I've been milling local lumber since 1982, first on a neighbor's 40" radial Foley Bellsaw powered by a Chevy 350, then with an Alaskan sawmill, and now I own an LT40. I have never found small dimensional, construction lumber (one bys through 2X8s) to be profitable. 4X8s and up are profitable and take much less time to mill. I would reach out to a few general contractors and let them know you can cut large beams and posts to order. You can offer them at a price that is profitable to you and saves them a lot of money. My most profitable milling was always live edge slabs. I would mill standing dead cedar and Doug fir into wide live edge slabs (16"+ wide, 6'-8' long, 2" thick). I would build a few live edge slab benches, load them and about 25 slabs into my pickup truck, drive to Grass Valley/Nevada City CA, park in a large pullout on the side of highway 49 or 20, set out a couple of benches and lean about 6 slabs standing up against my pickup truck. The slabs I would consistently sell for $75-$100 each. The plain (no back) benches I sold for $150. Benches with backs $250 each. I also received orders for slab tables that fetched $1,500+. That was in 1994. I now live in North Central WA. I recently sold an Aspen live edge slab table for $3,300 and two benches for $350 each. There are a couple of tree trimming guys down in the valley below me who will call me and offer me the butt logs off "yard trees" they are hired to remove. They don't want to mess with the butt logs, so if I come with my trailer when they call, they will load butt logs of maple, elm, walnut, and oak onto my trailer for free. I know a few woodworkers around the area, and occasionally I will call them and let them know I will be milling hardwoods "upon request" in an upcoming Saturday. I usually get 3-4 woodworkers to show up. I throw say a maple log on the mill and take off a slab to reveal the inside. The wood workers take a peak. I then ask, "what do you want me to cut?" I then mill the boards they ask me to right then and there. They love it, and I have a blast watching them drool and bicker over the boards. I have sold quite a few boards that way. Large (18"+ wide, 6'-8' long, 2"-4" thick) maple slabs can sell for $400 each. I've never tried to make a full blown business from my milling. It's more of a hobby that pays for itself and gives me a ton of enjoyment and has a social element to it as well.
A lot of good information there. The trees I am working with right now to thin out the forest are not very big and not very straight. Occasionally I have been working with a few that are good for bigger timbers and those are what are selling most. But most of what I am working with right now is the type trees that just produce the smaller common lumber that isn’t that profitable. Those trees are just better to send to the commercial mills. Once I get those trees thinned out I can move on to better material then maybe pursue more of the timber material.
@@WilsonForestLands With the smaller tops, I mill dunnage and cribbing. Heavy equipment operators love the dunnage and will almost always take some. I'll cut one 6X6, 7X7, 8X7, etc. from a six foot tree top, whatever it will produce. Dimension doesn't matter, really, whatever the top will produce. Wane on the corners is usually acceptable. Some will twist bad, so I cut those into 24"-32" long chunks. They are still handy for a lot of uses. I always have a pile of them handy, no need to even sticker them, as they're just gonna get abused anyways.
Ride on we use to prospect all over California including French gulch last chance ext. I was born there in that place lol. Anyway I ended up after all my travels I landed in Tennessee bien here 21 yrs on and off,to get to my point I’ve got a wood business and rescently bought a mill and have lots of experience selling thing on the sides of highways involving wood so your story was cool for me to hear.
Never quit. Your in the best wood. I would cry in ontario to be cutting that, the mill is probably payed off just with the looks from your little pile of saw dust. Milling is my passion, cut in winter haul with skidoo stock pile for summer fun. Kept out of sun the wood is good for years and years. When lumber prices go up then your ready. Or build anything any size for yourself really cheap. Don't quit stay positive it's a great spot
Such a heartbreaking realisation. Even when just doing projects around the farm I’m plagued with the reality that things will take 3x as long if I log it, mill it, and then build it. I want to build a gabled carport using questionable lumber, imagine the risk I’m taking parking my truck underneath it for the next 20yrs, not to mention the heartache of rebuilding it if the lumber doesn’t hold up. Already spent a few $k just buying lumber to build the sawmill shed so I didn’t have to work under sun. I drew a line in the sand at that point and said if I can’t build at least half a project out of milled lumber then I won’t build it. Thanks for hearing my rant! 😅
Guess I don't understand. If you own the mill, the land, and the logs what are you worried about? We got more lumber pilled around the yard than we know what to do with. The problem most owners run into is they mill everything they need so fast, they can't really justify owning the mill anymore. Unless you start milling for others that is
u can mill better stuff than u can buy i have sawn more than enough to build a barn and still havent cleared out the building site by the time im finished clearing ill have enough for a house shure it takes longer but the overall profit is worth it
I do appreciate the comments I get. Some are a wealth of information. I do like to respond to them but I have been getting so many lately it’s getting difficult to keep up. Thanks for your comment.
Nice to see a honest review of the realities of a small bandsaw mill. In my area there are many people doing milling as a side hustle. The problem is, even the local smaller production mills beat them on price and quality. They always compare their price for hardwoods to Home Depot or Lowe’s, which they do beat however, they don’t come close to the small production mills. Having said that, I would still like to have a small hobby mill.
Having said what you said and what I said, I am still looking forward to getting back to the mill this fall after wildfire season ends to do a little milling. It’s something I enjoy doing.
If I could get my physical energy back, I’d love to have even a small mill. One small project and the stater mill would pay for itself. I know a guy that restores vintage trailers, lives in Nevada, says a 1x6 or 1x8 x 10’ is like $24, crazy!
That's the problem around here. There's a lot of woodmizers around. There are tons of guys who will mill for nothing. The cheapest guy is 65.00 per hour. The most expensive is around 150.00 per hour. The average mill owner is at 80.00 per hour in this area. I counted 20 mills open for business on facebook within two hours from me.
I have plans to buy wooded land, buy a sawmill and a tractor and build a timber framed house. I am sick of the lack of care regarding insulation, ac units. Plumbing, mechanical systems etc. I just want to build my own home and know everything was done correctly.
I bought my saw a few years back but never with the thought of selling lumber , I realized that that market was not worth the effort . But I could design and build structures , gazebos etc that were more beefy then those built by the commercial sellers , sheds with unique designs etc that caught peoples eyes as unique .
Wilson Forest Lands, my family has been in the Sawmill/Lumber business since 1948, and I’m 3rd generation in the industry. I own a Baker full hydraulic mill, with flip table, return belt, etc, for a two man operation to cut 6-7m feet per day. These lower lumber prices won’t last forever, and rest assured, when the demand returns again in the next few years, the price will go to excessive levels never imagined. The secret in the current low cost environment is to find a product that is in a niche market that doesn’t exist from the large mills. You’ve got to cut special custom sizes. Beams, custom cuts, or value added cuts. You can’t compete with the large mills cutting 1x4, 2x4, 2x6, etc, within the current low end markets. The only time you can make money within the market your trying to serve is the short period of time the supply doesn’t exist which is usually only for a short season or up to 1 year at the most, and after that rise in demand in the markets always drop out. It’s a long term return, and you’ve got to know the industry well enough to make money in the tough times. My Grandfather always said, if it was easy Pickens Grandmas would be doin it.
There’s a thousand things you could use the lumber to add value to it. You could build trusses. You could sell barn and shed kits. You could use the lumber to build modular homes. One thing for sure is it’s not going to cut itself down.
Good on you. The superpower of micro mills is that they can start up and shut down in response to market conditions. Georgia Pacific can't look at low lumber prices and say, "well, this is a good time for all twelve thousand people who support our sawmill to go on vacation, anyway." Even a small commercial mill has hundreds of people- workers, truckers, loggers- depending on it staying in more or less continual operation. But you don't have to coordinate with anybody but yourself and your customers.
I retired in 2020 from the military and built my own to prove I could do it. I learned a ton doing it and had a blast. I figured out very quickly that it just wasn’t worth my time, my truck and my back hustling to get logs. I switched to machining and never regretted it. Too many guys in it and too many people trying to get the same logs I was.
I have had a similarly configured sawmill for about 2 years now. I own it with my son-in-law. I would never have expected to make enough money to be worth the work with a sawmill that small and especially selling softwood. I'm not saying it can't be done but these small manual mills are an enormous amount of work for one person. I have a tractor with forks and even then it is a lot of hard, time consuming labor. Now, if you had a source of high dollar hardwood and ready buyers at hand that's a different story. Having said that, my similar sawmill has paid for itself with the lumber we have cut and used for various building projects (not including the cost of our labor and time!). I think this is about the only way these small mills make sense and even then only if you enjoy the milling. We both do. Neither of us wants to do it every day but we enjoy the logging and milling and using our own resources. So if you enjoy the work and need a fair amount of lumber for your own use I think these small manual mills are great.
Thanks for the video ---I've always wondered how having a small mill might work out. Wow! A good many tough comments. I appreciate your sharing the realities of that business. I live in urban Seattle and heat with wood. I have zero wood of my own, but nearby light industrial businesses throw of lots of scrap wood they are glad to have me haul home so they don't have to pay to dispose of it. Much of it is random lengths of dimensional lumber which I just cut to length on my table saw if needed. Also a lot of chunks that don't even need to be cut ---just tossed in the stove. Of course, wood heat is never "free"! There a lot of labor to that but as a retiree it's something I enjoy. I'm guessing that high interest rates cut the guts out of construction and the lumber needed for that. The big growth industry continues to be government and the taxes and debt that finance it. I shake my head in wonder with what goes on in California, which makes Washington State and Seattle look almost sane by comparison.
