Wood Mizer LT15GO: A Detailed Review and Opinion

so welcome back everybody for today's video I want to do a brutally detailed review on the sawmill that you see sitting behind me this is a wood-mizer lt15 sawmill lt15 goes sawmill and i have owned it now for i think that last february so a little over a year and I have cut thousands of board feet with this machine and if you're interested you can check out the rest of the channel there are quite a few videos of me cutting different types of terror types of wood with this machine doing different things with it and you'll probably get a really good idea of its capabilities if you want to check out those videos but for today today's video is kind of geared toward somebody who might be in the market for a sawmill who might be looking at the LTV 15 and might want some some more details on this machine of course you can go to Wood misers website and get the basic details but I really want to go over kind of the nuts and bolts nitty gritty every day somebody who uses it constantly type stuff on this machine and it's probably going to get boring in detailing it might be a long video but I just really want it to be informative enough for somebody to make an educated decision on what type of sawmill that they really need for their specific purpose so what I want to do I think is just kind of go over the machine how it is go over the bed and the head and everything else on it and then after I do all that I'll go over my likes and my dislikes of it and I'll just put that out there I'm not sponsored by wood-mizer this is a machine that I purchased with my own money so I'm going to give you all a none biased and unbiased review on this thing and let you all make up your own minds so let's go ahead and start with the head of this machine the saw head and everything that's going on up here and like I said what I'll do is just kind of give you all the facts on this machine and then I'll tell you my opinion later on in the video so this particular machine has got a nineteen horsepower Kohler command Pro engine on it v-twin a gas burner air-cooled this is the smallest gasoline engine they make for this machine they also make a twenty five horse Kohler seventeen horse Yanmar diesel and there's probably an electric option too but that is the powerplant that I chose to get on this machine a Kohler a command Pro 90 horsepower engine if you can see up there we have got a water tank that is a five-gallon gravity-fed water tank to keep the blade down here cool and lubricated during a sawing we have right here the head up and down control this is just simply a chain driven a wheel gear whatever you want to call it kind of like a bicycle chain I guess it's got a sprocket and a very heavy chain right here that controls the up-and-down motion of this of this head and these notches represent different measurements so one notch is 1/16 of an inch two notches is eighth of an inch so on and so forth one half of a turn represents one inch of cut of course you add 1/8 of an inch of that to make up for your kerf and one and two two turns is going to give you a I'm sorry one full turn is going to give you a two inch cut plus 1/8 plus two notches for your kerf and then you'll have exactly exactly a two inch cut this right here is the power feed system the standard that comes with this machine is a crank feed system and it runs off the same rope feed but it's just on this one it's just simply a an electric motor with this control station right here and this this is just just an alternative it was an add-on option that I did for it and it's just an alternative to the standard crank feed system I'll go over later why I chose why I chose the that particular system for this machine this lever right here engages and disengages the blade it is in a pretty convenient location and that's your engage and that's your disengage there this right here controls your blade guide if your sawing wider lobs you're of course going to want it open wider and if you're solving a narrow log you're going to you're going to want it closed a little bit and basically that just gives your blade some stability it helps it to not wave through the cuts so bad if your sawing wood that has a tendency to do that and it just gives you more stability on the blade and of course it's very important to make sure that that is you know the the width right there is corresponding to whatever whatever width of the log that you're cutting the fuel tank over here is a I believe four and a half five gallons having them call it a five gallon fuel tank it does have a fuel cutoff switch right here so if you're going to let it sit for a while you can cut the fuel off let it run dry and protect your carburetor of course I always use 99% of the time I use effing all free fuel just to just to make sure my small engine here stays going strong the battery box is right up here of course it comes with a battery I mean it's just a battery box that controls the power feed system and of course cranks the engine let's see what else is on this head that y'all need to know about this switch right here controls the water flow rate you can see that's pretty much wide open right there and that's closed you can also have a cut off and they cut on at the valve up at the water tank and of course right here going back to the thickness of your cuts you do have a gauge right here that has all of your measurements and you can also get quarter scales different kinds of scales as magnets right here I'm not sure if what miser sells them but they are available pretty pretty commonly if you don't really like the original one that comes with the machine this head let's go let's look at the front of the machine of the head and I'll show y'all exactly how this head works so let's check out the front of this machine here I wanted to show you all the saw head and I'm sure the child have researched if y'all are in the market for a mill and have seen that the larger wood-mizer's are I have that cantilever design that is unique to wood-mizer I will this machine you do see that it has two posts on it but it is still what they call a semi cantilever design so this saw head and engine is only supported by the left side over here you can actually take this saw head and pick it up and move it and I'm sure of course y'all have seen me when I'm sawing when you engage the blade it has a tendency to jump just a little bit and that is because this is not attached at all to this post over on this right side this post over here is basically here as far as I can tell to offer more support to the left post that main post on the left side and of course the water tank and the fuel tank up here also connected to that post so this post over here basically they're to offer more