Saw Mill

[eagle]

There seems to be a good gap on price when you go to Woodmizer. I plan on getting a sawmill but not sure I will be able to afford one.

[edkemper]

Eagle,

I was going to buy a new smaller Mill. Then a ~12 year old LT40 with 350 hours on it came up for 10K. According to WoodMizer, it was worth thousands more than I was going to pay for the smaller new unit.

If I decide to sell it when I'm finished building, I will have saved more than I paid for it on lumber I milled and will likely be able to sell it for close to what I paid for it.

However, that last part isn't likely. I just can't see selling the thing I have that all the property owners in the area will need fencing and rough cut lumber for other projects. My neighbor wants to build a patio and a small cabin.

By the way, a great source on Sawmills is on http://www.forestryforum.com/board/index.php . This sight will help understanding what you need, have, want, and how-to on milling. There is even help with pricing.

[thoner7]

Anyone have experience with this mill? Looks nice a mobile and also it runs on a track made of 2x4 so it would seem easy to make a longer track for longer joists etc

[gepper]

I've got an LT50. Bought a LT28 a couple years ago but not having hydraulics was a killer. Decided to bite the bullet & trade it in for the 50. I love it. Rips though the big oaks I've been cutting. Reasonably easy to trailer. Hydraulics are worth it to me. Cutting is the easy part; it's the log handling that's tough & a little dangerous. I bought the 6' extension so I can mill 27' beams. I wanted to use it for rafter on my build. Ironically, I found out that getting the beams graded is more difficult/expensive than I expected. Oh well. I don't think you can go wrong with a Woodmizer if you can justify the price.

[allen84]

Anyone have experience with this mill? Looks nice a mobile and also it runs on a track made of 2x4 so it would seem easy to make a longer track for longer joists etc

Cheap little band mill? There was one of those for sale around here a while back. I think I researched that a brand new one was about $1700 (I think, give or take a little). I can't remember what the brand name was, it might come to me later.

[Mosseyme]

Our mill has ad on 4' sections for the track and we extended up to 21' cut and a 2' detachable extension so if we ever go mobile to do jobs we can tow it with 4 sections that will give about 14'cut and have the extension to do 16'. If it were to be a big job we could take along the extra extensions and do up to 23'.
When we did our rafters that were 25' we set up to cut from the bottom of the rafter and jacked up the small end so we were almost out of the wood at 23' then just ran the chainsaw across the bump of round log that was left. worked out fine.

[Mosseyme]

You are right about working the logs being the killer. We do have a bells and whistles attachment that is like a pipe attache off the side of the mill with a winch on it. You hook it to the log and crank the winch and turn it. I guess it is the poor mans hydraulics.
Another great very useful attachment is the roller jacks on the mill. We use them often to even out the cut on logs with a lot of flare. If you jack it up and take part of the flare from one side then take the other half from the other side it is easier to get better wood.

[edkemper]

I've got an LT50. Bought a LT28 a couple years ago but not having hydraulics was a killer. Decided to bite the bullet & trade it in for the 50. I love it. Rips though the big oaks I've been cutting. Reasonably easy to trailer. Hydraulics are worth it to me. Cutting is the easy part; it's the log handling that's tough & a little dangerous. I bought the 6' extension so I can mill 27' beams. I wanted to use it for rafter on my build. Ironically, I found out that getting the beams graded is more difficult/expensive than I expected. Oh well. I don't think you can go wrong with a Woodmizer if you can justify the price.

Do you have the Washington state article on using rough sawn lumber?

[edkemper]

You are right about working the logs being the killer. We do have a bells and whistles attachment that is like a pipe attache off the side of the mill with a winch on it. You hook it to the log and crank the winch and turn it. I guess it is the poor mans hydraulics.

We have a similar manual winch set-up. But the set-up is amazing. My wife (5'100#) winches the 16.6' logs of 24" diameter up the ramp and onto the table. She never let's me help.

Once I get my mill to my property, either my FEL or my 4wheeler with winch will simplify the heavy lifting in loading logs.