what prompted you to start sawing?

[Tim]

Wow! 17 years since I posted that question...
I still don't have that drill sharpener.

[terrifictimbersllc]

Liked wood and woodworking

....started chainsaw milling


greed for wood....

.... let Wood-Mizer brochures get into the house

....thought maybe sawmilling was something I'd like to do when I retired, so why wait to find out

....6 yrs later found myself "unexpectedly retired"

...failed retirement, started sawing

[alan gage]

I enjoy woodworking. I enjoy processing firewood for myself. I enjoy building things for myself. I really wanted a sawmill but just couldn't justify it. Waited a few years and suddenly I sold my house and bought a new house/property that needed remodeling and a new shop built. I had money left over from the sale and enough justification so I used it to buy a used mill, skidloader, truck, and trailer and a little bit of land to set it up at. Now I have no money but I do have a lot of cool stuff!

Had grand illusions of being a great mobile sawyer like Magic Man or selling lumber like Yellowhammer. But reality has set in and I'm now quite content to saw my logs for mainly my own purposes with a custom job here and there and selling the occasional stick or two. Real life makes it hard to spend as much time with the mill as I'd like but it's quality time and I'm looking forward to summer when I can mill up some lumber to build a cabin/fort on the land with a few of my 7 year old buddies. My log pile never seems to get smaller but maybe this will be the year....

Alan

[Old Greenhorn]

It's a great question and it should have a simple answer for most of us. But when I read this I sat back in my chair and had to think 'how did I wind up here?' and the answer was not really apparent.
I think I got swept up. I stumbled on the FF and read around as a guest for 4-6 months and began learning about band mills. Knowing machinery all my life it just did not seem that complicated and looked like fun. I started poking around the used mill sources "just to see what they were going for" no way could I afford one, but hey "you never know, right?" The idea of making something from a tree I harvested really had quite the pull on me. It was much more satisfying than throwing it in the wood stove. Also, the environment was just right. I live in a heavily wooded area. Lots of loggers, tree guys, sawmills (3 one my road alone now) and other stuff around. It was the perfect storm to get sucked into.
So one day I stumble on this mill, an Oscar 328 (Hud-son) for just 2 grand, with 2 extra track sections and an extra clamp. I had been cutting a lot of decent trees on my neighbor's property and it was a shame to make firewood out of all of it. I looked at it and it was ready to go with just an hour of routine maintenance. So I talked to my neighbor and he got excited too, his income is on a much different 'scale' than mine and we split the cost down the middle, with me making lumber or whatever for him. Very loose. I thought once I had it all working it would be a 'sometime thing.' I had no idea of course, what I was getting into. Nor did I even know if I was up to the task of running a mill or if I could make a decent board. It was a new challenge and I just got sucked down the hole so fast that I never knew, and still don't, what hit me. 
Now here I am having a couple thousand BF through it, a shed, a loft, and a couple of other builds and made some rustic furniture and am looking to do more in the near future. I have a skidding arch moving logs when I can get them, looking for a log supplier now (milled up most of what I had available), designing new stuff to make, setting the shop up for this kind of work, moved the mill to be more productive, and basically it has become a second job, but one I love.

So I guess the simple answer if I trace it all back, is that I can blame it all on the FF and the day I stumbled across it and began to learn. A strange twist of fate I guess.

[Southside]

Had a need for lumber for multiple farm projects and a house remodel, figured buying a mill would be a cheaper way to get the job done since I had the logs and equipment to feed it, then I would probably just sell the mill after, so I bought a LT35......  Well, some of the farm projects are partially done and the house remodel, we won't talk about that......which reminds me I need to go check the kiln....how did this happen?  :D

[WV Sawmiller]