stability to this head and the saw head and engine are kind of cantilever off of that left side over there so here we've got the inside of the saw head these are the band wheels basically we have the exact same concept as your bandsaw inside your workshop these are very large cast iron I assume wheels running off of this bearing in the middle and they have instead of being solid they actually have a belt and see this belt right here and these belts are of course replaceable once they get worn and that's just kind of how wood miser does it they have that extra belt that rides in that groove onthis basically it's kind of a pulley and the pandal wheel I guess you could call it and except it doesn't pull anything and you replace this once it gets worn out and right here you have the front of the stabilization bar right here that goes in and out to keep your blade stable through the cut depending on what kind of size log that you're that you're that you're using there and right here you have your you have your clutch system to engage and disengage the blade let me go around and do that and let y'all see how that works that's basically how that works let me fire it up and give you all the view on how it really works [Music] so basically what we have is a belt from the engine this clutch engages that belt right here as you just saw that belt turns this wheel and this wheel right here in turn turns the other wheel on the right side of the saw head and that's just the clutch system that is used on this machine and also I forgot to mention right down in here there is a break once you disengage this disengage the blade that break goes into the middle right here on this pulley and helps slow down those those wheels so let's check out the deck or the bed or the bunks or if you want to call it on this machine this is what you would call I guess a modular bed system there are three different sections on this machine totaling about 20 feet the length of the entire bed is 20 feet the maximum length of cut on this one is I think 17 17 and a half feet somewhere along in there because you lose you lose a little bit of distance on your saw head because that saw head can't get back the maximum distance because of that the post on the left side and it can't get any farther up because of the front of the post so that's just how it is about seventeen seven and a half feet seventeen and a half feet length of cut you could theoretically buy as many of these bed sections as you wanted to and lengthen your capabilities out to infinity if you wanted to but once you do that you couldn't use the trailer package because it would create stability issues and you wouldn't be able to tow it down the road this right here is what the saw head rides on there are there's a bearing system two bearing systems on that lift post that run on this track right here and as you can see the other side has just got a has simply got a roller in the bottom of that right side support post and it rolls on the top of that right side bed now these are the bunks that the log rests on these are two by six pieces of tubular steel they are let me get a measuring tape and show you show you how thick they are so let's get a closer look at these bunks this is a piece of two by six tubes still these are 1/8 of an inch thick you can see right here I don't know how y'all can see that but the metal on these is about an eighth of an inch thick actually it's exactly an eighth of an inch thick and these are welded on either side to the sides of the mill to these bed sections very very strong this right here is a piece of 3/8 of an inch steel this is what you can't rest against so that you can Psalter within one inch of these bunks right here and get the finished cut possible out of that salt head this is how these bed sections are put together you can see you have a very very large bolt that bolts these bed sections together there's another one on the inside so there's two of these bolts bolting these bed sections together on top of that we have a couple of pins there's one pin on this side and a corresponding hole on this side there's another pin down here in a corresponding hole over here and of course what those serve to do is when you put those two bed sections together it lines them up appropriately keeps them from moving around at all here is your rail that the the saw head rides on you can see we have bolts all up and down the bed that bolt these that bolt this bolts these sections to the bed and it's also adjustable it's hard to see because of the sawdust and automatic transmission fluid that I've been putting on here but this is actually adjustable if you need to adjust this any whichaway there's some wiggle room and each of these bolt holes that you can use to adjust it up and down which it whatever you need of course here's here's a stabilizer right here that bolts these two together a little bit stronger so besides these two bolts and besides these two pins there's a very large piece of tube steel that bolts below these two sections of bed frame to increase the stability of this bed section even more this one right here also doubles as the mount for the axle that's below but between each of the each each of these bed sections you also have something on the bottom holding together and I'll show you all the other side so here's that square stabilizer that does not have axle mounted on it you can see it's just a square piece of steel tube steel mounts to the bottom of those bed sections at the scene and goes all the way if it's one piece goes all the way from one side to the other and adds a great amount of stability to this whole system here the tires that come with this system the trailer tires these are just standard trailer tires like you would probably find on a boat a boat trailer or something like that they are 145 our 12s they come with the standard ones that come with it or Renier st tires and no trailer brakes of course it's just not heavy enough to need trailer brakes and of course we have three leaf springs right here that help to and make the ride not so bad for the machine while we're here I'm gonna show you the fenders on this machine there's of course two of them and they just simply slide down into the groove that's on the bed and you attach it with these rubber straps and that's it very simple very easy once you get to your area to saw and you just take them off and you're good to go so while we're checking out fenders and axles and stuff like that this is the correct position for road travel on this machine you just push the head back to right behind the axles you'll take this very heavy-duty pin right here and make sure it locks into the bed just like that so it doesn't roll back and forth and on the other side there's a pin and