Enjoy your time off, you are spot on about the economy since 2020. If you don't mind me asking, what does Doug fir pay per thousand bf? Hemlock logs were through the roof last year. Worthless this year. White pine stays about the same give or take a few cents. We can sell all the 1x10's and 1x12's we can cut. It goes for cabin, barn, and shed siding. "Bat n board" 4- 1x12x8 boards with batting is a lot cheaper than plywood. Clear "no knots" 1x whatever, sell really fast as well and a higher price than siding. Like others have said, large timber's as well but handling them can be a pain. We enjoy your videos as I'm sure a lot others do as well. Hang in there.
Right now DF is a little over $800 per MBF at the peeler mill. Just under $800 at the stud mill. That is for long logs Scribner scale. They were at about $1100 a while back.
I bought my LT40 Super in 2000 without having done a lot of market research. I'm in Indiana and saw hardwoods which were hard to locate in small quantities for the amateur woodworker. I built 3 solar kilns and a large warehouse. Despite not having done my homework, word got around and I spent as much time marketing as sawing. I can't say I ever thought it could be a highly profitable business but I love wood and selling to woodworkers and making enough that I haven't had to touch my retirement money. I will say that if all I had was an LT15 I would have given up years ago. There are lots of those around under tattered blue tarps.
I think you have an advantage in that part of the country with all your hardwoods. I enjoy milling and working with wood and I’m glad to be back to doing it as more of a hobby.
@@WilsonForestLands You have to make your money with custom lumber. A large beam should cover and then some of all the off cuts from the log. Sell them and it's all profit. Does make it tougher with your sized mill but everyone starts somewhere I guess.
Trying to make a hobby into a business isnt easy. But if you make your own doors / tables windows the mill is awesome. Also use it to make up window / door trim, cabinet material , large custom rafters / beams. Mostly not to sell . Your right about having a huge supply of pine . I noticed the blue stained pine is now in demand where a few years ago Mills wouldnt accept it. Cedar definitely the wood in demand if you can get it. One thing that is a problem selling wood is bugs in the wood that make a showing a year or two later with little piles of sawdust they leave behind on the floor. All in all I love wood milling.
I weighed out buy a mill but found its easier to take my logs to have them milled, I just get a bunch together and run them over when I get low, hell he even unloads them and loads them up on my trailer plus he gets rid of the junk :)
When I stopped at Woodmizer once to look the products over in 1992, a Woodmizer representative stated that a good way to go is to use a Woodmizer to make a products such as cabins or deer blinds rather than making sawdust.
first mill I worked at was also an "exterior siding" mill. they would buy medium grade lumber in bulk from canada, plain it down a bit and put chemical and paint on it to sell as exterior siding instead of structural lumber. they turn quite the profit just from remanufacturing lumber into a different product.
I was able to pay a guy to mill lumber, that bought his own mill. I thought that was a nice compromise in time vs money. His father sharpened the blades. So, I harvested the logs, and put up a small structure. I still bought 2x8's from the lumber store.
Good move! I like to think about how much money I am saving running my own mill. If I include cutting, clearing, stacking, milling, drying, etc. Buying lumber is cheap! Its a lot like fishing, the most expensive meat one will eat is at the end of their line.
Good job thinking thru the cost - benefit angle. Some guys just stick with doing the same thing & get bitter. Moving on to other projects makes sense. It’ll come back around. It always does.
I've been very interested in started my own hobby sawmill. As somebody who has worked in the mill industry for 3 years, one this I've noticed is that specialty products makes a lot of money. I work at a fencing mill, and that market is going way way down. we Mill cedar and fir, the fir is treated with mycostat and some is stained. My buddy works at a reman mill that makes tongue and groove and such products, they even use some of our products and turn them into a higher quality higher value product. Making a substantial amount of profit from buying and repurposing lumber, pretty high recovery
East coast here just inherited land with white oak and walnut lots of giants im not interested in selling to a log outfit and videos like yours are a huge help in telling me if i should mill some myself mostly love edge furniture type lumber
Well I'm enjoyed your videos. brings back a lot of memories for me. I built a little sawmill in Clay County West Virginia in the 90s, before I came out to California. it had a 60 inch blade and a school bus motor set up a blower for the sawdust bought a four-wheel-drive tractor 6 foot high rear tires 4 foot high front tires bought and repaired a log truck wound up hauling logs for a local sawmill so I was out in the woods in the mud and snow on their jobsites driving logs back to the mill two or three times a day it was dangerous work and a lot of close calls a few saw cuts one particular time where where a log I just cut the top Free after falling it decided to walk me back 20 feet up against another tree stump 6 inches of squishing me like a bug it's starting to feel like like 10 years of riding dirt bikes with all the close calls anyway I quit the dirt bikes left the Mill I'm in beautiful weather in California and I've been here ever since now i ride mountain bikes gives me back a little piece of that takes me further out into nature! thanks for the videos!
@@WilsonForestLands Well, if you were my neighbor, I’d come over and help you and tell you a few stories how many years do you have? There was an old guy named Charlie Young his wife, ran the post office in Bomont Clay County West Virginia this guy was a millionaire lived in a single wide trailer on 1000 acres. He said his best day was when his dad came home with 450 John Deere bulldozer with a six way blade and the next morning he didn’t have to get up and feed the horses just get logs that man told me stories every day for a year helped me with my mill in every way possible he sit down on the floor in a sharpened draw out machines tell me stories I couldn’t of done it without him he was like a father to me a father I never had wished I had I’d love to tell you stories and help you catch some boards, but I’m down here in Southern California for the last 32 years stayed because I couldn’t believe that it’s the weather this good anywhere on the planet never managed to buy a home, but I never wanted for anything really other than a home I could call my own but I’ve had a good life I feel like the luckiest man in the world wonderful wife and wonderful daughter trying to figure out what I’m gonna do with the last 20 years of my life I ride mountain bikes every day you stay safe out there it’s been really good to hear your stories. Thank you.
The woodmizer lx 25 with upgraded motor has paid off with just 3 large pines. I covered entire cabin on a river plus newwsw beams and post under it. I got 5 stacks cut now for pole barn. I just put down the 6x6 post. Using full 2x12s for floor. I am 62 I do more than 2 or three people do. My trees are 22 diameter and up and I winch them out using pulleys ect. I hand roll them on mill all Dat long in this south ga. Heat. I will prevail.
Do what's right for you in the now. I watch milling vids for enjoyment - have an LX25 purely for personal use, going to be building a log cabin, so not driven by seeing it produce $$ - pure hobbyist. Will look forward to vids on the coastal property, should those come to be - I'm betting the project will be a cabin...but that might be personal bias! Fair winds and following seas!
That was more of my idea when I bought the mill. To use it for enjoyment and not so much focusing on profit. Instead of using it to process the massive amount of what I need to take off the place, I may get back to using it more for its original intended purpose.
The good thing about taking a break is, it will probably make it more enjoyable when conditions improve and I do start doing some milling. Thanks for the comment.
The abundance of Doug fir is geographic! So to keep your mill running it would seem you need to do 1 of 2 things: either transport it to a location where it is in demand or develop a finished product using Doug fir that you can retail using online commerce
Wood Mizer nice units made Indianapolis. Just spent time Kalispell, White Fish and Missoula Montana and Cour d’Alene Idaho. There are a lot more custom homes being built northwest part of country than Midwest. Interest rates definitely holding down lumber prices. Enjoyed your video.
That is good to know because that’s the part I am most interested in too. My heart is more in the managing the forest side more than the being a lumber salesman side.
I had a large Poplar hit by lighting. The logs were too nice to think about making into firewood. Invested in an Alaskan Sawmill to give it a try. Made some nice 1 1/4” x 24” x 12’ live edge slabs out of one log. I was going to use it for myself somewhere. Just sold 8 of them for $2800. I cut the next log as 2” x 24” x 12’ live edge. I has me thinking about a mill and selectively processing from my 44 acres of mixed hardwood forest in Southern Maryland.
Well I almost didn’t click because I thought that’s just click bait lol. But you’re serious and have good reason for it. Maybe it’s time to build a product with the lumber instead of selling it. Like little sheds or something. You know the saying about a pound of steel is worth 50cents but a pound of steel in the form of needles is worth $100.
It is a good suggestion and I might do a little bit of that. My interest and focus is more on the forest management side so my time to spend on manufacturing is limited. But I may incorporate some of that at some point.
So much fantastic information in this video. Living in western washington I find it funny that 35k for 5 acres is too much out that way when you'd be lucky to get 1/4 acre for $35 khere😅
I agree. If you can find a big cedar, pecan, or something like that that has a pretty grain that somebody would want to use for a dining room table or custom furniture. That's probably hard to find up in the mountains where you are.
