Production milling with the push of a button sounds impossible right? Wrong. The new Peterson automated sawmill will be launched at AusTimber 2004. The new mill will be shown working at the Peterson site before embarking on a demonstration tour of the country.
Marketing manager Rosie Coward said it was a really exciting time for Peterson’s as the company believe the mill is the first of its kind in the world.
She said it was feedback fromAustralian customers who requested an automated mill that led to the ASM being designed.
“This is a mill for everyone who likes swingblade technology but wants faster, accurate production without increased effort or increased manpower,”
One New Zealand owner of a Peterson ASM, Kelvin Williams, agrees. “I cut more timber in one day on my own with the ASM than I do in a day with two people on my manual mill,” he said.
Ms Coward said the Peterson ASM consistently cut 1.5 to two cubic metres (600 – 800 bft) per hour, while manual mills would expect to cut four to eight cubic metres (1600 – 3500 bft) per day. This production milling is enabled by the automated features including sizing, vertical and horizontal cutting, and board back, which save time with every cut.
“In competitions, the manual mills can turn out 3.5 cubic metres (1400 bft) in an hour, but that’s going some and you’d need an hour off afterwards,” she said. “That’s why we designed the ASM; with this mill you could sit down while you were operating it and still end up with more timber at the end of the day.”
Just like the Peterson manual mills, the ASM is capable of cutting up to 260mm x 5.20mm (10.25″ x 20.5″) boards, beams of unlimited length, logs of up to 1.5m (5′) in diameter, and slabbing attachments can be fitted to cut slabs of up to 1.5m (5′) in width. Peterson’s are following AusTimber 2004 with a number of demonstration days and field days across the country, so that people can get a closer look at the mill, and even try using it, at a location close to them.