    I graduated high school at 17 and after an all nighter on the river gigging frogs Mom came in and woke us up and told me and my older brother to go get a summer job. We drove to Pensacola Fla where we heard a road construction crew had hired a classmate of mine. They hired my brother and were fixing to hire me till they found I was only 17 and their insurance wouldn't allow me to work there so my brother stayed earning $1.75/hr at 40 hours a week. I stopped on the way home at a Boise Cascade plywood plant and they hired me starting midnight shift that Sunday night. They put me stacking beech core out of the kiln but I did such a poor job of it they moved me to the spreader crew feeding and laying core making plywood. That paid $3.35 and I'd typically stay over a few hours on clean up or unloading a train car load of flour (for the glue) or such and I'd come in every weekend to make plywood or clean up. The boss showed me how to clean the press pits - nastiest, most dangerous job on the site so that became my regular job. Of 8 men hired that week I was the only one crazy enough to stay the summer. When school started back I would still come in on weekends for clean up. The next couple of summers I worked at a St Regis paper company to pay my way through college.

  I graduated AU, went into USMC for 13+ years then worked overseas mostly for 25 years or so in some real remote and ugly locations such as western Africa, Iraq, Afghanistan, Haiti, Mongolia, Norway, etc. setting up and running man-camps and military bases and such. I worked and we vacationed all over the world. I still remember visiting a French run sawmill in the middle of the jungle in The Central African Republic and was amazed to watch them saw 6' diameter logs into boards with a band mill using 12" wide bands that it took 2 men to carry. That played out so I retired and with time on my hands I visited the WM dealer in NC on the way to visit our daughter one weekend. Tyler showed me how the mills worked and convinced me I could operate and maintain one so I placed the order that October day for January delivery.

  I had sent inquiries to several of the big sawmill dealers years before then lost interest. They all responded then slowly quit sending information except WM. WM was never pushy but every 3-4 months I'd get a simple post card inviting me to go see some demo near me so, when I got tired of hunting, fishing and babysitting and with time still on my hands, the stars aligned and I bought the mill. While waiting on delivery I set up my business model and found this site and read everything in the Sawmills and Milling thread, That was very helpful in getting set up.

  When my mill got here January 8, 2015, Tyler brought it up and I towed it to the waiting logs through 6" of snow. It had warmed up to 5 degrees while Tyler was traveling here from NC. The lube tank was a solid block of ice and while trying to crank the mill to demo it to me and my son it back fired and blew the spark arrestor 50' and I lost it in the snow (but later found it when the snow melted).

  I sawed a few thousand feet of lumber in practice and took the sometimes less than beautiful but usable lumber and made it into a 14'X 62' pole barn to store my lumber. Then I slowly started sawing for the public. Mostly I chase a few mobile jobs and started making benches and now bus stops, etc out of trees salvaged off my 40+ acres of mountain land. I'm not setting the world on fire and still need to saw another 907 bf to hit my 100K but as soon as the weather breaks any day I will hit that probably to use on my second pole barn that looks to be about 30' wide on front, 14'-22' on the ends and diagonal across the back (Trapezoid shape) to fit the available space.

 I have made a lot of new friends in the process with all the money going back into equipment and such and hope to continue to learn and do more so in the years ahead as long as my health holds out.

[Old Greenhorn]

Every good thread deserves a few tangents. I really started to think about this question and I googled it just for fun. I came across this article and laughed so hard my co-worker came in the see what was going on.
It was this point regarding why sawmills are good that got me:

Good Income Source for Retirement. If you are reaching the age of retirement, having your own sawmill business is a good investment. You can hire one or two workers and pay them by the hour to do the heavy (back breaking) work. All you need to do is manage and market your finish products.


"All you need to do is manage and market your finish[sic] products"  :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D
There is NO mention in the whole article about drying, log handling, storage or any of the other things involved in running a mill. Just 'make lumber, sell it, make a killing' type stuff. It was a humorous read to me. If I had read that 3 years ago, I would have believed every word. ;D :D

Now, back to the real thread....