I have a small 24" sawmill that I use as a hobby only. It's cheap, and does me just fine as long as I can get the lumber for projects. But I do understand you.
encouragement for you to "buck it up", better times will come along. You have and still are going through a process of discovery, your dream of selling lumber has not materialized, but it does not have to be a fatal blow as you seem to feel at present. Probably by now you have realized the facts that previously you missed. That mill is not commercial oriented, well not to a large scale operation anyway. Your wood is all too common, if you were milling exotic hardwoods or spalted and highly figured woods for specialty use, as in live edge tables, hobby wood workers, wood turners, it would probably be a much higher likelihood of a commercial success. At best you are a select niche wood sawyer so best to bow out of the idea that you can compete in the massive dimensional lumber market.
Start timber framing! You could pre cut 'kits' for the dumb stuff people put together in their backyard, pole barns, carports etc. Here in the southeast I would love some nice big straight doug fir.
It’s a good suggestion. My interest is more in managing my land and timber than it is manufacturing products. That’s the main reason I haven’t got into doing things like that. But I may, it might be a good idea.
I made my own ash boards for my kitchenfloor. From standing tree to finished tongue and groove boards. I estimate that it cost about 30$ a square foot at 25$ hr. Full length boards all different width makes a very beautiful floor but nobody in there right mind would pay 30 pr foot for a floor. I have black walnut, cedar, hackberry, hard maple and lots of ash. Havent sold 30 dollars worth.
I think that’s the way a lot of do it yourself projects end up. Expensive if we calculate the time. I imagine you appreciate your floor more though doing it yourself. I have some projects coming up that I will be cutting my own lumber for. it would probably make more sense to buy the lumber but there’s something about doing it yourself.
Sure your ash floor looks great. I’m doing a rustic cherry floor this summer with small production mill product - kiln dried 3/4” 4” TG matched ends for $2.14 a SF. I don’t know how anybody could match that price with their hobby sawmill. They are asking more than $2.50 per board foot for rough sawn green cherry.
You don't buy a manual mill, for profit. Sometimes it's not even fun. You buy a manual mill because you have certain logs or wood you wish to cut for yourself. If you are young, enjoy sawing lumber, have hopes of upgrading once you learn the ropes, then you will enjoy it. Portable saw milling for profit is long over. Too many mills out there, and lumber prices have dropped. I've had the three big sawmill manufacturers mills so far. TimberKing, Woodmizer, and Norwood. Woodmizer is the tops, hands down. But none are worth a damn, if you think you are going to make a living from one. A couple of extra bucks once the mill is paid for? Yes. But it takes a lumber yard, drying kiln, and support equipment to make money. Sorry folks, it's the truth. Manufacturers pay portable millers to do commercials (through free blades, equipment parts, etc.), but less than one tenth of one percent are making the dream they show as reality.
I remember framing houses with KD milled Doug Fir 2x4"s back in the 70s out here in MA and it was so much better and stronger than the spruce. I also remember when everyone and their brother had a little mill on the back 40. Not anymore. Why? There is no money in it. I recently had some big estern white pine trees cut down that were too close to the house and too big for my mill. The forester said he would grind and mulch them. Right now the tall heavy pines are blowing down due to tons of rain and high winds. I will need to skid them over to the mill and cut them into 8-12" boards for projects as time allows. Take a break, hang tough and saw when you start to miss it.
I also have a manual mill, but do not try to make a living with it. I am a woodworker, and my thought was to supply my own addiction. Here in Kansas we have walnut, ash, elm, cottonwood, and a few other species worth cutting, but mostly I just wanted to avoid paying 8$ a board foot for walnut. Before I bought a mill had some guys mill for me, and they just wanted to rip me off, and instead of using the 4/4 scale, and just sawed it on the inch scale, and much of the wood would not clean up at 3/4. Got frustrated and bought a Cooks MP32.
I am down here in Arkansas, we have commercial mills every 50-60 miles but they don’t do custom sawing. Small mills are sawing pallet parts or if you have white oak, they will buy 16-24 ft white oak for trailer flooring. They don’t buy cedar or red oak, you haul in they pay 75 a ton. Might cost 35-50 a ton for hauling. Here you can cut into firewood for more money per hour.
My biggest problem with selling lumber is people that expect to make an appointment at the end of a long hard day just to sell them three boards. Other people show up and expect you to figure out what they need and how to build things. I think I'm going to build sheds instead.
Holy cow you said a mouthful there, I'd say most of us see the market prices going up and down. Not a big deal. I get a job to do, I go get trees to mill for that particular job, I build it , I charge them accordingly to see them smile, we all say thank you and go on to the next one. It's really easy. From just hearing you complain about milling and prices, I'd suggest that you sell it and start drinking heavily if it bothers you so much. You sounded like my mom. Good luck !
I had a LT30 years ago and cutting was my sole income, it was a hard go for the things you mention. Sold it and became an electrician, good move. Years later I bought a Woodland mills HM122 strictly as a hobby. I have a ton of beetle kill tamarack and enjoy cutting as a hobby, big difference. If you expect to make a living sawing you better specialize , especially with these low production mills.
So we moved from Northern Maine where I had access to all kinds of lumber to the Matsu Valley in Alaska…and it’s tough sourcing wood for the mill here…beetle kill spruce…going on 4 years now garbage…or birch..if you can find one thicker than 12 inches your lucky…cottonwood some very big ones 30-36 inches…but only good for trim..interior stuff….very tough….LT40 WIDE…figure I could sell it…but not ready yet.
@kurtdowny I use a good oil based paint, put them out of the weather and sun. It takes a couple of years. But it's most worth it. If you can keep it above 45 degrees, even better. No warpage, or rotting.
I think it depends a lot on what trees you can get to make lumber walnut, cypress, oak , cedar should all be profitable, so many storms are knocking trees down all over, too bad they cannnot be salvaged for wood
You need to see the price of lumber in the UK, infact I cannot buy the lumber I need except from one timber yard 10" x 1" planned all round Ive convered it for you $7 a foot. £21 per metre which is 39.25 inches. I wanted it for beehive boxes I can buy them cheaper all cut to size.
It’s the same in Ireland. I’m going to get one of these small mills to mill my own lumber. We are trying to build a barns and a house, plus we’re starting a woodworking business. I figure it would be cheaper this way.
We're in the same "boat" so to speak in Linn County with the heat/fire danger. I however can't stop, because I'm still recovering the windthrows from this past winter. Another small advantage is the low fire danger of work on the "electric tree farm." Using the battery-powered equipment is safer/cooler to run during these conditions. (I'll stop there, so as not to excite the battery-powered equipment haters.) Enjoy the time off, I'm envious. Cheers from your neighbour to the North.
If the electric Grid goes down and there’s no gasoline to buy. solar and battery power is the only thing that will work, that sense of off grid, back up alone, justifies, electric tools, and vehicles personally, I find I need a lot of batteries, but I don’t miss the smell and the sound
Regardless of what the battery powered haters think, the fire danger situation is a legitimate advantage to battery powered equipment. Considering at some point we won’t even be allowed to use the gas powered equipment when fire danger gets too high.
I have several Doug Fir trees down at my place and a neighbor with a nice sawmill. $50 an hour to cut me up a bunch of lumber that I don't know what to use it for yet. I do need another woodshed but just a small 8 x 16. I only burn it when in my garage. Just don't want to make them logs into firewood. My other shed has been full for several years now. I could buy a lot lumber at Grey Lumber in Tacoma Washington for that kind of $. He has stopped over a few times to see if I'm ready. Will see if I want to stack and dry some more boards. I did that years ago and built a nice 32 x 60 shop 16 ft walls on 2 ft stem wall. That worked out well. Inspector didn't see in my plans the county approved in small print said #2 doug fir or ruff sawn lumber. LOL I showed him that and he signed off for framing inspection. Remember that when you get your plans approved at the county building.
Proposal: experimentally try THIS to make better quality warp free boards: don't cut the tree, cut off a ring of bark and let the tree stand and dry for one, two or three years vertically, before felling it! Then maybe you can dry the whole trunk for another couple of years; without cracking? When You finally saw the dry trunk into boards, they should be much better! (if my idea doesn't work in 2-3yrs, maybe it needs 10-20 years vertical drying to really have a measurable humudity effect in the center of the tree; but that is really a long draw!)
If you want to get into milling lumber for just the satisfaction, build your own mill, don't buy one. Money can't buy happiness. You have to make that for yourself. Ultimately it is your choice in what will and won't satisfy you.
Well, I bought my Woodland Mills band sawmill in 2015 because I have 33 acres of old growth forest, huge eastern white pines in the 18” to 48” diameter, spruce, fir, beech, white cedar, white and yellow birch, apple, butternut, sugar and rock maple etc. I never had a plan to sell the lumber just mill it for my own use, making rustic furniture, but, that didn’t last long once the word got out, so now I do custom sawing only, nothing that can be purchased at the local lumber store or sawmill. It’s a lot more satisfying when it’s for personal use and not commercial. Sounds like you had a plan but the world took a turn for the worse and now your stuck with a mill and forest.
As I said in the video, my plan was not to sell much if any lumber. But after I got it, the lumber world unexpectedly took a turn for the better and the price of lumber shot up to ridiculous levels. That’s when I decided to start selling some. Now that it’s back to more normal, I can go back to my original plan. Just use the mill a little here and there and sell the logs to the commercial mill. Not stuck with anything.