I'll show you all this pin back here too so to keep the head on the machine from bouncing around while in transit you'll just lower the head down into this bracket and you'll take your pin and put your pin right there so your head won't go flopping around while you're bumping down the road so with the exception of the fenders that's really all that you have to do to get it Road ready except for of course getting the jack stands up and that kind of thing I found it to be very fast about 12 minutes to set it up something like that but that's how you prepare it for room for road travel so here the jack stands that with this this sawmill these are I guess remembr and jack stands they are capable of supporting 2,000 pounds apiece and there are six of them with this mill these are an infinite adjust adjustment type thing so you can see there's not a whole lot of prot there's not anything I'm not a rod you have to pry it up and down you can just turn this and adjust it however you need to adjust it now it comes with a I don't know kind of like one of those old-school bit and brace drills it comes with that in order to to bring this up and down of course some are along the way I managed to lose mine so I have got a three-quarter inch driver with a inch and 1/4 socket on it to operate it but all but what I use always is this one in 1/4 inch driver with a drill adapter on it and that makes make that makes everything a whole lot faster as far as getting these things getting these things up and down and preparing the mill for work these also have grease fittings on them to keep these good and greased once you get them off the ground you just yank this pin out and bring it up like that for for road travel now of course how you would have this in a good bit farther but I have found that it's important to kind of consider where you're going because if you're you're gonna go to a spot where it's there's a steep driveway going out into the road and I've actually had this happen you're gonna end up bottoming out some of these jack stands while they're up and bending it so just be aware kind of where you are if there is any danger of that happening you're better off you're taking all six jack stands off or at least the Front's in the box and that's throw them in the back here throw them on the back of your truck for travel so the tongue system on this and be aware this all this stuff applies for a standard LT 15 as well this is just an LTV 15 on a trailer but you can get this go package for your LT 15 and converted if you want but here's the trailer or the tongue and it just bolts of course to your sawmill bed of course got lights and all that stuff on it safety change the standard 2 inch ball and this is a toolbox it's not mounted right now but this is a toolbox that me and my dad added on to it and incredibly handy but that's that's the Tong Tong system on it so let's check out the clamp system that's on this machine this thing has got six side supports or lock stops or whatever you want to call it three of which have these rollers on the top and of course those rollers make life a whole lot easier when turning logs there are three of these just have this angled one but you can take these rollers if you want to and put them on the put them on different ones just kind of depending on which ones you use the most or you what your preference is also you can buy more of these rollers and put on put them on all six if you want to so these are the two that I use the most of course and that's that's all the way up and here's you here's your clamping system right here it's a very simple just a just this little arm right here with this screw in it very heavy-duty and it's got this puck on the end that's just kind of got a point on it that helps dig into the log you don't have to use that sometimes there are situations where you only need to use this right here and of course this goes out very far just to kind of depending on the size of the log and it goes all the way up like this if you have a larger log there are two of these clamps right here and really there are a few places on this mill you can place this clamp system if you want to it's kind of depending on what you're using how often you you what what part of the bed that you use the most for the size of logs that you're working with so that's the clamp system and of course as your log gets smaller as you're cutting you just bring these down to have to make sure the blade doesn't hit these and of course as you can see I have have not always done that perfectly because I've got some good scars on some of these log stops to prove that you've got to be careful with where these are while you're cutting so let's check out the log loading system on this mill this is this is probably not an industry term by any stretch of the imagination but I'm gonna call this a self-contained log loading system which I take to mean that as long as you've got a well organized pile of logs all you have to do is pull up next to the pile of logs the winch the ramps the crank that'll take care of the rest you don't need any extra equipment in order to get the logs up onto the deck so basically how this works is you have this winch which of course goes up and down and it comes down for when you're sawing and up for when you're loading and I'll just have to say now it's a very heavy duty winch and in the last video you can see us load that log which was well over a ton and did a really nice job basically you just pull this out pull your cable out run this cable on top of the log then back up under the log and then as you crank this back to the log rolls up these ramps and it takes advantage of this forces mechanical advantage to plus the rolling action and the ramp to make it a pretty easy operation and it also has an anti-roll back lock on the winch so that if it flips out of your hands or you have to let it go for whatever reason this won't roll backwards by itself so that's the log loading system now this is an add-on I don't remember exactly how much it cost but I will say that it is an add-on that you have to purchase separately so guys that pretty well does it as far as just the basic features of this machine now I want to get into my opinion of this machine what I like about it what I don't like about it just to help you make a more informed decision if you might be in the market for something like this so again we'll start back here with the saw head this is the again this is the color command Pro 19 horsepower engine this is the smallest gas engine they offer for this machine the reason that I decided to go with just the smallest gas engine on this thing is because I don't really I don't very rarely do I get any logs that are 20 21 22 inches or more more regularly I'm sawing 