[Ljohnsaw]

I've always enjoyed tinkering with wood and metal.  Built a couple barns for my wife's horses along with a shed or two.  I was working as an IT manager, though not with the title or pay, and was getting tired of the politics.  When my wife passed (10 years now) and I had a 19 yo girl and 6 yo boy to raise, priorities change.  I made my exit plan for 3 years and bought some property with a lot of trees.  With the help of many here, I designed my cabin.  (Rough plan to Final Design thread)  I thought, easy - just cut up my trees and build it.  Didn't have a lot of excess cash so I built a mill to handle the long stuff needed.  (And another smallmill build thread)

Learned a lot milling for a few years (4 to 5 months as weather permits each year) about what trees are worth it and what are junk.  Got my foundation in and first floor framed.  (Cabin build thread)  Lots of milling left to do to get it up this year!  But the gut feeling when you slice into a log - the smell, the sound, the look.  I don't want to ever give that up!

[dirtmotor]

When I started rebuilding my 100 year old farm house I went to an auction an bought 1200 bf of rough sawn red oak to use for all my trim and really enjoyed planing and making the trim . It got me to thinking about getting a band mill . Found a affordable manual mill and got on FF and learned enough from all you guys (Thanks !) , and my mistakes to use it . Now I can't pass a nice tree without wondering if it will make a good saw log , still just a hobby sawyer but retiring soon , hopefully I will upgrade saw (hydraulic) and keep on milling .  

[Tom the Sawyer]

Took woodshop in junior high 55 years ago and got hooked on woodworking.  Many small projects over the next 10 years, lived in an apartment so limited tools available.  When my skills got to the point that I wanted to use nicer wood, I found that nice hardwoods were very expensive (at least to me).  My dad knew a family near my home town (southern Missouri) that ran a sawmill and I would go out there and buy all the mill run red oak that I could haul back home - .25 p/bf, right off the blade.  Learned to stack and air dry, now I had plenty of wood to make furniture.  

Over the years I saw many nice trees coming down due to construction projects (roadway, new homes, etc.) and started looking for sawmills closer to home (mid 1980s).  I had a tree taken down by the power company and salvaged the logs, got them sawn by an old, circular mill (lots of waste).  Eventually found a guy with a portable Wood-Mizer mill (LT10?), started looking for logs in earnest.

Portable mills were hard to find in my area; two of the guys that milled for me had died, one got so old he couldn't mill any more, one lost his mill in a divorce, etc.  When I retired in 2009 I was going to need more wood for projects and, with it being difficult to find someone I could rely on, I started looking for my own mill.  Found it late that summer and started milling for other people in the spring of 2010.

[WV Sawmiller]

@Tom the Sawyer ,

   Tom, that is a mean woman who will take a man's sawmill in a divorce. I hope he got the poodle, all her jewelry and the china. :D

   

[Tom the Sawyer]

Back in the late 90s, we were both members of the Kansas City Woodworkers Guild and I had done a program on small scale harvesting of what would now be called urban logs.  We set up a demonstration in the parking lot, I furnished the logs and he brought his sawmill, an almost new Timberking.  He did a very nice job.

A couple of months later I called him to have him mill some more logs for me and he told me that he no longer had the sawmill.  I asked him what happened and he told me that his wife got the mill in their divorce.  Naturally, of course, my next question was, "what's your wife's phone number?".  He said that she didn't know how to use it, or had any use for it, it was just a way to turn the screws a bit more.  He said that she probably didn't really know what it was, or how much it was worth.  When I asked what she was going to do with it, his reply was that she'd probably give to her brother for beer money.  

As I recall, he got his pickup, she got the house, the mill and everything else.

[stanmillnc]

I've always been interested in wood-working and at a young age, I was exposed to sawmilling at "Old Sturbridge Village," an early 1800's recreation of life in rural New England where they operated a water powered sash-type mill. I was fascinated by the operation and it was my favorite part of the old village I frequented. As a kid, I built many small items from scrap wood, including rustic bird houses that I sold out of my front yard. I often used materials from slab scrap cuts that my father got cheap from the local lumberyard.