The real money in one of these mills is making your own custom lumber to build your own home. The possibilities are endless as far as the type of home. Stick, log, or whatever fits your fancy in between. Wood mizer has a huge presence at the outdoor shows and that gets passed onto the consumer just like stihl chainsaws. If your initial cost is high it takes you longer to recover that cost. Be your own guide but that is my two cents worth.
We are planing on building our barns and our house. The cost of lumber where I live is insane. We also do woodworking cnc and laser work so we can use as much wood as we can get.
Perhaps not but they will. I’ve been running one for the past year and a half, cutting Doug for and cedar. Definitely not the ideal machine for running eight hrs a day but very capable of doing so while chucking out some beautiful lumber.
If I owned a Mill for my own personal use, I would make fireplace mantles and table tops. They fetch thousands depending on the slab quality. We are getting one at the Farm, but that Mill will be busy with building projects.
Where I live is in the SE part of Ohio, which is covered with forest. Everyone has wood. I have very mature hickory and oak and I have way more firewood that I could ever use. I used to sell to campers because this is a tourist area. There must be 200 people selling firewood within 10 miles of me. I am 45 miles from Columbus and wood sells at a reasonable prices there but transportation eats up my profit. I can't give it away here. I know how you feel.
I bought a manual bandsaw mill a few years ago for 4k that was a demonstration unit. Thought I could earn some $$ and have some for my own use. The only thing I was able to sell was some live edge black walnut and even that went pretty cheap. Lot of people had the same idea as I did and mills are a lot more common now. Since it wasn’t that big of an investment I will keep it for my own use but as using to generate cash forget about that.
IN 1976dad bought a 52 inch circle sawmill.He messed with putting a Mack diesel engine on it with an air clutch all summer.We are short of logs around here so we would have hadno competition.Iremember telling dad .if we could clear $30 A DAY,it would be worth me becoming self employed.....ON PAPER,we couldnt have done it more than a couple days in a row...thats not figuring the unknown expenses..Of course,one reason is we were making the cheapest commodity EVER..PALLET lumber..As bad as l am entranced,ive never tried to go whole hog into it...I love to see these marketing wizards producing specialty lumber,THE ONLY WAY to actually make a living.
I watched so many ‘covid mills’ getting bought and kept thinking ‘these guys are going to be sitting around in a few years’. You cannot compete with dimensional lumber. Big mills will always be cheaper. But you can mill custom size (6/4, etc) and beams, plus live edge. I have never ‘not’ had a sawmill, because I love milling. But I have also never expected to earn a living with one.
after all us small farmers went out of business local family owned mill 3 miles from my place tried to keep it going with contract to make pallets local budweiser botting company but even with that they could'nt afford employee's anymore everything ended up big auction sale the next nearest sawmill is 2 counties away from me and home depot is 24 miles shit ton of traffic road construction detours to get there all my project on hold right now 😖
Maybe if you get really bored you could do a video on your logging accessories for getting the logs from point A to point B. Don't make the mistake of selling your mill. 👍🍺
I do have videos using my logging equipment. But maybe I don’t have one where I just talk about the equipment specifically. Maybe a good idea. Thanks for the suggestion.
I don’t have any plans to sell the mill. For all I know prices could shoot up again and I might start milling again. And I have some other uses for it.
...i'm still logged in ...the post beam construction was depressing a little the explaination for one big place staying with pressure treated wood post into dirt as better than the two options described there as a concrete pad with a steel insert to bolt the bottom of the beam sitting on it was flimbsy in wind laterally , while the beam into concrete rotted worse supposedly somehow the thing is they always rot just above ground or concrete connection because the water condenses and evaporates more there so a steel post into the ground with some non permeable heavy acrylic maybe inside the steel sleeve which extends maybe atleast a a foot and half 2 feet above ground still sleeved , i saw a parking lot post the same day and realized that would last longer than other posts , i went with cinderblock post supports on concrete footer with 10 foot rebars and high strength fill filled to top of beam seems more traditional except the grout substitution due to cost....../ranting still maybe theres a beam post to below frostline tinker in there with a goal of no ground or at ground rot could use hdpe filled galvanized steel maybe ..../ too much to explain ....
I wish I had a Woodmizer. It probably wouldn't pay for itself. I have a lot of walnut that I could saw up. White pine too. I could find other nice hardwoods to slice up too.
Mine easily paid for itself but that was when the price of the type of lumber we have here shot up. If you have walnut and other nice hardwoods, that’s a different story. I think that kind of wood is a lot more valuable than what we have out here. When you have that kind of high dollar wood, it may be completely different economics than what we have out here.
It makes more sense to use metal studs. They come pre drilled for electrical wiring and plumbing. They don't rot and are termite proof. They don't warp with age. Masonry outer and main bearing walls with metal studs and rafters are even better.
Lost all my doug fir trees to a fire last year so I’m buying a mill to make use of the charred but still valuable standing dead wood. It’s ironic because i wanted to sell the logs to a mill but the land is too difficult to make the deal come out cash positive. So I’m better off milling and using the timber for my own projects which will pay for the mill many times over.
Thank you for the comment but you lost me on the hose and bucket. I don’t always remember what’s in my older videos. Not sure of what I might have been using a bucket for in a video.
Adapt. Learn markets, refine into products. Bandmils are just a tool, business is about creating markets or finding them. That said the mill industry is particularly tough to deal with because of its feast or famine and fluctuating log costs.
I decided I needed a saw mill because we live in an old northern california black walnut orchard. And I was right! Juglans Hindsii is the cats meow of walnuts. I've slabbed 3 so far, around 20" dia. and I'm getting ready cut another tree, 11ft straight, 20" dia. And I have pine and black oak to mill if I want to.
I'm in love with the idea of milling my own lumber, but it's more just to clear and use the lumber for myself; I don't think I'd ever want to try to make it into a money-maker...
Not sure how well you build but why not make sheds, shelters, pens, etc. ? What about Hip Camps? Camp grounds? People are looking for ways out of the cities for various lengths of time.
random thought but i saw a vid on here yt , it looked like in florida maybe anyway the man drills a shallow non-potable iirc well using a pressure-washer and pvc in 10' and i think one larger sleeve maybe , the thing about a well is if it's deep or tests good it's drinkable but a solar powered electric motor can be used , i fooled myself because i watched a vid here from somewhere in south east asia where a phd american man from north carolina designed their 4 or 5 barrel water filter using sand, gravel , window sceen , plastic barrel drums , pvc and charcoal could work for a rain filter but it need hieght to use a pump free ball valve or else it's same set up as a well but big hassle ...soundboarding i realized maybe the non potable water from well goes to that filter too maybe but anyway you could hose down your property for free with solar and one of those , i've been designing gutter system to go below a porch and carport roof , between the two roofs and most to rain storage as described for maybe washer machine and toilet for example ....i have other ideas but they get vultured and it's another self only forest gump d%d% ...oh the thing about my gutter makes sense is the independant roff have higher pitch than the house to act as wind fairings and better adjust from no roof or shade or full roof and maybe a greenhouse too for wintertime...../ranting take care hope you're safe ,
![ลองสุ่มไอโฟน 990 โกงมั้ย? [ โกงมั้ยครับ ep.101 ] | DOM](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/bfsWe0j492k/mqdefault.jpg)
I've been milling local lumber since 1982, first on a neighbor's 40" radial Foley Bellsaw powered by a Chevy 350, then with an Alaskan sawmill, and now I own an LT40. I have never found small dimensional, construction lumber (one bys through 2X8s) to be profitable. 4X8s and up are profitable and take much less time to mill. I would reach out to a few general contractors and let them know you can cut large beams and posts to order. You can offer them at a price that is profitable to you and saves them a lot of money. My most profitable milling was always live edge slabs. I would mill standing dead cedar and Doug fir into wide live edge slabs (16"+ wide, 6'-8' long, 2" thick). I would build a few live edge slab benches, load them and about 25 slabs into my pickup truck, drive to Grass Valley/Nevada City CA, park in a large pullout on the side of highway 49 or 20, set out a couple of benches and lean about 6 slabs standing up against my pickup truck. The slabs I would consistently sell for $75-$100 each. The plain (no back) benches I sold for $150. Benches with backs $250 each. I also received orders for slab tables that fetched $1,500+. That was in 1994. I now live in North Central WA. I recently sold an Aspen live edge slab table for $3,300 and two benches for $350 each. There are a couple of tree trimming guys down in the valley below me who will call me and offer me the butt logs off "yard trees" they are hired to remove. They don't want to mess with the butt logs, so if I come with my trailer when they call, they will load butt logs of maple, elm, walnut, and oak onto my trailer for free. I know a few woodworkers around the area, and occasionally I will call them and let them know I will be milling hardwoods "upon request" in an upcoming Saturday. I usually get 3-4 woodworkers to show up. I throw say a maple log on the mill and take off a slab to reveal the inside. The wood workers take a peak. I then ask, "what do you want me to cut?" I then mill the boards they ask me to right then and there. They love it, and I have a blast watching them drool and bicker over the boards. I have sold quite a few boards that way. Large (18"+ wide, 6'-8' long, 2"-4" thick) maple slabs can sell for $400 each. I've never tried to make a full blown business from my milling. It's more of a hobby that pays for itself and gives me a ton of enjoyment and has a social element to it as well.
