Any advice on building your own sawmill?

[John Henderson]

I am a novice in milling lumber, but I have a fairly constant supply of wood which I would like to cut up myself. I am especially interested in milling "the old way", but unfortunatly there is not a decent site near my house to make water power feasible. The only powerplant I can concieve of, other than an electric or gas powered moter, would be a horse. Does anyone have any advice/information on the topic? Thanks,

John Henderson

[John Henderson]

I have a fairly constant supply of wood which I would like to cut up myself. I am especially interested in milling "the old way", but unfortunatly there is not a decent site near my house to make water power feasible. The only powerplant I can concieve of, other than an electric or gas powered moter, would be a horse. Does anyone have any advice/information on the topic? Thanks,

John Henderson

[Steve Schoene]

You can dig a pit, and do the cutting with one person on top and another on the bottom.

Otherwise, you can check out Wood-Mizer.

[Dev Emch]

By any chance, does the horse know what you have in mind for him? Your going to measure lumber in carrots per board foot!

[Ian Abraham]

There is a reason they dont mill wood the old ways anymore..... Most of them were slow and / or hard work.

If you really want to build your own sawmill it can be done, but look at building a 'woodmizer style' machine. If you have a supply of scrap steel, a large lawnmower / industrial / motorcycle engine and some trailer wheels / tyres you have all the main parts.

Do a search around the web for homebuilt sawmills and this seems the most practical way for a home builder to go.

Cheers

Ian

[Bob Weisner]

Look for plans for building a circular saw mill. My neighbor used to saw with a circular sawmill . He and his wife were able to saw 8,000 board feet a day .Just the two of them.

[John Henderson]

Thanks for all the advice- I will take it into consideration, and probably save money on carrots!

John Henderson

[Dave Klear]

Check this site out. Its where I'm going if I ever get the money around
http://www.linnlumber.com/sawmill_parts.html

Dave

[Rob Russell]

What about wind power?

[Mark Singer]

photovotaics....or grey water ...don't use gas it is expensive ...why just the other day I pulled in to my local gas station and...

[Jim Dannels]

Oh boy! This could be a tough one!
I have designed a lot of machinery that never got built, but it gave my mind a workout. Oddly enough I was often told I was out of my mind?

Most of my ideas revolve around hydralics. pumps and motors are reasonable and hoses are easier than mechanical hookup.
However driving the blade is the easy part, setting up rails parrallel and working out feeding logs across the carriage, can get complicated.
Once in a while I see a mill sitting out in the weeds or available in paper want ads. that might be easier.

I once helped my father set up a friction drive buzz saw,we ran a 13" car tire against the belt pulley and drove from a tractor PTO.

[Tom Jones III]

I watched the movie Zelary the other night, it was set in WW II, in Chechoslovakia. Yeah, I know what you are thinking, just another one of those Chech movies, just like all the others ... well that is what Netflix is good for. Anyway, one of the main characters works in a sawmill way out in the middle of nowhere in Chech. You can imagine that the sawmill was not the picture of modernity.

The mill consisted of 3 large blades, like the blades on a two man hand saw. They were set 2" apart running vertically and they moved up and down together. The log was put on a table, possibly a conveyor belt or rollers. The log was moved by a few gears that lowered down and shoved the log forward.

[Nathan Hoffman]

How about running it with a flat belt from an old tractor or hit and miss engine? My father used to have a sawmill he bought well used - they are around if you look.

[Stan Thigpen]

You might also check out this site: http://www.forestryforum.com/board/index.php
They have given me lots of information when I recently got into sawing. (I ended up purchasing my own portable bandsaw mill to mill up my 100 year old pecan grove trees lost in Katrina.)