14 15 16 sometimes 18 inch logs and it's all pine well 1994 what I cut probably 95% of what I cut really is pine that's just what I prefer to cut and there's a lot of pine around here but this this engine doesn't have any problems going through logs of that size and that species uh fairly easily if I do get something larger it's a pretty simple matter just to slow the head feed down through the log and just kind of let it go let it go a little bit slower and this engine doesn't have any trouble any trouble dealing with it so that's why I decided to go with a smaller engine if you are going to be very regularly sawing 20 20 to 24 inch logs with your lt15 probably encourage you to increase your engine size either to the 25 horse kohler or to the 17 horse distel course that's a decrease in horsepower but my assumption is that there's basically more power in that diesel engine but anyway that's that's how I feel about the engine this is a very good engine a very reliable engine it's a fuel efficient engine you can pretty well cut all day on 5 gallons of fuel and idea this is a really really good engine it's a it's a little bit cold natured not too bad this is actually the next day from the last the last shot that I a video that I shot so we'll go ahead and start it and I'll show you it's cold and should kind of show you how easy it is to Crane so of course the weather's not really that cold today so it started really easily but yeah really good engine no complaints whatsoever about about the engine on the machine so let's check out the blade engage this blade engage I think would miser is pretty well to fight devised a perfected system for this but of course the blade engage increases the throttle on the machine and then engages engages the blade for you to make your cut this is actually one of the things I was most excited about when I first got this machine because my LT 10 it was you had to do the action separately had throttle up the engine and then engaged the blade with two separate actions and it was kind of a pain I guess but this is a really good system the only problem that I have had with this is that the linkage a lot let me show you the linkage up here in the engine so there's the linkage if you can see that that is the linkage that controls the throttle on the engine when you do your blade engage I'll show you how it works there's really not a whole lot to it but I have had that linkage get kind of dry and it would stick and the engine will not throttle down all the way go back to idle and you disengaged the blade a few shots of wd-40 and that solved that problem so really a non-issue it's a very good system on very good system on engaging the blade here's the head up down on this machine this is a really good system I like this this wheel right here it's a it's it's pretty intuitive I guess you could say like I said earlier a good half of a turn you get one inch plus two of these little notches to consider the kerf if you want to do two full inches if you're cutting through two befores or something like that all you need to do is spin it one full time plus two notches for the kerf and all of these little notches right here has got different links markers on it so it allows you to keep up with where you are so that you can do a quarter of a turn if you needed a full turn or half a turn whatever you need and it's very very heavy duty this is a thick piece of steel right here probably a good eight an inch plus this chain that operates it very very heavy chain I don't have any complaints whatsoever about this wood miser really did a good job designing this this head up and down system very smooth also this is the power feed system on the LT 15 this is not standard equipment this is an accessory that I purchased when I bought the mill they run twelve thirteen fourteen hundred dollars depending on it they're on sale or not and let me tell you this was worth every single penny that I paid for it this speeds up production on this mill probably by fifty percent and it helps with operator fatigue of course and wood miser claims that it will make more consistent cuts and I would agree with that because you set it to one speed and it's going to go through the gonna go through the log at one speed and it's a really really really good system the only problem that I've had with it is when I first got the machine and used it for a while there's a little bolt back in here that prevents this from this switch right here from going back too far and that came a loose and it allowed this to go to flip back way too far and it would it didn't work right because of that but I took it to wood-mizer for another maintenance issue which I'll go over in a minute and they were able to fix it and I have had any trouble since so basically the way it works is you've got a rheostat here you can set it to any speed you want between you know between the slow and the fast speeds so it's infinite speed adjustment and once you get your speed adjusted properly hit that it stays in place as you're going through the log if you need to adjust it while you're going through the log all you got to do is turn this down or turn it up whatever speed that you need once you get through with your cut bring this I flip this back up raise your head up and drag it back the speed on the return is is set if you get in a tight and something does go wrong with this you do have a push bar here as well as as a back up the only other trouble besides this that I've had with this is pine pitch building up on the feed rope I'll show you the Rope here after this there was pine pitch on the last blast sawing job that I did I call it job this is just a hobby I don't really make my living off of it but the last bunch of logs that I did I ended up getting a bunch of pitch built up on the rope and it made it stick and the group would jump off but I was able to clean up one of the pulleys and it appears that it's getting back to normal that's really the only two problems I've had with let me show you the Rope a little bit closer so this is a nylon rope that pulls the head up and down the mill and you're probably thinking oh man a rope that's that's kind of cheap why don't they use a chain but let me tell you this rope I have not had any trouble whatsoever except for a little bit of pine tar on this rope right here this is a good strong rope and there's just it's a really good system there's no reason to question this right here because it has been incredibly reliable it's very smooth and it just it just works so as the head rides up and down there's a electrical motor up in the power feed box up here that you can see this right here it just rotates so let me get you a closer look here's the underside of the power feed box there's the electric