A lot of good information there. The trees I am working with right now to thin out the forest are not very big and not very straight. Occasionally I have been working with a few that are good for bigger timbers and those are what are selling most. But most of what I am working with right now is the type trees that just produce the smaller common lumber that isn’t that profitable. Those trees are just better to send to the commercial mills. Once I get those trees thinned out I can move on to better material then maybe pursue more of the timber material.
@@WilsonForestLands With the smaller tops, I mill dunnage and cribbing. Heavy equipment operators love the dunnage and will almost always take some. I'll cut one 6X6, 7X7, 8X7, etc. from a six foot tree top, whatever it will produce. Dimension doesn't matter, really, whatever the top will produce. Wane on the corners is usually acceptable. Some will twist bad, so I cut those into 24"-32" long chunks. They are still handy for a lot of uses. I always have a pile of them handy, no need to even sticker them, as they're just gonna get abused anyways.
Ride on we use to prospect all over California including French gulch last chance ext. I was born there in that place lol. Anyway I ended up after all my travels I landed in Tennessee bien here 21 yrs on and off,to get to my point I’ve got a wood business and rescently bought a mill and have lots of experience selling thing on the sides of highways involving wood so your story was cool for me to hear.
I’m 43 years old trying to make my way same as the old timers.There’s a fair chance I passed you at some point down fishing on the American river.
Have you heard of sealing the ends of fresh cut to prevent cracking and warping?
Never quit. Your in the best wood. I would cry in ontario to be cutting that, the mill is probably payed off just with the looks from your little pile of saw dust. Milling is my passion, cut in winter haul with skidoo stock pile for summer fun. Kept out of sun the wood is good for years and years. When lumber prices go up then your ready. Or build anything any size for yourself really cheap. Don't quit stay positive it's a great spot
Good advice.
Such a heartbreaking realisation. Even when just doing projects around the farm I’m plagued with the reality that things will take 3x as long if I log it, mill it, and then build it.
I want to build a gabled carport using questionable lumber, imagine the risk I’m taking parking my truck underneath it for the next 20yrs, not to mention the heartache of rebuilding it if the lumber doesn’t hold up.
Already spent a few $k just buying lumber to build the sawmill shed so I didn’t have to work under sun. I drew a line in the sand at that point and said if I can’t build at least half a project out of milled lumber then I won’t build it.
Thanks for hearing my rant! 😅
Guess I don't understand. If you own the mill, the land, and the logs what are you worried about? We got more lumber pilled around the yard than we know what to do with. The problem most owners run into is they mill everything they need so fast, they can't really justify owning the mill anymore. Unless you start milling for others that is
u can mill better stuff than u can buy i have sawn more than enough to build a barn and still havent cleared out the building site by the time im finished clearing ill have enough for a house shure it takes longer but the overall profit is worth it
As good as your videos are...the comments from other loggers and millers is an awesome add on...and thx for responding to so many of them....
I do appreciate the comments I get. Some are a wealth of information. I do like to respond to them but I have been getting so many lately it’s getting difficult to keep up. Thanks for your comment.
Nice to see a honest review of the realities of a small bandsaw mill. In my area there are many people doing milling as a side hustle. The problem is, even the local smaller production mills beat them on price and quality. They always compare their price for hardwoods to Home Depot or Lowe’s, which they do beat however, they don’t come close to the small production mills.
Having said that, I would still like to have a small hobby mill.
Having said what you said and what I said, I am still looking forward to getting back to the mill this fall after wildfire season ends to do a little milling. It’s something I enjoy doing.
@@WilsonForestLands sometimes that’s all the reason you need
If I could get my physical energy back, I’d love to have even a small mill. One small project and the stater mill would pay for itself. I know a guy that restores vintage trailers, lives in Nevada, says a 1x6 or 1x8 x 10’ is like $24, crazy!
well considered.
That's the problem around here. There's a lot of woodmizers around. There are tons of guys who will mill for nothing. The cheapest guy is 65.00 per hour. The most expensive is around 150.00 per hour. The average mill owner is at 80.00 per hour in this area. I counted 20 mills open for business on facebook within two hours from me.
I have plans to buy wooded land, buy a sawmill and a tractor and build a timber framed house. I am sick of the lack of care regarding insulation, ac units. Plumbing, mechanical systems etc. I just want to build my own home and know everything was done correctly.
I bought my saw a few years back but never with the thought of selling lumber , I realized that that market was not worth the effort . But I could design and build structures , gazebos etc that were more beefy then those built by the commercial sellers , sheds with unique designs etc that caught peoples eyes as unique .
Wilson Forest Lands, my family has been in the Sawmill/Lumber business since 1948, and I’m 3rd generation in the industry. I own a Baker full hydraulic mill, with flip table, return belt, etc, for a two man operation to cut 6-7m feet per day. These lower lumber prices won’t last forever, and rest assured, when the demand returns again in the next few years, the price will go to excessive levels never imagined. The secret in the current low cost environment is to find a product that is in a niche market that doesn’t exist from the large mills. You’ve got to cut special custom sizes. Beams, custom cuts, or value added cuts. You can’t compete with the large mills cutting 1x4, 2x4, 2x6, etc, within the current low end markets. The only time you can make money within the market your trying to serve is the short period of time the supply doesn’t exist which is usually only for a short season or up to 1 year at the most, and after that rise in demand in the markets always drop out. It’s a long term return, and you’ve got to know the industry well enough to make money in the tough times. My Grandfather always said, if it was easy Pickens Grandmas would be doin it.
I’m very fortunate to be surrounded by both softwoods and hardwoods. Hardwood is worth so much more for the same amount of effort.
Yep that is where a sawmill makes a lot of sense, when you have higher dollar material to mill.
There’s a thousand things you could use the lumber to add value to it. You could build trusses. You could sell barn and shed kits. You could use the lumber to build modular homes.
One thing for sure is it’s not going to cut itself down.
Good on you. The superpower of micro mills is that they can start up and shut down in response to market conditions. Georgia Pacific can't look at low lumber prices and say, "well, this is a good time for all twelve thousand people who support our sawmill to go on vacation, anyway." Even a small commercial mill has hundreds of people- workers, truckers, loggers- depending on it staying in more or less continual operation. But you don't have to coordinate with anybody but yourself and your customers.
You make a lot of good points. I don't blame you a bit for cancelling any sawmilling.
I retired in 2020 from the military and built my own to prove I could do it. I learned a ton doing it and had a blast.
I figured out very quickly that it just wasn’t worth my time, my truck and my back hustling to get logs.
I switched to machining and never regretted it. Too many guys in it and too many people trying to get the same logs I was.
What kind of machining? Custom fab/repair or high volume production? Self employed?
I have had a similarly configured sawmill for about 2 years now. I own it with my son-in-law. I would never have expected to make enough money to be worth the work with a sawmill that small and especially selling softwood. I'm not saying it can't be done but these small manual mills are an enormous amount of work for one person. I have a tractor with forks and even then it is a lot of hard, time consuming labor. Now, if you had a source of high dollar hardwood and ready buyers at hand that's a different story.
Having said that, my similar sawmill has paid for itself with the lumber we have cut and used for various building projects (not including the cost of our labor and time!). I think this is about the only way these small mills make sense and even then only if you enjoy the milling. We both do. Neither of us wants to do it every day but we enjoy the logging and milling and using our own resources. So if you enjoy the work and need a fair amount of lumber for your own use I think these small manual mills are great.
Thanks for the video ---I've always wondered how having a small mill might work out.
Wow! A good many tough comments. I appreciate your sharing the realities of that business.
I live in urban Seattle and heat with wood. I have zero wood of my own, but nearby light industrial businesses throw of lots of scrap wood they are glad to have me haul home so they don't have to pay to dispose of it. Much of it is random lengths of dimensional lumber which I just cut to length on my table saw if needed. Also a lot of chunks that don't even need to be cut ---just tossed in the stove.
Of course, wood heat is never "free"! There a lot of labor to that but as a retiree it's something I enjoy.
I'm guessing that high interest rates cut the guts out of construction and the lumber needed for that.
The big growth industry continues to be government and the taxes and debt that finance it. I shake my head in wonder with what goes on in California, which makes Washington State and Seattle look almost sane by comparison.
Enjoy your time off, you are spot on about the economy since 2020. If you don't mind me asking, what does Doug fir pay per thousand bf? Hemlock logs were through the roof last year. Worthless this year. White pine stays about the same give or take a few cents. We can sell all the 1x10's and 1x12's we can cut. It goes for cabin, barn, and shed siding. "Bat n board" 4- 1x12x8 boards with batting is a lot cheaper than plywood. Clear "no knots" 1x whatever, sell really fast as well and a higher price than siding. Like others have said, large timber's as well but handling them can be a pain. We enjoy your videos as I'm sure a lot others do as well. Hang in there.
Right now DF is a little over $800 per MBF at the peeler mill. Just under $800 at the stud mill. That is for long logs Scribner scale. They were at about $1100 a while back.
@@WilsonForestLands wow! That is ridiculously high! Hard maple and cherry doesn't bring that here!
