Sawmills

[Darren Wright]

I’ve been looking at some of the previous posts on those that were looking or bought sawmills. Of the brands, woodland, Norwood, and ez boardwalk seemed to be the ones everyone was looking at or have bought.

I’ve been looking at others, such as woodmizer and timberking also, including hydraulic options. Several are showing delivery dates being out to 2023. I’m not sure I need one any sooner, so would like to find what I want.

Of those that own one, I’d like to know what you like and even dislike about yours, what would you do differently? What other expenses have you had as part of the process (kiln equipment, storage, blades, tools)?

I’ll most likely will do a stationary one, but I always consider the income potential of tools, so a portable one isn’t out of the question. I’m not seeing many postings for services around me, most are over an hour away.

 

[Chuck Ellis]

They have trees in Missouri??

Can't answer any of your questions... the two or three mills around me are either the old fashion round disc blades or one downtown behind the lumber yard looks to be a wood mizer....

I like to watch the videos of the millers on You-tube... my favorite is "Out of the woods" in eastern Tennessee.... he uses an LT-40 wood mizer... mostly hydraulic... pretty interesting to watch him do the logs.

 

[Ted Calver]

I really like Out of the woods. Nathan recently traded up to a Wood-Mizer LT70 Super Wide and has a new tractor courtesy of TYM, for moving logs around. It's been fun watching his operation grow over the past several years. As to milling experience, a few years back I hired a guy with a wood mizer to cut up some cherry logs I was gifted. His mill was all manual and it was a struggle moving logs to the mill with my truck, then onto the mill with a hand winch, and then turning them over and positioning them with cant hooks. Based on that limited experience, I would highly recommend something with full hydraulics....unless you are young and strong as an ox
,,

 

[Dave Hoskins]

Personally I don't have one. The two that operate in this general area that I know of are both Cook's. A bit away from here is a guy who has a rustic furniture business and he has a big 48" automatic one, but I don't know the name of it. I have eyeballed the brand Hudson a few times when I was thinking on one. You might look there. The two made by Cook are trailer mount.

 

[John Bartley]

I have owned a mill for fourteen years last month. Mine is a Canadian built mill called a Champion, made by the Gilbert Saw Company. It's all manual, but it's nice and big, cutting 20-1/2' x 30". The motor is a 25hp Kohler Command V-twn, electric start. The only thing on the mill that's hydraulic is the band tension and toe-boards. I would guess that in fourteen years it's cut 40k to 50k board feet, mostly hobby cutting except for some commercial mobile work when I first bought it. It's now OFF the trailer and won't ever cut mobile again. I paid about $15,000 in Jan 2008 with a full set of accessories and sharpening/setting gear. I've since put another $1k or so into it in upgrades and repairs.

Anyway, the reason for the post was to say the my hobby experience taught me that the three hardest parts of milling (physically) are loading logs (weight and length), positioning (rolling and elevating for cut style) and getting rid of slabs. (a pain if you don't burn wood).

Nowadays I have forks on my Kioti tractor, but in the early days .....

For doing the loading and rolling I built the jig shown in the following pictures . The rolling post doesn't show but it's a vertical post with a roller on top that sits into the square tube on the winch side of the jig and routes the winch cable over the top. The elevating of cant ends I did with custom Champions hydraulic toe-boards. Buy three .... trust me on that.

 

[Chuck Ellis]

I really like Out of the woods. Nathan recently traded up to a Wood-Mizer LT70 Super Wide and has a new tractor courtesy of TYM, for moving logs around. It's been fun watching his operation grow over the past several years. As to milling experience, a few years back I hired a guy with a wood mizer to cut up some cherry logs I was gifted. His mill was all manual and it was a struggle moving logs to the mill with my truck, then onto the mill with a hand winch, and then turning them over and positioning them with cant hooks. Based on that limited experience, I would highly recommend something with full hydraulics....unless you are young and strong as an ox
,,

I watch him every chance I get... his videos come up sorta random order, so haven't seen the up date yet... last update I caught was when he picked up the LT40.... I watch others doing milling also, but like Out of the Woods best. I don't think he's all that far from me... maybe 100 miles or so and would like to visit and see him first hand.... likely won't happen anytime soon though.

I think he's been growing that beard since he started puberty.

 

[Bob Gibson]

great.....now i'm hooked on Out of the woods along with several forging sites

 

[Chuck Ellis]

Haven't got into any forging sites... do remember my dad's forge when he was still share cropping.. my job was to turn the blower for the air to the forge fire....

we also had a re-enactment at the local park, Fort Louden that's about 8 or 9 miles from me... he used the old bellows style air and was interesting to watch.

 

[Darren Wright]

All great info, thank you. Still would like to hear more. I’ve gone back and forth on doing a hm122 to looking at ones with hydraulics.

My gut is telling me to just go with a smaller mill, lIke a hm122 or hm126, stationary, and spend some of the extra on a lean to shed and proper layout and ergonomics. Also stick with what my tractor and myself can handle. With it being stationary, I certainly can over engineer some things to help with log and slab movement.

 

[Jonathan Shively]

I keep going back to Linda's videos (even though she hasn't posted any in 3 years) what a demonstration of family team work, a well laid out sawmill enterprise and still makes my back hurt watching.

 

[Darren Wright]

I keep going back to Linda's videos (even though she hasn't posted any in 3 years) what a demonstration of family team work, a well laid out sawmill enterprise and still makes my back hurt watching.

That is certainly an ideal type of setup if you have the workforce. I doubt it will be more than just me, but can implement some of those ideas or similar, keep them coming.