Worth resawing your own lumber?

[Dennis Aspö]

Tell me, is it worth it?

I got this big 24" cast iron bandsaw with a strong 3-phase motor. I bought a bandsaw of this class because it was cheap and because I had this desire to never have to buy lumber again. Or at least avoid it as much as possible. The idea was always to resaw my own logs, which I would somehow acquire through various sources over time.

Now I am pretty new to woodworking and I suppose, also very impressionable when someone with more experience tells me something, so I got very deflated when a friend who has worked as a carpenter/joiner/housebuilder told me it's an utter waste of time and money and I should forget the whole idea and just take the logs to a sawmill instead.

I don't think he knew how much that felt like a punch to the gut for me, I've been working towards this for a year, I started planning for it last spring and I am almost reaching the end of this project, or rather its start perhaps. I was just asking him what he thought of buying whole logs from a firewood dealer who had some freshly cut logs and told him what I was gonna do with them.

Tell me something positive here, or the cold hard truth if you must. I have a hard time seeing how it can ever be profitable to do as he says rather than just doing it at home. I consider my own time free btw. Maybe he has a more professional view of it, but I am looking at it from the point of view of a hobbyist and every cent is worth saving and exchanging for work and time on my end, in my opinion.

If he's right though, I might as well sell it and getting a 14" model, or build that woodgears.ca bandsaw, because there's no point to a big bandsaw like this for me otherwise.

[Mike Cutler]

He's wrong!!

While he may have a point about "milling" big logs, because it is a messy, heavy, arduous task, milling small logs is entirely possible. Even if you were not to start with logs, but with with milled lumber that needed to be resized, it would be worth the effort. The more control you can have over the raw material source of a project, the better off you will always be.
If you have the power available to power that saw, put it to work. There is nothing a 14" saw can do that the one you have can't. The opposite is not true.

Build a roller type in feed and out feed table(s), level them to the plane of the saw table, and have at it. ( You do need the correct blade though. )

[Brian Tymchak]

I think this falls under the category of doing what makes you feel good. Hard to put a value on that. Milling logs is something I will never do because of the expense and logistics nightmare it would be for me to do. But it gives you the ability to cut lumber in custom dimensions to fit your needs. You will of course need to figure out how to dry the lumber as well. Maybe a couple years from now you will change your mind, but you will have at least tried it, instead of always wondering about it.

[daryl moses]

Several things to consider regarding if it will be feasible and cost effective. Length of the lumber you require, if you have a ready and cheap supply of logs etc.
I am fortunate that I live on a farm and have an unlimited supply of various species of trees, most of the time I never have to cut down a live tree as it seems that there is always one falling or dying on it's own accord.
That said, if I need short lengths of lumber or bowl blanks I mill them on my bandsaw. If I need anything much over three feet I will take them to a Sawyer or have someone with a portable mill come to me.

[Dennis Aspö]

I should be able to take 8 feet long logs with the space I got for my setup. The plan was to build a knock-down setup that I would put the logs on, and then pull through the saw. There's the matter of a suitable blade too, there's a UK firm making a 1" blade with a TPI of just 1.3 especially for resawing, sounds like it could work.

Access to wood for me is sporadic, I'd have to buy logs from people who sell firewood and try and get good logs, or scrounge wood from people who've had trees fall on their yards. Or just check craigslist, sometimes people want someone to come and chop down and take away trees.

[Jim Matthews]

Your approaches are vastly different.

Your carpenter friend is considering the amount of time spent
as a 'cost' against his profit margin. In that regard, he's right.

Specialization yields products of superior quality for a lower price.

Your approach is personal, and the investment in time is a reward in itself.
When you first reveal that highly figured, unobtainable flitch of lumber
that cannot be found anywhere other than YOUR shop,
you're right and will be vindicated.

Be advised that many of us on this page are North American, and may not understand
Finnish culture, and the regard you hold for your mentor.

Personally, I think you're BOTH right.

The largest logs need to be rendered down to a size you can manage alone, in your shop.

Your mentor will be invaluable in helping you manage your own 'factory'
in a way that will provide the best possible yield.

Have courage, all endeavors such as this will have discouraging moments.

Show us the pictures of what you find, as you begin milling your own.
Great Art requires suffering.

[Al Weber]

No where do I see any plans for the moving, lifting, transportation of the said logs. So I am assuming you have some type of equipment to do the heavy lifting? I milled logs from my previous wood lot using a manual portable sawmill and it provided many thousands of feet of usable although not high grade lumber. What I found was that milling was the easy part of the process. The difficult part was moving logs weighing hundreds of pounds by myself. I had two tractors with front loaders and managed to use those for transporting, lifting and otherwise transporting logs and milled lumber and it was an enjoyable venture. However if I would have needed to purchase all the equipment, it would never have been economically viable. However, it was the self satisfaction of the effort that paid off for me. I would only urge caution in your venture as cutting trees on others property is a potentially risky proposition if the liability laws in Finland are anything like those in the US. It is also unlikely you will get any high grade lumber from trees obtained from a firewood dealer. They have likely taken anything of significant value for their own purposes.

But you should feel free to try. You will learn a lot as you proceed and will likely find it an enjoyable endeavor but unlikely a profitable one. Best wishes on your venture.

[Robert Engel]

Its doable, but its also ALOT of hard work.

In the end, I personally would pay a sawyer to do it.

It all really depends on how much you're time is worth and the idea that you did it yourself (which will wear off quickly....how do I know that?)