I bought my LT40 Super in 2000 without having done a lot of market research. I'm in Indiana and saw hardwoods which were hard to locate in small quantities for the amateur woodworker. I built 3 solar kilns and a large warehouse. Despite not having done my homework, word got around and I spent as much time marketing as sawing. I can't say I ever thought it could be a highly profitable business but I love wood and selling to woodworkers and making enough that I haven't had to touch my retirement money. I will say that if all I had was an LT15 I would have given up years ago. There are lots of those around under tattered blue tarps.
I think you have an advantage in that part of the country with all your hardwoods. I enjoy milling and working with wood and I’m glad to be back to doing it as more of a hobby.
@@WilsonForestLands You have to make your money with custom lumber. A large beam should cover and then some of all the off cuts from the log. Sell them and it's all profit. Does make it tougher with your sized mill but everyone starts somewhere I guess.
Trying to make a hobby into a business isnt easy. But if you make your own doors / tables windows the mill is awesome. Also use it to make up window / door trim, cabinet material , large custom rafters / beams. Mostly not to sell . Your right about having a huge supply of pine . I noticed the blue stained pine is now in demand where a few years ago Mills wouldnt accept it. Cedar definitely the wood in demand if you can get it. One thing that is a problem selling wood is bugs in the wood that make a showing a year or two later with little piles of sawdust they leave behind on the floor. All in all I love wood milling.
Now that is using your head thinking about the future of everything you love. Good luck on your vacation and always have fun and get some rest.
Thank you James.
I weighed out buy a mill but found its easier to take my logs to have them milled, I just get a bunch together and run them over when I get low, hell he even unloads them and loads them up on my trailer plus he gets rid of the junk :)
When I stopped at Woodmizer once to look the products over in 1992, a Woodmizer representative stated that a good way to go is to use a Woodmizer to make a products such as cabins or deer blinds rather than making sawdust.
first mill I worked at was also an "exterior siding" mill. they would buy medium grade lumber in bulk from canada, plain it down a bit and put chemical and paint on it to sell as exterior siding instead of structural lumber. they turn quite the profit just from remanufacturing lumber into a different product.
I was able to pay a guy to mill lumber, that bought his own mill. I thought that was a nice compromise in time vs money. His father sharpened the blades. So, I harvested the logs, and put up a small structure. I still bought 2x8's from the lumber store.
Good move! I like to think about how much money I am saving running my own mill. If I include cutting, clearing, stacking, milling, drying, etc. Buying lumber is cheap! Its a lot like fishing, the most expensive meat one will eat is at the end of their line.
Good job thinking thru the cost - benefit angle. Some guys just stick with doing the same thing & get bitter. Moving on to other projects makes sense. It’ll come back around. It always does.
Enjoy your time off. Look forward to new videos when you start back. Have a great vacation my friend.
Thank you Timmy.
I've been very interested in started my own hobby sawmill. As somebody who has worked in the mill industry for 3 years, one this I've noticed is that specialty products makes a lot of money. I work at a fencing mill, and that market is going way way down. we Mill cedar and fir, the fir is treated with mycostat and some is stained. My buddy works at a reman mill that makes tongue and groove and such products, they even use some of our products and turn them into a higher quality higher value product. Making a substantial amount of profit from buying and repurposing lumber, pretty high recovery
East coast here just inherited land with white oak and walnut lots of giants im not interested in selling to a log outfit and videos like yours are a huge help in telling me if i should mill some myself mostly love edge furniture type lumber
Well I'm enjoyed your videos. brings back a lot of memories for me. I built a little sawmill in Clay County West Virginia in the 90s, before I came out to California. it had a 60 inch blade and a school bus motor set up a blower for the sawdust bought a four-wheel-drive tractor 6 foot high rear tires 4 foot high front tires bought and repaired a log truck wound up hauling logs for a local sawmill so I was out in the woods in the mud and snow on their jobsites driving logs back to the mill two or three times a day it was dangerous work and a lot of close calls a few saw cuts one particular time where where a log I just cut the top Free after falling it decided to walk me back 20 feet up against another tree stump 6 inches of squishing me like a bug it's starting to feel like like 10 years of riding dirt bikes with all the close calls anyway I quit the dirt bikes left the Mill I'm in beautiful weather in California and I've been here ever since now i ride mountain bikes gives me back a little piece of that takes me further out into nature! thanks for the videos!
😊
Sounds like you would have some great stories to tell. Thanks for the comment.
@@WilsonForestLands
Well, if you were my neighbor, I’d come over and help you and tell you a few stories how many years do you have? There was an old guy named Charlie Young his wife, ran the post office in Bomont Clay County West Virginia this guy was a millionaire lived in a single wide trailer on 1000 acres. He said his best day was when his dad came home with 450 John Deere bulldozer with a six way blade and the next morning he didn’t have to get up and feed the horses just get logs that man told me stories every day for a year helped me with my mill in every way possible he sit down on the floor in a sharpened draw out machines tell me stories I couldn’t of done it without him he was like a father to me a father I never had wished I had I’d love to tell you stories and help you catch some boards, but I’m down here in Southern California for the last 32 years stayed because I couldn’t believe that it’s the weather this good anywhere on the planet never managed to buy a home, but I never wanted for anything really other than a home I could call my own but I’ve had a good life I feel like the luckiest man in the world wonderful wife and wonderful daughter trying to figure out what I’m gonna do with the last 20 years of my life I ride mountain bikes every day you stay safe out there it’s been really good to hear your stories. Thank you.
Don't blame you to take a break. At least you can still mill if you have to. Plus you could mill for other people.
Yep it’s good to have options.
@@WilsonForestLands right. That's the good thing
The woodmizer lx 25 with upgraded motor has paid off with just 3 large pines. I covered entire cabin on a river plus newwsw beams and post under it. I got 5 stacks cut now for pole barn. I just put down the 6x6 post. Using full 2x12s for floor. I am 62 I do more than 2 or three people do. My trees are 22 diameter and up and I winch them out using pulleys ect. I hand roll them on mill all Dat long in this south ga. Heat. I will prevail.
Do what's right for you in the now. I watch milling vids for enjoyment - have an LX25 purely for personal use, going to be building a log cabin, so not driven by seeing it produce $$ - pure hobbyist. Will look forward to vids on the coastal property, should those come to be - I'm betting the project will be a cabin...but that might be personal bias! Fair winds and following seas!
That was more of my idea when I bought the mill. To use it for enjoyment and not so much focusing on profit. Instead of using it to process the massive amount of what I need to take off the place, I may get back to using it more for its original intended purpose.
Good idea, smart to take a break from milling.
Thanks for sharing.👍TCT
The good thing about taking a break is, it will probably make it more enjoyable when conditions improve and I do start doing some milling. Thanks for the comment.
The abundance of Doug fir is geographic! So to keep your mill running it would seem you need to do 1 of 2 things: either transport it to a location where it is in demand or develop a finished product using Doug fir that you can retail using online commerce
Wood Mizer nice units made Indianapolis. Just spent time Kalispell, White Fish and Missoula Montana and Cour d’Alene Idaho. There are a lot more custom homes being built northwest part of country than Midwest. Interest rates definitely holding down lumber prices. Enjoyed your video.
I'm sure there are others here, like me, that are more into the forestry side than the milling anyways. If it is interesting, we'll watch 🙂
That is good to know because that’s the part I am most interested in too. My heart is more in the managing the forest side more than the being a lumber salesman side.
I had a large Poplar hit by lighting. The logs were too nice to think about making into firewood. Invested in an Alaskan Sawmill to give it a try. Made some nice 1 1/4” x 24” x 12’ live edge slabs out of one log. I was going to use it for myself somewhere. Just sold 8 of them for $2800. I cut the next log as 2” x 24” x 12’ live edge. I has me thinking about a mill and selectively processing from my 44 acres of mixed hardwood forest in Southern Maryland.
Well I almost didn’t click because I thought that’s just click bait lol. But you’re serious and have good reason for it. Maybe it’s time to build a product with the lumber instead of selling it. Like little sheds or something. You know the saying about a pound of steel is worth 50cents but a pound of steel in the form of needles is worth $100.
It is a good suggestion and I might do a little bit of that. My interest and focus is more on the forest management side so my time to spend on manufacturing is limited. But I may incorporate some of that at some point.
So much fantastic information in this video. Living in western washington I find it funny that 35k for 5 acres is too much out that way when you'd be lucky to get 1/4 acre for $35 khere😅
I agree. If you can find a big cedar, pecan, or something like that that has a pretty grain that somebody would want to use for a dining room table or custom furniture. That's probably hard to find up in the mountains where you are.
You could mill thicker fence boards and thicker 2x4's for higher quality fence materials.
I have a small 24" sawmill that I use as a hobby only. It's cheap, and does me just fine as long as I can get the lumber for projects. But I do understand you.
encouragement for you to "buck it up", better times will come along. You have and still are going through a process of discovery, your dream of selling lumber has not materialized, but it does not have to be a fatal blow as you seem to feel at present. Probably by now you have realized the facts that previously you missed. That mill is not commercial oriented, well not to a large scale operation anyway. Your wood is all too common, if you were milling exotic hardwoods or spalted and highly figured woods for specialty use, as in live edge tables, hobby wood workers, wood turners, it would probably be a much higher likelihood of a commercial success. At best you are a select niche wood sawyer so best to bow out of the idea that you can compete in the massive dimensional lumber market.
