# Portable Sawmill



## Huntmo1 (Nov 30, 2011)

Does anyone have experience with owning/using a portable sawmill like the one in the link below? We have a small cabin on 30 acres of hardwoods (mostly oak/walnut) and I've really been thinking about all of the things I could built with something like that. But, I've never owned one before and just wonder if it would be as nice to have as I think. While not cheap, some of the smaller models are not as expensive as I thought they might be.

Thoughts?

http://www.norwoodsawmills.com/products-portable-sawmills/lumberman-mn26-manual-portable-sawmill


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## mreynolds (Jan 1, 2015)

I have never owned one but I have used a few. I think you would not be happy unless you went with the 36". That is unless all your trees are under 26" in diameter. I once had a pecan tree that we were cutting that was 38" and it's not fun having to cut that with a chain saw just so it will fit in the mill. 

Other than that I think it's a good idea to buy one in your situation. All the other options you could just buy as you needed them.


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## Jolly (Jan 8, 2004)

Lots and lots of opinions:

http://www.forestryforum.com/board/index.php


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## TnAndy (Sep 15, 2005)

I've owned a Woodmizer since 1991, and highly recommend them over the Norwood mills. They are built heavier, and there are several features if you sit the two side-by-side, you could see why you would choose the WM. Before you buy a mill, try to go see both of them in action.

But no matter which one you go with, YES.....buy a mill ! One of the few tools you'll ever buy that will actually cost you nothing in the long run, and will most likely save you a TON of money.

As to the size, mine is rated at 34" in diameter, and I try to NEVER saw anything close to that. 

For one thing, the largest diameter I have on my place is maybe 24". The big timber in the woods is gone. Now the big timber is in people's yards ! ( I cut a 40" red oak once that blew out of a guy's yard. They were gonna cut it into firewood until somebody called me. 20' of completely clear log. I took my mill over there, backed it under the tree, then cut it off the stump, and let it down on the bed ! Still had to hack it quite a bit with a chainsaw because of the diameter, but I got 1,000bdft of the most beautiful red oak you ever saw. Part of my kitchen cabinets I made out of some of the quartersaw parts of that log.)

What you need to bear in mind is diameter = weight. Do you have a way to HANDLE a 30+" log ? ( I have a 41hp tractor with a GOOD front loader, and it won't handle a 30" log 8' long) You also have to manually TURN logs on most small mills (like mine). Just physically TURNING a large log is a lot of work !

To me, the perfect log is about 15-18" in diameter. I get good yield, my tractor can handle it, and I can turn it without help. If you want to look at something, look at LENGTH the mill can saw. Mine does a 21' cut....which when you get into rafters, it's often handy to have 20' 2x6 or 2x8's.

You can 'sneak' up on longer stuff than the mill is rated to cut, for example, here is a 30' beam being cut on my 21' mill.... 











Some of the logs that came off a 1/2ac hill behind my mill that I wanted to turn to apple orchard.










Once you have a mill, you have a great source of CHEAP lumber. Once you have a source of cheap lumber, believe me....you'll find things to build. Sheds, barns, cabinets, furniture....heck you name it !

Plus, once people find out you have a mill, you'll start getting custom saw work. I used to take my mill to them, but now it never leaves home.....they want it sawed, they haul their logs to me. Lot easier on me that way. You'll also find LOTS of free logs....tree services, power company, people have them cut in their yards and just want them gone (I've gotten some beautiful hardwood logs that way), and man, if you EVER have a big storm (tornado, hurricane, ice, etc), you be in 7th heaven with all the timber available.


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## just_sawing (Jan 15, 2006)

I totally agree with TNandy and a mill can be what keeps your homestead a float.


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## TnAndy (Sep 15, 2005)

One of the most handy things a small bandmill will do is make siding. I cut a tapered lap siding, installed horizontally. I cut mine 8" wide, exposing 6" per course. I cut mostly yellow poplar, as it is what I have. You can cut most any pine/hemlock/etc, stain it, and can't tell it from expensive cedar. Nearly every shed or barn I have, this is my siding.

How to saw lap siding without an expensive "lap siding" attachment:
(two small pieces of 1/2-5/8" plywood are required)
Put a log on your mill.

