EmilClutte
05-06-2016,
Okanogan and Ferry County cabin folks: How likely is it you'd be interested in having someone haul their portable sawmill to your place to mill up some of your trees?
I'm seriously considering putting my Woodmizer LT10 onto a trailer and starting a business sawing logs in that area (Okanogan, Omac, Tonasket, Oreville, Republic etc). I may upgrade to a larger mill if I find the work is there.
[Edit -- upgrades to the mill have improved some things] What I can do now: Up to 24" diameter logs 18 feet in length (~18'6") to pretty much any dimension you want. I can mill anything from 1/4" thickness (actually smaller but can't imagine anyone wanting that small -- heck, smaller then 3/8" might have me scratching my head) to anything above that. So doing 5/8" roughsawn lumber is easy as asking and anything larger is just faster -- so dimensional lumber from your pine, fir or Tamarack is easy enough (actually any kind of wood suitable for your needs is fine).
With one assistant I can usually mill around 150 to 250 board feet an hour which means you'd be paying about 25 cents per board foot -- and will get about 50% MORE out of your logs then if a traditional mill saws them up. However, the smaller the logs the less efficient the process so I won't saw logs smaller then about 8" in diameter if I can help it -- milling 6-8" logs could get a little spendy (perhaps more then $1/bf) but then again, if you wanted them milled I'd probably be willing to do it. My preference is stuff in the 15 to 20 inch diameter range as they produce very well on the mill.
Larger then 24" would have to be slabbed down by the customer to 24" or less so it will fit on the mill.
I'm seriously considering putting my Woodmizer LT10 onto a trailer and starting a business sawing logs in that area (Okanogan, Omac, Tonasket, Oreville, Republic etc). I may upgrade to a larger mill if I find the work is there.
[Edit -- upgrades to the mill have improved some things] What I can do now: Up to 24" diameter logs 18 feet in length (~18'6") to pretty much any dimension you want. I can mill anything from 1/4" thickness (actually smaller but can't imagine anyone wanting that small -- heck, smaller then 3/8" might have me scratching my head) to anything above that. So doing 5/8" roughsawn lumber is easy as asking and anything larger is just faster -- so dimensional lumber from your pine, fir or Tamarack is easy enough (actually any kind of wood suitable for your needs is fine).
With one assistant I can usually mill around 150 to 250 board feet an hour which means you'd be paying about 25 cents per board foot -- and will get about 50% MORE out of your logs then if a traditional mill saws them up. However, the smaller the logs the less efficient the process so I won't saw logs smaller then about 8" in diameter if I can help it -- milling 6-8" logs could get a little spendy (perhaps more then $1/bf) but then again, if you wanted them milled I'd probably be willing to do it. My preference is stuff in the 15 to 20 inch diameter range as they produce very well on the mill.
Larger then 24" would have to be slabbed down by the customer to 24" or less so it will fit on the mill.