Start timber framing! You could pre cut 'kits' for the dumb stuff people put together in their backyard, pole barns, carports etc. Here in the southeast I would love some nice big straight doug fir.
It’s a good suggestion. My interest is more in managing my land and timber than it is manufacturing products. That’s the main reason I haven’t got into doing things like that. But I may, it might be a good idea.
Enjoy your vacation bud. You’ve earned it. See ya on the next one whenever that is. Cheers
Thanks Walt.
I have one but I got it knowing it would never make me money. Purely a hobby for me.
That was my original intent when I bought mine. I am glad to be back to doing just that.
That's the spirit!
I made my own ash boards for my kitchenfloor. From standing tree to finished tongue and groove boards. I estimate that it cost about 30$ a square foot at 25$ hr. Full length boards all different width makes a very beautiful floor but nobody in there right mind would pay 30 pr foot for a floor. I have black walnut, cedar, hackberry, hard maple and lots of ash. Havent sold 30 dollars worth.
I think that’s the way a lot of do it yourself projects end up. Expensive if we calculate the time. I imagine you appreciate your floor more though doing it yourself. I have some projects coming up that I will be cutting my own lumber for. it would probably make more sense to buy the lumber but there’s something about doing it yourself.
Sure your ash floor looks great. I’m doing a rustic cherry floor this summer with small production mill product - kiln dried 3/4” 4” TG matched ends for $2.14 a SF. I don’t know how anybody could match that price with their hobby sawmill. They are asking more than $2.50 per board foot for rough sawn green cherry.
You don't buy a manual mill, for profit. Sometimes it's not even fun. You buy a manual mill because you have certain logs or wood you wish to cut for yourself. If you are young, enjoy sawing lumber, have hopes of upgrading once you learn the ropes, then you will enjoy it. Portable saw milling for profit is long over. Too many mills out there, and lumber prices have dropped. I've had the three big sawmill manufacturers mills so far. TimberKing, Woodmizer, and Norwood. Woodmizer is the tops, hands down. But none are worth a damn, if you think you are going to make a living from one. A couple of extra bucks once the mill is paid for? Yes. But it takes a lumber yard, drying kiln, and support equipment to make money. Sorry folks, it's the truth. Manufacturers pay portable millers to do commercials (through free blades, equipment parts, etc.), but less than one tenth of one percent are making the dream they show as reality.
I remember framing houses with KD milled Doug Fir 2x4"s back in the 70s out here in MA and it was so much better and stronger than the spruce. I also remember when everyone and their brother had a little mill on the back 40. Not anymore. Why? There is no money in it. I recently had some big estern white pine trees cut down that were too close to the house and too big for my mill. The forester said he would grind and mulch them. Right now the tall heavy pines are blowing down due to tons of rain and high winds. I will need to skid them over to the mill and cut them into 8-12" boards for projects as time allows. Take a break, hang tough and saw when you start to miss it.
No way Doug fir is superior to spruce.....
I also have a manual mill, but do not try to make a living with it. I am a woodworker, and my thought was to supply my own addiction. Here in Kansas we have walnut, ash, elm, cottonwood, and a few other species worth cutting, but mostly I just wanted to avoid paying 8$ a board foot for walnut. Before I bought a mill had some guys mill for me, and they just wanted to rip me off, and instead of using the 4/4 scale, and just sawed it on the inch scale, and much of the wood would not clean up at 3/4. Got frustrated and bought a Cooks MP32.
Glad I found this channel 👍
I am down here in Arkansas, we have commercial mills every 50-60 miles but they don’t do custom sawing. Small mills are sawing pallet parts or if you have white oak, they will buy 16-24 ft white oak for trailer flooring. They don’t buy cedar or red oak, you haul in they pay 75 a ton. Might cost 35-50 a ton for hauling. Here you can cut into firewood for more money per hour.
Metcalf Sawmill near Gold Beach Oregon secured the niche market of Port Orford cedar--exactly what you referred to...high demand, low supply.
My biggest problem with selling lumber is people that expect to make an appointment at the end of a long hard day just to sell them three boards. Other people show up and expect you to figure out what they need and how to build things. I think I'm going to build sheds instead.
Holy cow you said a mouthful there, I'd say most of us see the market prices going up and down. Not a big deal. I get a job to do, I go get trees to mill for that particular job, I build it , I charge them accordingly to see them smile, we all say thank you and go on to the next one. It's really easy. From just hearing you complain about milling and prices, I'd suggest that you sell it and start drinking heavily if it bothers you so much. You sounded like my mom. Good luck !
Great video. Thanks for your honest info.
Did you make enough profit to pay for the mill?
Let's get cooking. 👩🍳
I had a LT30 years ago and cutting was my sole income, it was a hard go for the things you mention. Sold it and became an electrician, good move. Years later I bought a Woodland mills HM122 strictly as a hobby. I have a ton of beetle kill tamarack and enjoy cutting as a hobby, big difference. If you expect to make a living sawing you better specialize , especially with these low production mills.
Thank you for such a smart, honest reveiw....not many like you...!
So we moved from Northern Maine where I had access to all kinds of lumber to the Matsu Valley in Alaska…and it’s tough sourcing wood for the mill here…beetle kill spruce…going on 4 years now garbage…or birch..if you can find one thicker than 12 inches your lucky…cottonwood some very big ones 30-36 inches…but only good for trim..interior stuff….very tough….LT40 WIDE…figure I could sell it…but not ready yet.
Hope you enjoyed that vacation! Well deserved.
people think I can sell them lumber cheap but I cant, it's a lot of labor to mill this stuff.
If you can sell it +42% that's a different story.
@kurtdowny I use a good oil based paint, put them out of the weather and sun. It takes a couple of years. But it's most worth it. If you can keep it above 45 degrees, even better. No warpage, or rotting.
I think it depends a lot on what trees you can get to make lumber walnut, cypress, oak , cedar should all be profitable, so many storms are knocking trees down all over, too bad they cannnot be salvaged for wood
You need to see the price of lumber in the UK, infact I cannot buy the lumber I need except from one timber yard 10" x 1" planned all round Ive convered it for you $7 a foot. £21 per metre which is 39.25 inches. I wanted it for beehive boxes I can buy them cheaper all cut to size.
It’s the same in Ireland. I’m going to get one of these small mills to mill my own lumber. We are trying to build a barns and a house, plus we’re starting a woodworking business. I figure it would be cheaper this way.
@@Jesusistheonlyway549 When you buy in bulk the price is a lot less 40% less
We're in the same "boat" so to speak in Linn County with the heat/fire danger. I however can't stop, because I'm still recovering the windthrows from this past winter.
Another small advantage is the low fire danger of work on the "electric tree farm." Using the battery-powered equipment is safer/cooler to run during these conditions. (I'll stop there, so as not to excite the battery-powered equipment haters.)
Enjoy the time off, I'm envious.
Cheers from your neighbour to the North.
If the electric Grid goes down and there’s no gasoline to buy. solar and battery power is the only thing that will work, that sense of off grid, back up alone, justifies, electric tools, and vehicles personally, I find I need a lot of batteries, but I don’t miss the smell and the sound
@@mandy2tomtube You hit it in One.
Regardless of what the battery powered haters think, the fire danger situation is a legitimate advantage to battery powered equipment. Considering at some point we won’t even be allowed to use the gas powered equipment when fire danger gets too high.
I have several Doug Fir trees down at my place and a neighbor with a nice sawmill. $50 an hour to cut me up a bunch of lumber that I don't know what to use it for yet. I do need another woodshed but just a small 8 x 16. I only burn it when in my garage. Just don't want to make them logs into firewood. My other shed has been full for several years now. I could buy a lot lumber at Grey Lumber in Tacoma Washington for that kind of $. He has stopped over a few times to see if I'm ready. Will see if I want to stack and dry some more boards. I did that years ago and built a nice 32 x 60 shop 16 ft walls on 2 ft stem wall. That worked out well. Inspector didn't see in my plans the county approved in small print said #2 doug fir or ruff sawn lumber. LOL I showed him that and he signed off for framing inspection. Remember that when you get your plans approved at the county building.
Proposal: experimentally try THIS to make better quality warp free boards: don't cut the tree, cut off a ring of bark and let the tree stand and dry for one, two or three years vertically, before felling it!
Then maybe you can dry the whole trunk for another couple of years; without cracking? When You finally saw the dry trunk into boards, they should be much better!
(if my idea doesn't work in 2-3yrs, maybe it needs 10-20 years vertical drying to really have a measurable humudity effect in the center of the tree; but that is really a long draw!)
If you want to get into milling lumber for just the satisfaction, build your own mill, don't buy one. Money can't buy happiness. You have to make that for yourself. Ultimately it is your choice in what will and won't satisfy you.
Well, I bought my Woodland Mills band sawmill in 2015 because I have 33 acres of old growth forest, huge eastern white pines in the 18” to 48” diameter, spruce, fir, beech, white cedar, white and yellow birch, apple, butternut, sugar and rock maple etc. I never had a plan to sell the lumber just mill it for my own use, making rustic furniture, but, that didn’t last long once the word got out, so now I do custom sawing only, nothing that can be purchased at the local lumber store or sawmill. It’s a lot more satisfying when it’s for personal use and not commercial. Sounds like you had a plan but the world took a turn for the worse and now your stuck with a mill and forest.
