Woodland Mills sawmill trailer stability.

[plowhog]

I went with Woodland Mills for several reasons.

A deciding reason for me was an earlier purchase of a Woodland Mills wood chipper. It works well, was pretty easy to assemble, has not broken down, and was delivered when they said it would be. Choosing Woodland Mills for a chipper was a solid choice-- and I figured the sawmill would probably be similar. It was.

btw check out Youtube videos "sawing with Sandy" which are excellent. He has a Woodland Mills sawmill. I've watched a number of them.

 

[N80]

A deciding reason for me was an earlier purchase of a Woodland Mills wood chipper. It works well, was pretty easy to assemble, has not broken down, and was delivered when they said it would be. Choosing Woodland Mills for a chipper was a solid choice-- and I figured the sawmill would probably be similar. It was.

btw check out Youtube videos "sawing with Sandy" which are excellent. He has a Woodland Mills sawmill. I've watched a number of them.

I got the WC68 wood chipper along with the sawmill. It works great. Seems well made.

The Sawing with Sandy videos influenced my choice.

 

[N80]

It is to the company that came up with it...

I bet it is to Peter Dale, as he holds many patents and has to continue to defend them...

SR

That's just the way things work in the world of commerce. Always have.

 

[Rebeldad1]

i would say 19" in front of the axle makes better sense

 

[KennyG]

I thought about that but good grief an extra wrench and a couple of sockets would solve that problem. Maybe another $30?

I guess they might think that if I'm so cheap that I bought a mill that I have to put together myself that I might be too cheap to buy an extra wrench.

The hardware is generic and used for some really cheap stuff. If you spend some time in some countries, you will find the average mechanic is lucky to even have a single complete set.

 

[s219]

After re-reading your post today, I think I now see the confusion...

You see it as Frontier copied Woodland. BUT, the part you are missing is, the Lumbermate (designed and built by Norwood) came BEFORE the Woodland OR Frontier!

Woodland copied the Lumbermate, and Frontier also copied the Lumbermate, BUT the Lumbermate was THEIR own mill, so they copied themselves.

The Lumbermate came first and was dropped when Norwood came out with an even bigger mill, (todays design) and brought back the Lumbermate design as a lower cost mill built in china.

The whole idea of a homeowner BSM got started with the Mark 3 in the early 90's, like 91 or 92 by my friend Peter Dale.

SR

Well there is very little resemblance between the Woodland models and the old Lumbermate, so if Woodland copied it they must have been blind. I also see little resemblance between the Frontier models and the old Lumbermate (or new Lumbermate).

I am not talking about who came first, that is a different thing. Woodland is a very young company, so pretty much every other established mill company came before them.

What Woodland did first is develop a light duty tinker toy mill assembled from many small parts made in China. Those mill designs were unique because of the way it was manufactured, parted, shipped, and assembled. Just a guess, but the Woodland design probably has at least 2X the parts and 4X the number of fasteners of the old Lumbermate.

If you look at the Norwood lineup in the years before Woodland entered the market, they had nothing like those tinker toy mills. It wasn't until 5-6 years after Woodland impacted the market that Norwood created the Frontier brand to compete. Also made in China, it uses angle iron tracks on footpads, rectangle tube bunks, a bolted-together carriage from square tube and laser-cut gusset plates, etc. Harbor Freight and WoodMaxx mills (which predated Frontier) do the same thing. All of them are copies of the Woodland design.

 

[s219]

Old Lumbermate Mark III -- notice the type of track (slotted beam) and the type of carriage (welded space frame):



Old Woodland HM-126 (their first 2012 model) -- notice how it uses angle iron track and the carriage is bolted together with square tubing and laser-cut gusset plates, very little resemblance to the Mark III:



New Woodland HM-126 (2021 model):



New Frontier OS27 (2021 model):



Compare the angle iron tracks, the rectangle tube bunks, the laser-cut gusset plates and square posts on the carriage, etc... All of that was copied from Woodland's play book. The Frontier is a Chinese clone of a Chinese mill.

 

[Sawyer Rob]

Once again, the Mark 3 you are showing, ISN'T the first generation Mark 3.

Was Woodland selling BSM's before 1990? They copied the LM2000 NOT the Mark 3.

BTW, I owned a Mark 3...

SR

 

[s219]

I don't see a strong resemblance to the LM2000 either.

The old Norwoods are substantially beefier and heavier than the Woodland/Chinese tinker toy designs, both the track/rails and the carriage parts. It's a different design philosophy for a different market and different business model. Nobody offered that type of mill before Woodland came to market in 2012.

 

[Sawyer Rob]

OK, I'll try again... I first reacted to you saying this,

Actually, Woodland started the whole trend many years ago with the low-cost "tinker toy" mills made in China. At the time, they had a unique design not based on anyone else. It was much lighter duty than a Woodmizer or Norwood, for example, with much more assembly required -- you'd never mistake the Woodland for anyone else! I didn't particularly like their early mills, but they were very successful and made a big dent in the market. It was Woodland that got copied by Harbor Freight, Woodmaxx, and other Chinese clones in time. Woodland was so successful that Norwood eventually entered the low-cost market with their eerily-similar Frontier line made in China, and even Woodmizer has a low-cost model line now. In my opinion they are all decent mills as long as you know what you are getting.

The Mark 3 came out long before woodland had a mill, and it was intended to be a cheap homeowner BSM, and it was, is sold cheap. That being the case, how did woodland "start the whole trend" ?? They didn't, Peter Dale did, when he sold MANY thousands of BSM's directly to buyers' doors, in the early 90's.

Then, the Mark 3 grew to be the LM2000. You claim woodlands mill was copied by Norwood, BUT woodlands bunks, band wheels, guides, log dog, log post and most other "meat and potatoes" parts of woodlands mill, are a direct copy of the LM2000!!!

SO, just because the bracing and some "other" cosmetic parts of the Norwood mill looks the same as woodlands, you can't get past the part that all the "important" parts are copied off the first made/sold LM2000, and the Frontier copied the LM2000 parts!

And why wouldn't Norwood do that? They are proven parts of their own design!

I hope this clears this all up...

I'd be happy to try and answer any other questions you may have too...

SR