motor and that motor of course has got a pulley on the end that spins and pulls the rope onto a pulley down here and pulls the pulls the head up and down the middle let me just push it by hand and kind of show you that's how it works forward/reverse very very simple system and it is proven to be incredibly reliable so let's check out the water delivery system here I mean it's just it's pretty standard it's just a tank of water gravity fed down to the blade there's the cut off up here that's all that's on and you've got a valve down here excuse me down here right below the engine to control the rate of flow so normally what I do is I just leave this on I'm sorry I'll leave this on all the time and set it to a certain flow rate and then I can turn this off and on now that kind of sounds inconvenient because this is on one side and that's on the other side but usually I just leave this dripping you know for several logs on end or even for the entire time that I'm cutting because it's really not a whole lot of water coming out and it'll last a very long time you can also and I've done this as well you can leave this on all the time and control your flow rate with this right here it just may not be quite as consistent so yeah really good system there's really nothing really nothing at all that can go wrong with that with that system so let's check out the blade guide and the adjustment system for this saw head the blade guide is has been proven to be very reliable I mean it's just it's pretty standard I mean open it up all the way for a longer I'm sorry for a larger log close it for a smaller one and anywhere in between it's proven to be very reliable I haven't had any adjustment issues with this and for the most part it stays exactly where you put it sometimes it does kind of drift in a little bit as you're cutting so as you're cutting it'll just very very slowly come in a little bit but that's not a not a huge deal you just come up here and bump it back it's not like it's floppy and loose it just kind of just kind of does that maybe it could be tightened to prevent that but it hasn't been it hasn't been an issue that I've you know has really worried me that much cuz it doesn't happen it's not that bad it's not that big of a deal I mentioned earlier that this is a what they call a semi cantilevered head that means it's only supportive of the head is only supported by this post over here and it's cantilever out so in that you've got an adjustment screw right here our adjustment bolt and if this ever gets out of adjustment or you want to adjust it for whatever reason you've got a very simple I think that's a 9/16 a bolt right there and you turn it in excuse me you turn it one way to canter the head up turn the other way - can't it down and you know just put a measuring tape or something from the blade down to the bunks down here - to get it right so real simple real easy if you're a head ever gets out of adjustment it's a it's a 5-minute fix it's not a huge not a huge deal now having said that the head is not bad to come out of adjustment I think they adjusted at wood-mizer when I took it up there for another maintenance issue and I think I have adjusted it maybe once since maybe twice I don't really know but it's not it's fine it's it's a really good system you see oh you see that is kind of a kind of a diss on wooden miser sometimes with these cantilevered heads but let me tell you there's nothing wrong with this cantilevered head it's a very very reliable system very easy to adjust if it gets out of adjustment and you know don't don't let that be the turnoff for you if you're looking into these machines very very good system very very reliable I've never had any trouble with it and I'll add to that also that when I did adjust it it was really because because I'm a little bit OCD sometimes and I wanted to make sure that this blade was making lumber that was within a 30 second or 64th on each side so if you're not that OCD about it you know it's it's really fine you can get it down to dead level if if you want to but all in all I have never had any trouble with this and it's it's it's a good it's a very good system the fuel tank there's not much to say about it it's just a standard fuel tank it's good it's a given rigid design they used to put these up on the top up there of course I never had one that had that the fuel tank all the way on the top up there but I can imagine that this right here is a much more convenient design being at you know chest level at least for me nothing nothing much to say about the fuel tank it's a good solid reinforced fuel tank holds plenty of fuel for our hours and hours of cutting I mean you can really solve pretty much all day on one good one good full tank of fuel I always try to use non ethanol gas in this machine just you know that's just what you really need to do in your small engines it also has a cutoff valve right here you can cut it off and drain your carburetor if you're going to put this thing in storage and and yeah I mean there's not much to say about it just a standard fuel tank works great while we're behind the salt head right here let's check out the blade tensioning system here's your lever right here once you get your blade on you bring this when you're changing the blades it'll be down like this to loosen it up once you get done you just bring it back up like this and it locks into place now that is a lot of pressure we're running around probably 2500 roughly pounds of pressure on that blade and this thing or does a really good job of you know taking all the work out of it let's look at the the fine adjustment of the fine adjustment mechanism down here also so this is the mechanism that allows you to adjust tension on your blade there's not a gauge on it so what you do is you turn this right here this right here the tight spot sorry all you would turn this right here once your tensioning lever is loose and make sure that when it tightens up the back of that bolt right there is lined up with that silver washer with the front side of that silver washer works great really really simple really simple system what I like to do is what I need to change the blade I will undo the tensioner tensioning lever bring the tensioning lever down then I will unscrew that a good bit and that helps me to get the blade off a lot easier then I'll just screw it back in and tighten it up and keep finding adjusting it until the back to the head of that bolt is lined up appropriately with that washer so we've been looking at quite a few positives on this min let's let's check out a negative this is the right side support post on the mill it serves to stabilize that left side support post and the saw head it has a roller bearing in the bottom and basically it just up