In my early teens, I helped my father build a cabin in upstate Maine. Without electricity, we used all manual tools and although an arduous process, it taught me the value of hard work and what can be accomplished with your hands and a little know-how. This experience provided the foundation for my interests now. Watching my father build this house on his own instilled the confidence in me that with hard work, anything can be accomplished that I put my mind to. Although I didn't know any better at the time, doing everything by hand, including drilling holes with a brace, using a wood miter box with a hand saw, digging a well with a shovel and cutting a 5-acre field a couple times a year with a scythe helped me develop my work ethic......and made me appreciate power tools in later life!

A few years after college, I moved from MA to NC and my foray into sawmilling began with a plan to build a 32' x 40' timber frame barn completely on my own. The barn site to be cleared was populated with huge old growth white oaks, poplars and pines. I didn't think it made any sense to cut up these logs into firewood, then go buy all the lumber I needed from a retailer, so I looked into possibilities of renting a portable mill. A co-worker had a small sawmilling side business (The Wood Shed in Chester, SC), so he trained me to operate his portable Wood-Mizer LT40, parked it on my building site and off I went creating big stacks of lumber. I loved sawmilling with this machine so much, I cut much more than I needed, so I built the post and beam barn, then filled it to the brim with lumber! Since I was out of room in my new big barn already, I decided to build another barn, just to store my wood inventory, which gave me an excuse to mill more logs. Local tree-cutters were calling me whenever they had saw logs to unload and I accumulated quite a pile of logs. My log collection grew before I had the money for a sawmill, so I found a great guy fairly close by in SC - "Poston Widehead," who milled my logs for me....but I missed milling myself.

So I decided to get my own equipment and started with a 56" Alaskan Chainsaw Mill powered by a Stihl 880. I cut huge slabs with this mill, but learned quickly that this is hard, exceedingly slow work. I actually burned up the motor in my first 880 pushing it too hard through a 40" hickory log with a dull chain; this experience really made me appreciate the bandsaw mill.  A guy down the street from me had a rarely used Woodmizer LT15 that I kept my eye on and ultimately when a divorce forced the sale, I jumped on it. Since I'm only a weekend sawyer with young kids, I really needed something that makes efficient use of my time, so I upgraded to a LT40 hydraulic mill.

My mantra is "Work hard and good things happen." Work can be fun and cutting logs is exciting to me – I feel like a child opening up a wrapped present – you don't really know what's inside a log until its cut and each log is different. Sometimes the beauty and character of the wood can be amazing. I really embrace the "green" aspect to urban sawmilling. Our natural resources are precious and limited – it makes me sick to think of all the timber clear-cut for development in urban areas like mine that ends its life rotting in a landfill. I feel obligated to do my part as a sawyer to divert these logs from the landfill and help others appreciate the beauty of wood by upcycling these trees.

I love being outdoors, getting exercise and operating heavy equipment – sawmilling satisfies all that. My son "Sawyer" loves to help daddy with his little plastic chainsaw. Perhaps he'll eventually help me run the sawmill and develop a love for being outdoors turning logs into lumber like I do.

*Thanks to all the contributors on this Forum - I've learned so much from the great people here willing to share their experiences - the Forestry Forum is a real treasure!*

[Jeff]

I'm glad I kicked this topic up!

[47sawdust]

I have wooded property,I'm a carpenter....it seemed like a logical progression.My wife was supportive as well.
BUT the main reason was you guys made it look S-0-0-0-0 easy,and my neighbor specialized in trapezoidal 4x4's and 6x6's and I thought ,heck I can do that.

[SawyerTed]

My dad is a minister who was raised on a farm.  He was a jack of all trades.  I recall asking him where he learned so much about tools, repairing and building things. He talked about his experiences in Agriculture Education, FFA and his projects.  So I took Industrial Arts in junior high school because there was no Ag. Ed. program.   We did a wood working project, a metal project, a plastics project and and electricity project.  My wood working project and my metal working projects got entered in the Indstrial Arts Student Association state competition.  Both won first place blue ribbons!  I was hooked!  I decided I wanted to be an Industrial Arts teacher so I could teach students some of what I loved especially woodworking. 