[Dennis Aspö]

I was considering a heavy duty wheeled dolly of some kind for the logs to roll them onto and then into the shop, then a winch and a setup to move it onto the table. The idea would be to dump them in front of my workshop where I will have a concrete area (just gravel now).

I have felled and cleared a lot of trees and moved them on my own so I got some idea. The place where my house now stands used to be forest, they where mostly pine and spruce and nothing I felt was worth using as anything but firewood, it's heavy but doable. I will unlikely be needing more than 7-8" long planks for my work and that length I should be able to cope on my own, if not I can cut it down with my chainsaw.

Here's my firewood pile behind my house that I made from all those trees, and some of the surplus construction lumber left over that is my main source of wood:


I have lots of pallets and other debris as well...

I am big into reusing and scrounging old stuff, here's a pair of chairs I made from surplus lumber and wall panelling and whatnot:


Here's also a look into my workshop when it was mid project for those chairs. I had to resaw and plane a lot of ugly wood to get lumber for those chairs. That 8" planer I got for 100 euros and restored, it has really come in handy... I have lots of projects going on right now, resawing is a bit low, I would like a proper DC set up before trying that. I hope to be able to resaw some smaller stock this year at least!



The green and blue thing is my homemade shopvac, but the motor (old house vacuum) is too weak to keep up so it's just used for cleanup.

This post turned a bit elaborate.

[Dennis Aspö]

I don't really forsee myself getting large loads of logs and cutting them in a go now that I think about it.

I am thinking more I'll get a couple at time, more or less as it happens, or I find an ad or I just run into someone who has some logs to sell, or a neighbor fells a tree, stuff like that more than an attempt at a commercial operation at home. I figure if I need some wood now in larger quantities, I'd just call the local sawmill and see. But the long term plan is to build up my own warehouse of stock too.

[Chris Monroe]

Looks like you're quite capable of figuring out ways to make it work. I'm sure you'll figure out what works for your setup and goals.

Excellent point above about hobby vs. profession, and the two perspectives yield totally different decisions here.

[Jim Andrew]

When I first bought my MM16, had plans to try cutting a few boards from logs. It did not work well, the logs had a tendency to roll, risking breaking the blade. Was hard to handle a piece 8' long, so decided I would just get a small bandmill. Considered building my own, but found a good deal on a used one, so went with a manufactured unit. Works great, I have about every shed on the farm full of boards now. If you can weld, have mechanical aptitude, consider buying a plan and building your own bandmill. There are 2 homebuilt mills in my neighborhood. The great thing is you lay your log flat on a carriage, and the mill rolls horizontally over the log. So you pick up your board off the top. Look at forestryforum.com, there are lots of guys with homebuilt mills on that forum.

[Mike Wilkins]

Milling small and shorter logs on a bandsaw is not only possible but a great way to rescue small cuts from the firewood pile. That being stated, the size you can put onto the saw table is a major consideration. To keep the logs from rolling and possibly damaging your blade, attach the logs to a plywood platform with lag screws, let one side of the plywood extend over the log, and let this overhang ride against the bandsaw fence. Once you get a flat edge, let this flat ride on the saw table and make your own lumber.

I have only tried this on 4-5 foot long logs, no more than 12" across. Any larger you will need some way to lift them onto the table with both infeed and outfeed support. Good luck and watch those fingers.

[glenn bradley]

I let the local lumber yard do the heavy lifting and buy from them. I also cannot recall the last time I use ANY board that I did not mill myself from some larger source. This should add some credence to your idea of resawing.

I do not start with a log, I live in suburbia and this is impractical. I do stock large material that I make my parts from and a larger bandsaw is an absolute necessity to how I do what I do. A smaller bandsaw is also very nice to have and saves me from changing bands quite as often when I need to do a lightweight task like cut out a rocker or put an arc on an apron or stretcher.

If I built houses I would never mill my own lumber, there's no money in it. Your friend is not wrong, his viewpoint is valid for what he does. He just doesn't do what you plan to do.

[John TenEyck]

I know where you're coming from. There's no one right answer for everyone, but for me I wanted to be able to handle logs up to 2' diameter by myself, and to do it at very low cost. To transport logs I built a log dolly that allows me to pick up and transport a single log by myself.

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It hooks up to an ATV or my car. Last Summer I increased it's capacity so I can handle a 32" diameter log now. For milling, I started out with an Alaskan Mill and a Huskvarna 385XP chainsaw.

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I milled a lot of lumber with this simple set up; well over 4000 BF. The cut quality is as good as any other method of milling, although you lose more to the kerf.

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The advantage of the Alaskan Mill, besides being low cost, is that you can mill the log on the ground, and you can go to the tree if you can't bring the tree to you. I used that setup for 7 or 8 years until I got too old and tired of handling it. Two years ago I built a rolling chainsaw mill and made it large enough to handle a 32" diameter log.

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That log just about filled the mill. Of course with the mill I can't mill the log on the ground anymore; it has to be rolled or pulled up onto the mill. Many times I can roll smaller logs alone, and larger ones can be handled by two people, but misshapen logs have to be pulled up. A little creativity gets that job done, too:

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Anyway, you can do a lot for not a lot of money, however you chose to go about it. An upright bandsaw would not fit my needs, but it could be OK as long as you don't want to handle large logs. For large diameter or long logs I would think about a horizontal bandsaw mill or something like my chainsaw mill. No matter what route you take, this is what makes it all worthwhile:

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John