and down the top of this this bedrail right here now when I first got this mill there was a problem and I didn't notice it for a while didn't figure it out for a while but what would happen here is that this right side support post was actually twisted out just a little tiny bit so that it created a problem in that that roller bearing in there was kind of turned out kind of like the front wheels on a car so basically that was turned out very very slightly to the right and what would happen is as this saw had ran down the tracks this had a tendency to run out it would so it would do this it would kind of creep out like this as it rode farther and farther down the tracks and once he got to a certain point the tension on this post would snap it back now that didn't really create a huge problem unless I was sawing a larger log because when you saw in a larger log so you have a lot of torque that transfers from the blade to this right side post and that would push it out even farther and cause it to ride or right cause that wheel to ride on this shoulder that would allow that would caused this post to drop down just a little bit and it would throw off my cut and it was just a mess so after I posted the first video about it what Mizer actually contacted me and said hey that's one of those things that happens like 1 in 100 mills that we sell please please bring it in and we'll certainly certainly be happy to fix it for you so I brought it in and basically they created a system of Hatchett straps and pipe wrenches and they were able to twist this right post back into spec and since they have done that it's been it's it's really been fine I actually really can't complain about it anymore I had quite a few people on the homes on the channel comment and said man they did a sorry job of Matt repair you they weakened the metal blah blah blah now they did fine there's nothing wrong with this repair that they did they twisted it back into spec and and it it works it works fine now so no put no complaints anymore about this so just be aware if you're in a situation where you can inspect your mill before you get it make sure you check that out and make sure that it's within with inspect right here because if it's not it's going to give you some trouble so now let's check out an issue that's and probably shouldn't call it an issue it's really not a problem but I'm kind of ambivalence about this I'm not gonna call this a positive or negative this is the sawdust exhaust port I guess you can call it this is where all the sawdust sprays out of the solid as you're going through the log and it does it does get quite a bit of sawdust in the operators a path where you're walking right here it is somewhat designed to blow the sawdust away from where the operator walks and I guess if you stay real close to the mill it's really not a big deal but it does get quite a bit of sawdust to where you're walking so just be aware that that's kind of have this mental works I'm sure that you could put some kind of a rubber tube on this like the larger mills have to help direct that sawdust farther away and I've actually threatened to do that before but I just haven't gotten around to it but just be aware you're going to be walking in sawdust as you're as you're operating this mill it's not really a huge deal unless you're sawing you know 25 lines 30 logs of bein in the same exact spot so just be aware that's that's where the exhaust the sawdust exhaust port is on the wood-mizer LC 15 and really all of them all the wood miser middles so here's something else that I would probably consider a negative with this mill and I swear I'm not trying to cause any trouble here I really just want everybody to be aware of what this machine is capable of and you know what would according to what your needs might be so if you're shopping for this mill you have already seen that this machine will handle the 28 inch log with a 26 inch width of cut now that is what it says on wood-mizer's website and it will indeed handle a 28 inch log without any trouble at all well after I say no trouble it's gonna be rough for you handling it but it will handle the 28 inch log once you get that can't squared off then you can cut smaller boards with it so the only issue that I with that is let's open this throat up all the way so we can see that throat is open completely all the way and we can't indeed see that between these two rollers right here you can get well let me turn it around to show you all that I'm being honest here you can indeed cut 26 and a half inches so that is the little distance between this right here these two rollers right here that's the distance between those two so theoretically yes you can cut a 26 inch board off of this mill however practically you just can't do it and I'll show you why so once you get you can't squared off you're going to be using these little posts right here that I showed you earlier and those are course designed so that you can cut to within one inch of the bed or inch and an eighth somewhere along there of the bed now this is where you can't is going to be your squared up can't is going to be resting directly against this post right here therefore that side of the camp pretend that this is the inside of the can't it's going to correspond to right here on the blade so you actually lose this much in your cut because of where you can't is position now let's see what that measurement is so that measurement is going to be 23 and a little over 3/4 somewhere along in there about 23 and 3/4 so just shy of 24 inches so there's just no way you're gonna cut a 26 inch board on this if somebody else has gotten more experience with this mill and can tell me how you can cut a 26 inch board I will be happy to recant this but I'm just not seeing how you're gonna do it and the reason that I tell you this like I said is not to cause trouble but if you think you're regularly gonna be milling larger logs and you want 26 27 28 inch boards out of those logs you might want to consider going to LC 15 wide because this mill is not it's just not going to give you 20 more's it'll give you 22 23 maybe 24 inch boards but not 26 so let's be aware that if you're if you're going to be regularly doing very large log this is not the mill that you need so just to summarize the saw head and the operator station up here before we move on to the bed this is a really good setup I think the engines been reliable the power feeds been reliable this operates smooth hit up and down offer experience smooth and is reliable it cuts very very accurately the blade engage works great there's really nothing up here in this area I can't complain about it's very well designed and I would buy with confidence if you're concerned about a convenient operator station if