Here, I put a 15+" x 12' poplar log on mine. The small end (shown here) is on the far end of the mill. The other end was about 16-17" (sorta egg shaped. Many logs are not round). I painted the other end with some black paint to show the cutting easier.











Making the first cut, I opened a face about 7-8" wide. Then I dropped down 5/4 (1 1/4") because I want all my side lumber to be 5/4 x 6" for roof stripping for an upcoming project. The initial slab from the first cut is laying to the right.










Now I peavy the log counter clockwise against the dogs, and make the second cut.










Then I roll the log again for the 3rd cut. Before making THIS cut, I move my quarter scale (the 4/5/6/8 one on the right) so 5 (for 5/4) lines up with 8". The inch scale is not movable, and is base off the height from the saw bed. The quarter scale can be moved up and down. I want all my side lumber to be 5/4, and I want to end up with an 8" wide cant, and this 3rd cut is where that happens.

You can see 8", then one of the 5's lined up with it. The small 12v motor to the left of the scale is what moves the saw head up and down.










Then raise the saw head to make the slab third cut on a 5...in this case, the best choice is the 5 at about 13 1/2". You want the most yield you can get, meaning the thinest slab. It's an eyeball guess.











Now I have a 3 sided cant 13 1/4" by whatever height you can get out of that last side. I make two more cuts with the log in that position, yielding two un-edged 5/4 boards. I set them aside to be edged later. That gets most of the bark off the cant on that side, leaving a square edge.










Now I roll the cant 90 degree, and cut that last slab side off. I ended up with about 12 3/4" (no picture, was busy)

Now I have a 4 sided cant that is 12 3/4 tall, and 8" + 2 more 5/4 boards wide. I roll it 90 degrees, and saw those two 5/4 boards off the original first slab cut side.










That leaves me a cleaned up, 4 sided cant, 8" wide, and 12 3/4" tall. 




















(Continued below due to image limit)


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## TnAndy (Sep 15, 2005)

Ready to start making lap siding:

I roll the cant towards me, and stick those plywood shims under it at twp points on the bed rail side, cocking the cant toward me at an angle. This causes the horizontal blade to cut a tapered cut. You have to simply 'eyeball' the amount, but after a while, you get pretty consistent. I go for about a 1/4-5/16' on the thin side, to 3/4-7/8" on the thick side. This is determined by raising or lowering the saw head.

First cut: ( see why I painted that end black now ? ) (  )










The remaining cuts, you simply remove the shims on cut 2, put them back on cut 3, remove on cut 4, etc, lowering the saw head each time.

Show are the first 2 cuts, and pcs of siding, (laying free on top the cant, and shoved forward slightly for clarity) and the saw is in the process of cutting the 3rd piece. Normally, I flip the cut pieces off on the bed, then take them off the saw to stack while the saw is cutting the next piece. One of the BIG advantages of a 12v motor driven saw like this over the less expensive type you push thru the wood is* you can do other things (like off bare slabs and lumber) while the saw does it's thing,* truly making it a 'one man' operation, and upping your daily production considerably.










You just keep on going until you run out of cant. In this case, I ended up with another 5/4 board, 8" wide on the bottom. Sometimes it's a 2x, sometimes it's a 1x, whatever....depends on how tall the cant was to begin with giving you the leftover board on the bottom.

SO, this log yielded 14 pcs of siding, and 6 boards 5/4 x 6" x 12'. One of the edged slabs yielded 2 finished boards as it was over 12" wide with the bark.

Once I get the cant below 6", I turn those 5/4 slabs up vertical against the cant, and run the saw down it at about 9" to square them off, then flip with that edged side down, and drop the saw head to 6", and make it a squared board. You can edge a whole bunch of boards at one time this way.....not uncommon to do 5-8 at a whack.


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## Bret (Oct 3, 2003)

Hugely fun to read and think about. A very nice set up.


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## TnAndy (Sep 15, 2005)

Heck, Bret......you live right there where these are made......go over there and GET you one !  ( I hauled mine home from Indianapolis in 1991)


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## beenaround (Mar 2, 2015)

TnAndy said:


> I've owned a Woodmizer since 1991, and highly recommend them over the Norwood mills. They are built heavier, and there are several features if you sit the two side-by-side, you could see why you would choose the WM. Before you buy a mill, try to go see both of them in action.
> 
> But no matter which one you go with, YES.....buy a mill ! One of the few tools you'll ever buy that will actually cost you nothing in the long run, and will most likely save you a TON of money.
> 
> ...


