New to the board and the Sawing world

[Tom the Sawyer]

Most of my clients are talking about freshly milled lumber.  Generally, a 1000 bf of 8' - 4/4 lumber, stacked 4' deep with 3/4" stickers, would be right at 5' tall.  And 40-50 gallons of sawdust.  

[No_Dude]

Sounds like a good stack of wood then. I know this will probably vary widely by region and everything, but for you portable guys, BF and time wise, whats an average job? I have been thinking about if I decide I want to porta-mill on the side, how big of trees are common in my area. I know that we have a lot of probably 20-28's, but some monster tree's arent rare either, and I'd hate to have to turn an opportunity to mill down because I'm too small. What are your opinions sizing wise?  

[Tom the Sawyer]

There will always be logs too big for your mill.  

[WV Sawmiller]

No Dude,

   A little late chiming in but one of the best ways I tell folks to imagine a Mbf of dead stacked lumber is that a a 5X8 tailer stacked 12" high is 480 bf so 2 trailer loads would be just under one Mbf (Actually 960 bf). Actually one trailer stacked 12" (12 rows of 1" lumber) and 13 rows on the second trailer would be exactly one Mbf.

   I find people tend to understand a 5X8 trailer load since it is commonly used and easier and better for people to visualize. 

[bwstout]

This is what I know for facts. building your own mill is a rewarding experience when you final cut your first board. You will find some helps in Useful Sawmill Mod threads. I sawed my first board a year ago and just finished another mod this weekend. There is a guy on YouTube named Texas Ben that has a good set of prints he did sale them on eBay I used his prints. The expense for building your mill if you buy all new metal along with the stuff that makes it a mill will cost you about the same as a LT15 wide which is what my mill looks. Even though I could have bought one for less money I am still happy and the knowledge gained of building my mill is valued.   I live in East Texas just south of Texarkana if you are on I 30 to Dallas  or Hy59 to  Houston PM me and you can stop in and see all of the good the bad and ugly of building your on saw  mill ;DHappy Milling.

[No_Dude]

Thanks for the offer stour! As for my metal costs, I came across a slew of pallet shelves, and I sure like that rectangle tube it's made out of, can get 2 shelves about 8 foot long for about 100$, so I think that's my rails right there, and the frames could probably be canabalized to make most if not all the bracings. Past that it seems that we are covered up in lawn mower motors, ranging from 10-20 HP, so that was my next major cost. After that it's bearings and sheaves and everything small stuff.

[No_Dude]

Was talking to a buddy who may want to throw in with me to start sawing logs, and we discussed seeing if we couldn't get with the local tree services since they have to dump their logs SOMEWHERE, why not next to my sawmill  The question after that became, what do we do with all the lumber? We figured cabinet makers would be the go too for hardwood, and pines and other construction type wood is near non-existent in my part of the state, so contractors are out for the most part, after that   Outside of individuals and cabinet folks, who would be worth trying to sell hardwoods too?

[Tom the Sawyer]

No_Dude,

You might want to seek out the craft or artisan market. I doubt cabinet shops would be interested; unless you can offer graded, kiln-dried, planed and straight line ripped, in quantities.  Contractors in most areas must use graded, certified lumber when building for human habitation.  Maybe less stringent when building sheds. 

[SawyerTed]

First and foremost - create a business plan if you want to make any money in this business AND don't expect to get rich.  I'm making a little money part-time on top of a retirement income that pays my personal bills.  Then expect to hustle.  Can't make money standing around in this business.

Expanding on what Tom shared, after sawing, the secondary processing is what increases lumber value.  Lumber coming off the mill, not dried etc will sell for pennies compared to lumber that is kiln dried and surfaced on four sides.  Then additional secondary processing like tongue and groove for flooring adds value.  A 5/4 pine board of the mill might sell for 60 yo 70 cents a board foot compared to a square foot of high quality pine flooring might sell for $5 to $7 a square (board) foot. But that pine flooring has been kiln dried and molded on four sides with tongue and groove and a relief cut on the back.  More processing requires more machines and more labor.

Otherwise you are selling to the guys building barns and sheds or to the artisans and crafts people who want custom lumber as Tom mentioned. 

There are two sides (at least) to making money at this business.  One is the technical - sawing, stacking, drying, planing, molding etc.  The other is the business/marketing side.  Learn to saw and process wood very well.  Make sure you can produce high quality products.  Then market your skills to at least a couple of segments of your market.   Get established in a couple of segments and the other areas will grow.

In my case I've gotten a good reputation for custom (quarter) sawing red and white oak.  I've also established myself in the non-graded/non-certified construction lumber side.  I've sold/sawn lumber for hobbyist wood workers and have sawn lumber for the artists but I've also sold/sawn many many sticks of lumber to the farmers and hobby farmers around.  The cookie business and rustic garden benches came later.  This month is really the first month that I've covered all expenses and had a balance above where I started - 6 months in.  I'm lucky.

It is not a business that you can be successful without a plan, a market and very hard work both mental and physical.

[No_Dude]

Yea, business planning is where we are at now. I figured I'm a freshman in college, I'm on scholarship, and it'd be something to do on the weekends. Heck class ends at noon for me 3/5 days. In a perfect world I'd start just doing porta/custom milling, until that pays enough to purchase a kiln, until that pays for a planner, until that pays for a moulder/resaw/whatever other equipment. The benefit I have, is that I don't have to feed myself off it, so as long as it pays for itself and a bit, I'd be perfectly happy for the next 4 years. So I suppose a 5 year plan would just be saw to buy tools, and once the tooling is all bought, evaluate my position and see how the market is. Having looked around, my area is covered up in cabinet guys, tonight's search will be other Craftsman, then onto flooring I suppose. Long term if someone wanted to get into making graded lumber, what all goes into that?