you're concerned about reliability for the saw head don't be it's a really good really good setup it's well designed well engineered and I'm very very satisfied with everything that's going on in this area let's move on to the bed and go from there so these are the side supports the log stops whatever you want to call them there are six of them on this mill like I said and these this is one of the ones that has a roller up on the top now like I said you can buy extra rollers for these if you want or you can move the rollers to the ones that you really need the rollers on now the only complaint that I have about this is the way that it's mounted down here there's just a very long bolt through through the through this side support here and it has a lotta nut on the end of that bolt and that lock nut is just really not the best lock nut ever it doesn't lock like really like it should so what that means is what it'll do is it'll loosen up and it won't support itself in any other position except all the way up or of course all the way down so what I did to solve that problem or at least I will see how well it solves it at may it may end up coming too loose again I put some Loctite on that bolt just a supplement that locking that and of course you can see now it does stay now you may not think that's a big deal see it's actually kind of loose now you don't think that's a big deal but when you're sawing it's a big deal so what you have to consider is you know if you're in one end of the log and you're trying to adjust your your log stops here you put one in one position and then you move see it's actually moving down and have to tighten it up you put one in one position and then you try to walk back to get the other one in the right position and the second you let go of this log stopping just compliant go straight down and that creates a lot of issues you can overcome it by moving the log and jamming the log up against it but it's it's not it's not good it's it's a it's it's fixable it's overcoming but it's not it's not a perfect not a perfect system now having said that there is also a bolt behind this right here that theoretically you could unscrew so that it jams up against this plate right here so you can see where it's been scraping but it jams up against that plate right there and allows this too it gives that gives this some tension so it doesn't fall and the reason that I don't have that tightened up is because I have got it set so that it makes it square so what I mean is when I'm sawing a log once I clamp the log and this goes all the way back and rests on this plate that means this is square with these bunks so that's how I've got mine set up that bolt on the back could be used as a tensioning bolt for this but I've got mine set up so that it keeps everything square so really if you I guess if you want to use that for tensioning it's really kind of a non-issue but I don't use mine that way so just be aware that if you want to use yours the way that I'm using mine that's going to be an issue right here you can see this plate has a reinforcement plate I saw a conversation on the wood-mizer owners forum and somebody was saying they're old lt15 not have this plate right here well they're own plates in and basically this plate keeps the bed right here from being worn out from the up-and-down up-and-down up-and-down motion of this right here so very very good reinforcement the wood mines are added right here you don't think you need to expect any of this to wear out during the lifetime of the middle so this is one of the two clamps to one of the two lock clamps that comes on the LT 15 this is a very very simple idiot proof bulletproof system that I have not ever had any kind of trouble with whatsoever this is the same exact system that they used on the LT tens of course they don't make LT tens anymore the same exact system that came on those and I mean it's just so so simple there's really nothing that can go wrong it's a good good heavy-duty tube steel it clamps the logs just fine and you know if you're concerned about this falling off there's a guy on YouTube here his name is channel names jostle Joe WAN and he I believe he used to I hope he still does made it makes these so that they don't come off a different kind that doesn't come off now you can see this little lip right here that is so that once you get down to a shorter can't you can put this to the very bottom of the log and that allows you lad your saw head to get much lower without the danger of cutting into your log clamp or anything like that so absolutely no complaints about the log clamp that's a pretty good system and that's one of two of them that's on on this mill so here's the winch on the mill I was talking about it a little bit earlier but we'll go over a little bit closer so this winch is a very heavy duty winch is a 3500 pound winch the mechanical advantage in it I don't really know what the the ratio is but mechanically moving figured out but that's okay the mechanical advantage in it is so good that I mean here really is not going to have any trouble whatsoever with the reasonable size logs on it you saw the video last week's or whatever video that was when we put that of that log that was over a ton on this winch and it just had no trouble at all winching it up so the only trouble that you're going to have with this and this is going to be completely your fault is if you're not paying attention to where cable is it's going to go off to the side is going to get jammed up in your gears and it's going to fray the cable and you're going to end up having to repair or replace the cable on this on this winch very very good winch and it's hard to get that out of those gears too by the way if you end up doing that very heavy duty winch and that a lot of people ask if you can possibly instead of this cable have that that cable rope stuff I'm not really sure what it is but it's really good rope that's to be used with winches and basically the advantage is if it breaks it's not going to fly back and you know cut your head off like a cable will I don't know I have never done that I don't really envision this cable breaking under any you know any normal circumstances with proper maintenance I'm not afraid the only trouble that I've had with this is some of these clips have a tendency to come out sometimes there's see clips different places holding different things in place and you can see right now even there is the issue of this break right here one of the see clips is coming loose and falling out and this break is not being held in place with actually to see clips have come loose brace not being held in place like it should be so that's um you may have some problems with the see some of the see clips but besides that very