As I said in the video, my plan was not to sell much if any lumber. But after I got it, the lumber world unexpectedly took a turn for the better and the price of lumber shot up to ridiculous levels. That’s when I decided to start selling some. Now that it’s back to more normal, I can go back to my original plan. Just use the mill a little here and there and sell the logs to the commercial mill. Not stuck with anything.
The real money in one of these mills is making your own custom lumber to build your own home. The possibilities are endless as far as the type of home. Stick, log, or whatever fits your fancy in between. Wood mizer has a huge presence at the outdoor shows and that gets passed onto the consumer just like stihl chainsaws. If your initial cost is high it takes you longer to recover that cost. Be your own guide but that is my two cents worth.
We are planing on building our barns and our house. The cost of lumber where I live is insane. We also do woodworking cnc and laser work so we can use as much wood as we can get.
In my area you can buy treated from box store as cheap or cheaper than the local saw mills
I been sawing with a badsaw for 20 years and Iv saved and made millions
LT 15 is a hobby mill, it was never meant for a business
Perhaps not but they will. I’ve been running one for the past year and a half, cutting Doug for and cedar. Definitely not the ideal machine for running eight hrs a day but very capable of doing so while chucking out some beautiful lumber.
If I owned a Mill for my own personal use, I would make fireplace mantles and table tops. They fetch thousands depending on the slab quality. We are getting one at the Farm, but that Mill will be busy with building projects.
Where I live is in the SE part of Ohio, which is covered with forest. Everyone has wood. I have very mature hickory and oak and I have way more firewood that I could ever use. I used to sell to campers because this is a tourist area. There must be 200 people selling firewood within 10 miles of me. I am 45 miles from Columbus and wood sells at a reasonable prices there but transportation eats up my profit. I can't give it away here. I know how you feel.
I bought a manual bandsaw mill a few years ago for 4k that was a demonstration unit. Thought I could earn some $$ and have some for my own use. The only thing I was able to sell was some live edge black walnut and even that went pretty cheap. Lot of people had the same idea as I did and mills are a lot more common now. Since it wasn’t that big of an investment I will keep it for my own use but as using to generate cash forget about that.
Everyone wants kiln dried and not ready to invest in that
*In my best Samuel L. Jackson voice*:
"SAY DOUG FIR ONE MORE TIME MOTHER...!" 😂
😂
IN 1976dad bought a 52 inch circle sawmill.He messed with putting a Mack diesel engine on it with an air clutch all summer.We are short of logs around here so we would have hadno competition.Iremember telling dad .if we could clear $30 A DAY,it would be worth me becoming self employed.....ON PAPER,we couldnt have done it more than a couple days in a row...thats not figuring the unknown expenses..Of course,one reason is we were making the cheapest commodity EVER..PALLET lumber..As bad as l am entranced,ive never tried to go whole hog into it...I love to see these marketing wizards producing specialty lumber,THE ONLY WAY to actually make a living.
Makes sense to me. Most of the things I like to do I don't want to do full time lol
I would never waste my time cutting a 2x4. Not even for myself.
Maybe take up painting Happy Trees 🤣
There is that, except for the part where I can barely even draw a line. With my lack of skill there, I’m not sure my trees would look very happy. 😁
In the Midwest we'd buy all the fir and ponderosa you could mill
If I had an economical way to ship it I would be happy to send you some.
I watched so many ‘covid mills’ getting bought and kept thinking ‘these guys are going to be sitting around in a few years’. You cannot compete with dimensional lumber. Big mills will always be cheaper. But you can mill custom size (6/4, etc) and beams, plus live edge. I have never ‘not’ had a sawmill, because I love milling. But I have also never expected to earn a living with one.
after all us small farmers went out of business local family owned mill 3 miles from my place tried to keep it going with contract to make pallets local budweiser botting company but even with that they could'nt afford employee's anymore everything ended up big auction sale the next nearest sawmill is 2 counties away from me and home depot is 24 miles shit ton of traffic road construction detours to get there all my project on hold right now 😖
some logs going for over $10, 000 but you can triple or more the investments. the chips are even sellable
Maybe if you get really bored you could do a video on your logging accessories for getting the logs from point A to point B.
Don't make the mistake of selling your mill. 👍🍺
I do have videos using my logging equipment. But maybe I don’t have one where I just talk about the equipment specifically. Maybe a good idea. Thanks for the suggestion.
I don’t have any plans to sell the mill. For all I know prices could shoot up again and I might start milling again. And I have some other uses for it.
...i'm still logged in ...the post beam construction was depressing a little the explaination for one big place staying with pressure treated wood post into dirt as better than the two options described there as a concrete pad with a steel insert to bolt the bottom of the beam sitting on it was flimbsy in wind laterally , while the beam into concrete rotted worse supposedly somehow the thing is they always rot just above ground or concrete connection because the water condenses and evaporates more there so a steel post into the ground with some non permeable heavy acrylic maybe inside the steel sleeve which extends maybe atleast a a foot and half 2 feet above ground still sleeved , i saw a parking lot post the same day and realized that would last longer than other posts , i went with cinderblock post supports on concrete footer with 10 foot rebars and high strength fill filled to top of beam seems more traditional except the grout substitution due to cost....../ranting still maybe theres a beam post to below frostline tinker in there with a goal of no ground or at ground rot could use hdpe filled galvanized steel maybe ..../ too much to explain ....
I wish I had a Woodmizer. It probably wouldn't pay for itself. I have a lot of walnut that I could saw up. White pine too. I could find other nice hardwoods to slice up too.
Mine easily paid for itself but that was when the price of the type of lumber we have here shot up. If you have walnut and other nice hardwoods, that’s a different story. I think that kind of wood is a lot more valuable than what we have out here. When you have that kind of high dollar wood, it may be completely different economics than what we have out here.
It makes more sense to use metal studs. They come pre drilled for electrical wiring and plumbing. They don't rot and are termite proof. They don't warp with age. Masonry outer and main bearing walls with metal studs and rafters are even better.
Add value. Make something from the wood. When not cutting hardwood I used to make custom log home packages.
I have thought of that. I probably would if I didn’t have too many other things to do. It’s a good suggestion and I may at some point.
Any video you do will be great !!! ps have fun on vacation
Thank you Steve.
I recently bought a mill . It's been a ton of work . Probably cheaper to buy the lumber. I had a bunch of trees I cut down for a shop build .
Lost all my doug fir trees to a fire last year so I’m buying a mill to make use of the charred but still valuable standing dead wood. It’s ironic because i wanted to sell the logs to a mill but the land is too difficult to make the deal come out cash positive. So I’m better off milling and using the timber for my own projects which will pay for the mill many times over.
I've been watching your old sawing videos.... you should get a hose instead running back and forth with a bucket. Great vids btw.
Thank you for the comment but you lost me on the hose and bucket. I don’t always remember what’s in my older videos. Not sure of what I might have been using a bucket for in a video.
Adapt. Learn markets, refine into products. Bandmils are just a tool, business is about creating markets or finding them. That said the mill industry is particularly tough to deal with because of its feast or famine and fluctuating log costs.
I decided I needed a saw mill because we live in an old northern california black walnut orchard. And I was right! Juglans Hindsii is the cats meow of walnuts. I've slabbed 3 so far, around 20" dia. and I'm getting ready cut another tree, 11ft straight, 20" dia. And I have pine and black oak to mill if I want to.
What do you get ($) for those slabs? Are they pretty good size ?
Just curious.
@@AnHebrewChild I have wood 11ft long, 18" wide and 3+" thick for $10bdft up/ mostly up. Near Sutter Creek Ca. And it's all beautifull.
I'm in love with the idea of milling my own lumber, but it's more just to clear and use the lumber for myself; I don't think I'd ever want to try to make it into a money-maker...
Don't worry, unless your time is worth less than $2/hr, you want make money.
Not sure how well you build but why not make sheds, shelters, pens, etc. ? What about Hip Camps? Camp grounds?
People are looking for ways out of the cities for various lengths of time.
random thought but i saw a vid on here yt , it looked like in florida maybe anyway the man drills a shallow non-potable iirc well using a pressure-washer and pvc in 10' and i think one larger sleeve maybe , the thing about a well is if it's deep or tests good it's drinkable but a solar powered electric motor can be used , i fooled myself because i watched a vid here from somewhere in south east asia where a phd american man from north carolina designed their 4 or 5 barrel water filter using sand, gravel , window sceen , plastic barrel drums , pvc and charcoal could work for a rain filter but it need hieght to use a pump free ball valve or else it's same set up as a well but big hassle ...soundboarding i realized maybe the non potable water from well goes to that filter too maybe but anyway you could hose down your property for free with solar and one of those , i've been designing gutter system to go below a porch and carport roof , between the two roofs and most to rain storage as described for maybe washer machine and toilet for example ....i have other ideas but they get vultured and it's another self only forest gump d%d% ...oh the thing about my gutter makes sense is the independant roff have higher pitch than the house to act as wind fairings and better adjust from no roof or shade or full roof and maybe a greenhouse too for wintertime...../ranting take care hope you're safe ,
Can you make jigs to attack to your mill to make, custom types of timber, staked glued, cut. Not just the comodity aspect of the business
I have a timberking 1220 and love it. Diesel powered.