The independent Sawmill and Woodlot Magazine has brought The Great Portable Sawmill Shootout to the world as part of the Paul Bunyan Show in Ohio for many years. It is an event that Petersons always try to attend as it is the one place you can almost guarantee that all top sawmill manufacturers will be.
While the Great Portable Sawmill Shootout isn’t promoted as a ‘competitive event’, all sawmill manufacturers see it as a great way to gauge their product’s performance against competitors. This year, Petersons are elated with the performance of their Winch Production Frame and Junior Peterson.
The key result received by the company, is that the Peterson WPF set a Shootout Record for the Swingblade mill with the ‘highest production rate‘ of 988 board feet (BF) per hour!
Every year no matter how organized we try to be, there always seems to be a splinter in our Great Portable Sawmill Shootout performance… Some little excuse… Someone shows up late, the mill didn’t get run in first, the sawdoctor stuffed-up the blade retip, the tailout person didn’t have enough experience, the log moved, we got shit logs, they got our tally wrong and the list goes on. These are all things that happen in the field, every day. So we chin up and carry on.
This year, there was no splinter. Our guys were on site two days early, we sent the sawmill three months ahead of time, the blades were tipped correctly, the tailout person and the sawyer were both experienced, the logs didn’t move, the log lot was ok for once and our final tally was correct!
Dave Boyt from the Independent Sawmill & Woodlot magazine has accompanied all manufacturer’s results with articles and interviews in the December 2015/January 2016 issue. For a full Report of the Shootout, please click this link (PDF).