very good winch very heavy-duty more than more than sufficient for what you're going to be doing on this mill so I've been looking at different parts of the bed let's look at that as a whole I've kind of seen this as a diss against wood miser having this modular bed system on this machine yeah it's not fully welded there's three separate sections on it that are bolted together but like I showed you that bolt those bolts the way that it's held together is very very very very impressive very very beefy what I'm trying to say don't expect to have any trouble with these bed rails on this machine that's I think that's probably one of the reasons that wood miser calls even the lc50 nests that are not on a trailer portable Mills because they can be taken apart and move to other places you know it's probably a good solid day's work with two people that it can be so I guess that's what makes the portable mill affordable mill don't you hearing they say errs about this modular system on this mill don't listen to him this is a good very solid bid that he's taken abuse and his niche has shown no signs of any kind of wear or tear very good bad you're not gonna hurt this bid probably no matter how hard you try unless you put like a you know a 5 ton log on it you're not gonna hurt it let's check out the jack stands these jack stands are overall very good jack stands they allow you to set this machine up and take it back down and move it very quickly like I said I've got a adapter for my drill and I can put it on here and just undo it and bring it down and it's very very fast make setup I can actually set this machine up on reasonably level ground in about 12 minutes from taking it off the trailer to having it done set up and ready to be cut without a log I guess but these jacks think they're really good jacks they're strong Jack's the only complaint that I have with them is there's six of them on here and I had to replace the grease fitting on I think four four out of the four out of the six as they just came loose and fell out during transit and when I put new grease fittings back in it just kind of appeared that the hole was a little bit too a little bit too large for what I was trying to do I did put a lot tight on the grease fitting to try to keep it in there and it seems to be working okay but that's really the only complaint I have about these jack stands is most likely your grease fittings are going to fall out so here are the long loading ramps these ramps are really really built out of good solid steel they have these notches on them right here as well post to help with the logs sometimes the logs like to y'all one way of you don't have a perfect concentred and they do help with that but these are really really good then make it perfect you've got to make it make sure you've got everything lines up right but these are really heavy beauty ramps and good solid ramps your if you've been one of these ramps you're doing something you shouldn't be doing but these are actually movable there's several places on this mill that you can move these ramps to and according to the size of the log that you're dealing with so that's that's very convenient you can't live with a winch you can't live the Lynch up and down the mill but you can move these ramps different locations which is very very helpful the VI makes makes it a lot more convenient so yeah good ramps very good solid ramps and that's these ramps come with the accessory kit of the log loading package it's the winch and the ramps and I think that package is right around $500 for I'm not sure somewhere along in there but if you're going to make this a mobile mill a go package you're gonna certainly need those so guys that's pretty well all I've got for this video overall I'm really happy with this mill this is a good solid mill it stays with an adjustment like it's supposed to it's saws logs pretty fast I think it's a pretty fast mill for its size and of course with the size of logs and the species that I'm cutting pine and 14 15 16 18 inch logs it's a very fast mill lock handling is easy on it it's coarse it's manual so if you're if you're planning on doing this for a living I would definitely consider going to a hydraulic mill the price on this machine with the power feed and the log loading package is going to be about twelve thousand five hundred dollars I think that's about what I paid for it and for us it has been worth it so this is a machine that if you want to go into business with it you could it's gonna be pretty rough on you but you can you can do it if you're willing to put some elbow grease into it but I think mostly this machine is designed for you know heavier work around your house a homestead type use maybe if you've got a woodworking business and you need to solve for use in that business but if you're interested in going out and sawing logs for other people please consider our hydraulic mill this manual mill is just going to work you completely to death and the production on it is going to be much lower than you than what you need but having said that this is a really good solid mill the only issue that I think is a legitimate complaint is that right side post being torqued just a little bit out of spec wood-mizer was able to fix that to my satisfaction so you know if that's that's one thing about wood-mizer if you get a wood-mizer mill they will back their product if they make a mistake in manufacturing they're gonna fix it for you I've never had any trouble with miser customer service and I'm very satisfied with it also there's of course the issue of the width of cut on this machine you can stick a 28 inch log in it you're not gonna get a 26 inch board out of it so be aware if you're interested in doing very large logs on a regular basis get something larger get the LT 15 wide get the LT 28 L 235 something like that something that'll handle what you need but overall like I said you can buy this mill with confidence you can buy this mill and it will deliver what you're expecting it to deliver good solid machine I've been happy with it I've been very very happy with it and I would recommend it recommend it to anybody there's tons of videos on the channel with me using this machine check out the channel I've got videos of me cutting cedar lots of pine some sweetgum posts boards anything just check it out hope you enjoy them and I hope this video was helpful to somebody they might be in the market for a mill of this size and I'll see y'all next time

Channel: Fall Line Ridge

Views: 106,296

Keywords: review, wood Mizer, LT15GO, LT15, LT 15, Sawmill, amazing, mill, lumber, diy, fall line ridge, milling, timber, making lumber, product review, portable mill

Id: JeOdd9_Y0FY

Length: 57min 4sec (3424 seconds)

Published: Mon May 18 2020