I would like a sawmill..............

[Dave Lehnert]

But after spending 3 hours this morning watching 3 guys run a mill I will gladly pay them to do any milling I need done. And the mill they were using was fully hydraulic

It was a Woodmizer mill and the lumber they cut was beautiful.

[John TenEyck]

A wise choice, but there's nothing like taking a tree and turning it into furniture, knowing you did it all yourself. But if I had a fully hydraulic Woodmizer I fear I would spend all my time milling lumber and none making furniture.

[Dave Lehnert]

In 3 hours they milled more lumber than I would ever use the rest of my life.

[Neil Brooks]

I have a home bicycle repair shop (not for $$), and my wood shop.

In both, my philosophy is ... I'd like the gear to be able to do about 90-95% of the stuff, myself. The rest -- usually either infrequent, expensive, space-prohibited -- I'll happily pay somebody to do.

But ... yeah ... it WOULD be cool, wouldn't it ?

I've slated a fireplace mantel, for "Sometime In The Future," but -- for some reason -- I want to pick the dead-fall tree, mill it/watch it being milled, and THEN do the build.

It doesn't get much cooler than that, and -- relatively -- a lot of wood butchers seem to do just that ... like .... with EVERY project

Reminds me of that now-famous Mike Jarvi video !!

[Joe Fabbri]

I'd love to be able to mill some trees myself too. A small cherry tree came down in my yard a few months ago (actually it split and is stil partially propped up). But since I don't have access to mill, I'm thinking maybe I can uses wedges and try to split something decent out of it.

Also a rock hard maple tree (don't know the exact specie) had to be taken down. The top was rotting, but the bottom 10 ft or so was still pretty solid. The guy who cut it down had a heck of a time with his chain saw (big Stihl), it was that hard. He said it probably got harder from water freezing in it every year--though it might be just the specie.

[Danny Hamsley]

You can always come and help cut lumber on my mill if you need a workout or a sawdust fix! My mill is not hydraulic, so I get a pretty good workout, especially in summer. It is a great way to lose weight ....I try to schedule most sawing for the late Fall, Winter, and Spring. I had to cut about 2000 BF of walnut in May, and the heat was terrible, even in late May.

[Dave Lehnert]

You can always come and help cut lumber on my mill if you need a workout or a sawdust fix! My mill is not hydraulic, so I get a pretty good workout, especially in summer. It is a great way to lose weight ....I try to schedule most sawing for the late Fall, Winter, and Spring. I had to cut about 2000 BF of walnut in May, and the heat was terrible, even in late May.

The guy that was having the trees milled called in October thinking it would be cooler doing the job. The mill operator did not get to it till today. 90 degrees.

[Scott T Smith]

But after spending 3 hours this morning watching 3 guys run a mill I will gladly pay them to do any milling I need done. And the mill they were using was fully hydraulic

It was a Woodmizer mill and the lumber they cut was beautiful.

<grin> Dave, milling can provide a great workout, to say the least! But it is also extremely rewarding to see the beauty that lies within some of these gorgeous logs.

Danny, you should have been here a few weeks back when we milled some slabs for Roubo style workbenches from a giant red oak log. Each quartersawn slab measured 4-1/2" thick, 20" wide, and 13'6" long (the log was 50" diameter), and weighed just a shade under 600 lbs each! We milled four of the big 20" wide slabs, and a couple of bookmatched 10" slabs that were a "light" 300 lbs each.

[Chip Lindley]

For the price tag of a fully-hydraulic Woodmizer LT40, a guy would have to mill 1000s of BF before he broke even. For years I had a neighbor who milled lumber for about 20 cents a BF as long as I (or somebody) was there to offbear the boards and stack them. He wanted only to run the sawmill. If he had to do all the work himself, the price went up considerably! He did not charge extra if he hit metal in the wood. Luckily, what we thought was wire turned out to only be shiny lead buckshot. Whewww!

[Danny Hamsley]

Danny, you should have been here a few weeks back when we milled some slabs for Roubo style workbenches from a giant red oak log. Each quartersawn slab measured 4-1/2" thick, 20" wide, and 13'6" long (the log was 50" diameter), and weighed just a shade under 600 lbs each! We milled four of the big 20" wide slabs, and a couple of bookmatched 10" slabs that were a "light" 300 lbs each.

Scott, now you are talking! 20" wide quartersawn is rare as hen's teeth.

[Scott T Smith]

Scott, now you are talking! 20" wide quartersawn is rare as hen's teeth.

Yeah, I know. I probably should have milled it into 5/4 boards, but I think that a single slab, QSRO Roubo workbench top is about as cool as it gets, so I slabbed them. I can always resawn them down to thinner material.

[Cody Colston]

I have designs on a manual bandsaw mill, too...probably a WM LT-10 or LT-15. I just think that sawing and drying my own lumber, then building with it would be the ultimate in woodworking. Reading the sawing forums doesn't help diminish the desire, either.

[Jack Ganssle]

When I started woodworking I used wood from Home Depot. Then I learned about rough lumber and started buying from sawmills. Now I have a manual LT-15 and get wood from trees. Next step is doing some planting, no doubt. But it is amazingly fun and very satisfying to run the mill. And so many of those trees would have gone to the landfill or for firewood - the salvaging of fantastic material from waste is the best.

[John TenEyck]

If you really want to cut your own lumber you probably can figure out a way if you have a little space, a little money, and a lot of desire. A small bandsaw mill is around $3K dollars, a chainsaw mill around $1K. You will get your money back in only a few logs worth of lumber. If you live in a residential area where you can't run a chainsaw mill, then a bandsaw mill may be the way to go since it's no louder than a commercial mower. Or you could get one outfitted with an electric motor if you really want to keep the noise down. You could share the costs with a couple of fellow woodworkers to keep your individual investment to a minimum.

Logs are pretty easy to come by for free. Many arborists are happy to give you logs from residential trees because commercial mills won't take them. Residential trees offer some unusual species as well. I've gotten a honey locust, a red mulberry, black locust, an english walnut, and a nice sized pear, in addition to the normal run of oaks, maples, etc. It can be a challenge to move and remove logs from some places but the reward is usually worth the effort. I once had to quarter a big walnut lengthwise in order to be able to get it through a 2' wide gate, but I got over 400 BF of clear heartwood out of that tree. We're talking about $2K worth of wood at retail !

Of course, you could just get the logs and pay someone else to saw them. You'll still be way ahead of paying retail prices.

[Joe Angrisani]

Just curious. On average, how often do you guys actually hit metal on residential trees?