Very nice setup.


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## texican (Oct 4, 2003)

Only thing I add, to compliment my betters, is divorce yourself from the idea of cutting down your own trees.... unless they die on you. There are worlds of free trees out there for cutting.... Here, if I see a tree dying along the side of the road, or off in someone else's woods, I hollar at em and see if I can take it off their hands. I've got timber on my place, but never cut anything green....


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## TnAndy (Sep 15, 2005)

While I agree cut OTHER folk's trees first, I've cut quite a bit off my place and have yet to put much of a dent in 75ac. Thinning alone will yield an incredible amount of wood (though a lot of that IS firewood quality stuff). 

Depends a lot on the amount of rainfall you get, for one thing. We get about 45-50"per year here, (maybe a shade more here right IN the mountains) and that's enough to grow timber pretty well.

Also depends on the occasional nature disasters....we had Southern Pine Beetle come thru here in the late 90's. Killed nearly every yellow and white pine of any size (the tree has to have a fairly thick bark on the tree for the adult to lay it's eggs, so young, slick bark trees aren't hit), so I sawed for a year just off my place and still didn't get them all. Built 3 rental houses ( lemonade out of lemons  )

Now we're being hit with wooly aphid that kills hemlock. Nearly every hemlock around is dying. I don't have many on my place, but the mountains around here are thick with them.

Next, I guess we get the gypsy moth....they are north of us now, but spreading this way. Had a couple of local, small outbreaks they managed to stop, but it's just a matter of time before they hit. Seen pics of places up north that the forest looked like winter in the middle of summer because they ate every leaf in the woods. Scary.

One thing I've had nearly zero luck with is getting loggers to bring you anything. Even paying them cash and better prices than they get at other mills doesn't seem to entice them.


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## Fishindude (May 19, 2015)

Neat stuff !

I'm a career builder and pretty handy with tools and equipment, and have spent a little time around a guy watching one of these rigs operate. There is quite a bit to running one of these, getting the most out of your logs, set up for efficiency, maintaining it, safety aspects, etc. It's also pretty darned physical labor.

These mills aren't something the average guy can just take home and start producing lumber with quickly. It would be an extensive learning experience.


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## TnAndy (Sep 15, 2005)

Fishindude said:


> These mills aren't something the average guy can just take home and start producing lumber with quickly. It would be an extensive learning experience.


I dunno. I never owned nor worked at a sawmill before I bought mine.


I ordered mine in 1991, went to Indianapolis to pick it up. I got 4 hrs training on blade sharpening, along with a VCR tape to remind me of how to do it. Then Woodmizer fed us lunch in the company cafeteria. Then we spent a couple hours sawing a couple logs on each guy's own mill (there were 2 other guys there that day picking up mills).

I drove home with it that night, and set it where the mill building is now. I sawed down the trees that stood where the mill was, dozed out the stumps and leveled the site, then sawed the logs into lumber and built a building to house the mill (dead green lumber). The building is getting some age on it now, and I have a better design in mind that formed over the years, and will be building a new building in the next year or so.

I'm now way over 500,000bdft on that mill....probably closer to a million....I quit keeping track a long time back. Have I learned some tricks along the way ? Sure. But sawing on these is dirt simple. I could give you an hour of instruction, and you'd be well on your way.....especially if you send your blades out to someone else (that wasn't an option in 1991) to sharpen, and just saw.


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## moeh1 (Jan 6, 2012)

I've got the older Norwood LL24. Its a very manual process, but I taught myself how to saw with it and make some nice custom lumber that I'm pleased with. I will chip in that I've helped and watched other mill operators before and had a decent idea of what was going on. 
I got a great deal on mine new in original boxes, but i do see used machines going for a steal now and then. Mine is not mobile, I personally would be looking at a woodmizer if I wanted that as I don't have much exposure to the newer Norwoods.

Norwood and Forestryforum have sawmilling forums on them, Woodmizer has an online magazine, might be good background reading for you.
Best


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