portable saw mill question

[otonili]

can anyone name reliable portable saw mill manufacturers...i don't want to spend but around $6,000

[egon]

Do a Google and you should find lots of hits.


For the money you wish to spend a portable bandsaw mill will be about the bare minimum.

If you are looking for a good chainsaw mill you can get a pretty good one for that money.

Around here there are lots of Woodmizer Mills. I have no experience with them.

Egon [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[VAEqqus]

A lot depends on what you are trying to do, e.g., a small commercial operation or cutting up a small quantity of timber as a one time job, and the size of the logs.

I am no expert ... my only hands on experience is helping my brother in law a few years ago who hired a friend who owned a Wood-Mizer brand trailer mounted sawmill to cut up quite a few downed trees on our family property following a hurricane.

These were, for the most part, 70 to 80 year old Southern pine trees that we cut up into 8' to 10' lengths. My big take away from this experience is .... them is really heavy chunks of wood.

Thankfully, the had hydraulics to lift and turn the logs. I can't imagine how we could have handled those logs by hand. Just getting them up to the mill using cant hooks was tough enough.

If you are going to set up a small time commercial operation, I think you will discover in short order that trying to make do with a small time machine is going to run your labor costs way too high to turn a profit. A larger machine my be a bigger investment than you'd like, i.e., greater than $6K, but it will be money well spent.

If you are looking for a small machine to do a one time job, or the occasional small job, you might be better off hiring someone who has the mill (which is what my brother in law did).

[retired_young]

Just picked up a Hud-son 228. Haven't fired her up yet but after admiring the competition I thought the "Huddy" was the best value.

I'm building a barn & addition and figure the mill will pay for itself in boards alone.

I'll let you know how it performs.

r.y.

[retired_young]

Did a few test cuts with small (15 inch diameter) logs. Cuts like butter! Very efficient. Biggest challenge was cutting things square.

No problem with the machine, I just need practice with my positioning of the logs against the log dog. Sometimes too tight, sometimes too loose, sometimes crooked... just like my Accountant.


r.y.

[Pat]

$6,000 for a sawmill is not at all unreasonable.

If you don't need precision due to your intended use of the wood. Like maybe building a barn and not measureing with a micrometer then consider this...

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=97445

Here is the manual in PDF:

http://www.harborfreight.com/manuals...7999/97445.pdf

This unit is $1800 USD plus shipping. As supplied it cuts 6 ft but extra track can be bolted on to extend that.

Compared to the $6,000, $15,000 $30,000 and up saws I keep getting flyers on it is clearly not as substantial. It will not cut as fast and log handling will not have hydraulic convenience but if you aren't going commercial and can go at a slower pace it may well be worth eighteen hundred plus shipping.

It used Wood Mizer brand blades (good ones) and recommends Wood Mizer sharpening service (good one.)

If your use is not intended to last for decades or require high speed production and automatic log handling hydraulics then this might be a useful tool.

It has my interest. I think I could build a stable track of sufficient length for my needs. Just how much lumber would I have to cut at the labor rates I would charge myself to pay for it? Not much at todays prices.

Given the wide kerf of a chainsaw I'd be inclined to go with this band mill over a chainsaw slliding down a guide board (I have one of those.)

Pat

[jml755]

Timely post. Just starting to look into a portable sawmill. Initially, I need a couple of thousand board feet of 1x6 RS for my first paddock and got local prices at .60/bd ft. Then I'll need a lot more after that, plus posts. I've got about 40 acres of wood to pick the stock out of. On Monday, I mentioned the idea of me cutting my own to the missus and I didn't even finish the sentence before I heard "NO". Everytime I tried to finish, I'd hear "NO". All "NO" means to me is that she won't give immediate, unconditional approval and let me blindly do what I want. I'll have to do a capital investment analysis to PROVE that it will be worth it. (Of course, I discount my labor rate by a percentage that is associated with the joy of learning a new skill, having a new toy, etc.) Thanks for the info. Harbor Freight quality may be ok for what I plan to do.

[retired_young]

Do the math...the wife will come around real fast. Mine did; got to the point she was nagging me to make the purchase before inflationary forces kick in.

Remember to factor in blade sharpening; I'm able to get about 400 bd ft between grindings.

That Harbor Frieght gizmo looks like a nice tool. I needed something a bit bigger to handle up to 28" logs cut to lengths of 16 feet. Huddy does the job for me. Cost about twice as much as the H.F. model but I am very pleased with both performance and quality.

Good luck on your search!

R-Y

[Pat]

The HF unit (as with most band mills) can be extended to any length quite easily and inexpensively. A limitation is that it only cuts pieces up to 16 inches wide. Well I don't have much need for board over 16 inches wide.

My thought on that is that I have an Alaskan mill which I power with a 32 inch Husky chain saw. I can use this chain mill to square up the cant. A log that ends up at 16 inches wide after it is squared up may have been much larger when it started, before cutting off bark sloabs to square it up. All the band mills that I have seen will take a cant that is taller than the max width it will handle. Because of this a cant of 24 inches or more (in height) can be accommodated. I could always make ripping cuts down the larger logs with my Alaskan mill and then cut dimensional lumber out of the pieces.

I don't expect to have to deal with too many logs that will square up over 16 inches in the smaller dimension.

I don't think this HF unit is Chinese. It looks to be the same as is being sold under a different name, as advertised in some of my wood working magazines. If it were Chinese I wouldn't expect it to come with and recommend American blades.

Pat

[Mark_G]

I have a logosol unit (http://www.logosol.com/) it has served me well. I am not in the lumber business, if I was I would want higher production, but for my needs it is great. Low maintenance and the lumber is great. Mine can handle up to 16 feet of length. I use a stihl 066 as my cutting head, with low profile (Pico) chain. The chain saw has a bigger curf than a band mill but is more rigid than a band saw which can leave a wavier surface that may need more planing.