SAWMILL REVIEW
may also mill a mixture of beams: 4
x 12s, 6 x 8s, and 2 x 10s. “We usually have three or four different
projects for as many customers.”
Cutting the lumber as the logs
allow, he said, his crew has averaged about 5,000 board feet in a 6hour workday. “If we had logs laid
out in front of us and were cutting
nothing but big stuff, we could easily cut 1,000 board feet per hour.”
Of course, he continues, that’s a
best-case scenario. “There’s always
something to slow you down, so I
wouldn’t say we could average
that, but it’s been no problem to
get 5,000 board feet.”
It’s the Little Stuff…
Jim appreciates the mill’s debarker,
which he said really saves blades.
“It’s a spring-loaded horizontal
blade that floats along the log
skimming about a 1-inch-wide kerf
of bark without cutting into the
timber,” he explained. “It makes a
clean place for the blade to enter
JayZee Lumber restores old cabins
and builds new ones. They also mill
ready-to-assemble cabin kits.
and protects your blade.”
Jim noticed it burns about twice
as much fuel as the old mill. “We
only burn about 10 gallons on a
busy day,” he said. “But when you
figure the production per gallon,
the LT70 Super is much more efficient because it generates so many
more board feet per day.”
Customizing the Setup
For Jim, the LT70’s only drawback
is the track length. “Probably 80%
of what we do is less than 20-foot,”
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he said. “But, when we want to cut
a 20-footer, it’s hard, even though
the mill is technically capable of it.”
Wood-Mizer, he said, is using the
same bed as it did on the previous
model. “But the head of this mill is
so much bigger, that you have to
get the log positioned just right to
fit a 20-footer in there. So that’s
stretching it. If everything lines up
just right, it works. But even if your
log is cut at a little bit of an angle,
you can’t cut it.” Zacharias suggests
that Wood-Mizer extend their track
a foot or two to efficiently mill at
that length. Meanwhile, he said,
“I’m going to extend the bed a few
feet myself.” For now, he’s glad he
still has the HD40 for those long
timbers.
Zacharias is also taking both
mills off their axles and putting
them inside a building now under
construction. Although the LT70
Super is fully portable and easy to
tow, Zacharias said, the logs come
to him. “I don’t use the portable
function of the mill,” he said. “I
buy logs from private landowners
and bring them into my yard, cut
them, and retail them. And I have
the skidder at my yard so operation
is easier. For my business, it’s not
worth it to tow the mill to someone
else’s site. So I’m making it a
breakdown saw and moving it
inside.”
Jim Zacharias is happy with his
investment and already has already
put about 500 hours on the mill.
“It’s amazing how many logs we
can go through in a day,” he said.
“We are much more productive
with the LT70 Super than our older mill.”
As pleased as he is with the mill,
though, he said his business is still
about the people. “I couldn’t do it
without my crew of Jay Chitwood,
Bob Alfano, and Dean
Hollingsworth.” I
Scottie Barnes is an author, editor, and
owner of a small piece of land in western Oregon. She grew up in a timber
town and remembers the days of the
one-log load.
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February 2016 •
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