Practical advise

We’ve bought a .35 acre lot on a corp of engineers lake and it has about 20 - 25 Loblollys about 70’ tall and 24-36 inches in diameter and about 10 short needle pines about 18-30 inches in diameter and about 50’ tall. A friend who clears land for a living looked at it to give me a price on clearing and told me it’d take about 4-6 loads to haul them and the rest of the brush off and the dumping fee in our area was running $700 or so a load. Hate to just dispose of them and really hate to pay that much to do so.

Seriously thinking about buying a basic bandsaw mill and milling them in place. I’d like to use it for siding, trim, fascia and ship lap on the inside. Maybe flooring also. Have also thought about air dying it and going through the grading process to use structurally…they’d make perfectly good studs. Is any of this practical? I know I can probably but the amount of lumber far cheaper but I hate to just throw them in a landfill. They have no commercial value in my understanding but that may be incorrect.

If I do it how long would the drying time be and is it possible to set the sap in a solar kiln or does it have to be a regular gas kiln?

I know that loblolly used to be used green to build everything in our area and some of those structures lasted 100 or more years but of course today the grade stamp is all that matters. Not sure it’d ever grade for structural use but as far as I know if you use osb for lateral support siding is not structural. Fascia isn’t and trim isn’t.

Any advice? I know it’s a pile of labor for very little reward but I hate to turn it into firewood or put it in the dump…and really hate the thought of paying to do either!

You could get a lot of good lumber if the diameters at what you say....
Need to know where you are located for better opinionsl..
You could more than pay for a small manual bandsaw mill probably...

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Originally Posted by Ed Aumiller

You could get a lot of good lumber if the diameters at what you say....
Need to know where you are located for better opinionsl..
You could more than pay for a small manual bandsaw mill probably...

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I’m in the Augusta Ga area. Lot is about 20 miles north of I-20 and about 20 miles from the GA/ SC state line. Just slightly north of the coastal plain on the transition from the Piedmont….slightly less humidity on average than the coastal plain but you can’t tell it LOL.

I think I’m going to mill them. Probably 5/4 so it’ll dry faster and I can use it in wood working projects. Concerned about the pitch using it for siding….unless I can find a kiln or a way to set the pitch that isn’t more expensive than buying commercially. I’d love to use it for board and batten siding, ship lap and beadboard on the interior and interior trim but my research is indicating setting the pitch is cost prohibitive compared to buying out right.

You are sitting on a huge amount of lumber there. If the loblolly logs are 50 ft long and 24" diameter you'd have 1600 bf in each log. Multiple that by 20 trees and you have 32000 bf of lumber. Then there is the other pines. You might have 50K bf. At today's price of pine that's a serious amount of money if you can sell what you don't need.

Pine dries quickly and w/o much worry of drying defects beyond bug infestation. I think 5/4 should air dry in less than 6 months. If you want to set the pitch you need to get the wood up to 160F, I believe, and hold it there for 24 hours. You can't do that in a solar kiln. You would have to build a separate, insulated enclosure with a heater and fan in order to do that.

A hobby level saw mill is not very expensive, but you will need one that can handle logs up to at least 36 inches, which is beyond what most hobby mills can handle. I think you're looking at at least $20K for a manual mill that large and probably $30K if you get a mill with hydraulic loading and turning. You likely could sell the mill for most of what you paid for it when you're done, if desired. You didn't mention if you have means of moving logs that large, so that's another consideration/potential expense.

If you saw that much lumber you will have a massive amount of slab wood and sawdust to deal with. Something else to think about.

Having it milled and dried at a commercial mill makes a lot of sense to me for that much lumber. I can mill around 600 bf of lumber per day with my completely manual mill. With a hydraulic mill you might be able to cut 2 - 3K per day. Even at that rate, you will be spending a month of days milling lumber, and many more building drying racks or a drying shed and stickering it.

John

Before jumping in to this I would spend some time on budget research and figuring out what time frames look like. It may come down to something like 50k for a commercial mill to be done in 6 months vs. 20k to diy but it takes 3 years (just throwing numbers out to make a point, I didn't try and actually calculate anything). It may turn out there are no commercial sawyers nearby that will take the job, or only a handful of guys with portable mills that can cut it all up but the rest is on you.

A mill that can handle a 36" log is not cheap, and a piece of equipment that can maneuver a 36" log is also not cheap. You could probably get away with using a mid size tractor, but if you don't already own one its a major added expense. In my experience as a beginner, once you start hitting logs in the 24" range the difficulty level goes up. My mill has a 30" opening, I would call it a mid-level entry mill, and I don't like cutting anything over 24" if I can help it. I've never tried to set loblolly pitch, but I've seen it used as siding (unset) and it definitely will drip. I've seen solar kilns built relatively cheap, but building one you can heat for setting pitch is going to be more involved.

What is your end goal for the property (ex. build a house in the next 2 years), how many hours do you think you can put into this project per week/month, how soon do you want to be able to use this lumber, how much experience do you have running a mill? I work full time with 4 kids, I originally intended to run my mill one evening per week, which ended up being more like one evening every other month, so I have a huge stack of logs that turned into termite dust. Also I didn't really set up a good stacking/drying area, so my advice would be to set that up first.

I think it can but done, but I suspect it will take a lot longer than you might think. If you do commit then I would get all the auxiliary work stations set up first. Get the kiln built, get your stacking area leveled and covered, get your mill location leveled and covered, and get any moving equipment on site. I would start with one tree at a time if possible, just to get a good idea of the pace. I think the biggest challenge/decision will be what size mill to get. And remember all my advice is coming from an amateur hobbyist, so take it for what its worth lol, but there is a lot of good advice on this site. This project would be outside something I would take on, but I already own a mill too small to do the job and I don't have any plans to use or buy that much wood. Good luck and I'd be happy to answer anymore questions more specifically.