I taught at the high school and college levels then became the Vocational Director for two different school districts. Later I worked at the state level leading vocational education here in NC.

During my time in education I also built cabinets and furniture and I helped operate our family farm.  A few years ago I started thinking it was a shame to be sawing the nice storm downed trees on the farm just for firewood.  I started looking at having some logs milled.  The problem was nobody was portable.  So I started looking at portable sawmills. 

I "thought" chainsaw milling would be a low cost way to mill some lumber. I messed around with CSMing for three or four years - in short I hated it.  So I started looking at portable mills, first manual then hydraulic.   I neighbor has a manual mill so I went and helped there for about 3 days.  That convinced me (and my wife because she heard me moaning about sore muscles) to get a hydraulic mill.

Four and a half years ago I retired and quickly got stir crazy so I went to work as a facilities and maintenance manager for a small manufacturing company.  After a couple of years that was getting dull so I went back to looking at sawmills.  Two years ago I put a deposit on a mill, formed an LLC and went into the sawmill business.  I traded my chainsaw mill for 20 sheets of metal roofing a few weeks ago......

[Magicman]

Well DanG, I responded but I don't know where it went....

Anyway I was carpentering and had started using beetle killed SYP to reduce my material cost.  I noticed that the sawyer was working less and making more $$$ than I was so I started looking for a used sawmill.  As luck would have it, I found the perfect sawmill and that was over 2 million bf and 18 years ago.

[frazman]

Well , 2020 will be my first year with my mill. I have a few projects in line and I'll see how things turn out. Looking forward to learning as I go and reading allot of info on FF.

[boonesyard]

This has been a great/interesting read.

I grew up on a family farm where we did everything ourselves. Dad, grandpa and uncle were all extremely self-sufficient. It's amazing how growing up poor can make you better in so many ways. We did our own metal work, carpentry, and mechanical work. I really took to carpentry and operating machinery. Started a little furniture shop with my cousin 42 years ago, had a lotta fun until we went different ways. Worked on the farm until everything went bust in the 80's.

Went to college for engineering, drove truck over-the-road, back to farming. Started construction in '85, married and had our daughter a few years later. Bought our little piece of 20 acre heaven on the River in '90. Other than farmstead tree groves, the river is the only place with trees in the valley, it's just flat,flat,and more flat ag land. I'd never even been around or seen a sawmill. Started our own construction company in 2003 and have never looked back. 

I set up another wood shop at home and started by building a toy box for the grandkids 3 years ago. I really had the wood bug bad, and now I had the where-with-all to do something about it. I really hated wasting the trees that went down or died around the place, so I thought about a small manual mill to just cut some wood for my own projects. Then I found THIS PLACE! I read everything I could in sawmilling and quickly decided I didn't want to wrestle logs by hand. My wife and I like to work, so we decided to buy the LT50 and we'd have something to keep us busy in retirement. Wow, once the neighbors find out there's a sawmill, busy is an understatement!

I guess you could say it all started with a toy box, and the Forestry Forum. Lovin' every minute of it, Thanks to All. 

[farmfromkansas]

I enjoyed woodworking in school, and folks insisted I go to college, so took wood shop classes there.  Had a career as a house builder, enjoyed the work but not the customers, and retired at 50.  Set up my wood shop at home, hired a couple sawyers to cut lumber for me, and they both screwed it up, so looked at getting a mill. Was 15 years ago I got a Cooks MP 32.  Don't saw for money, just my wood addiction. 

[Beavertooth]

Had been a self employed carpenter since I was 19 and bought a used LT40HD to saw up lumber to build us a house with and it just grew from there. That was 15 years ago. No carpentry for me anymore just sawing with mill and have a business selling portable storage buildings, carports, and metal buildings. 

[Banjo picker]

We were building my oldest sons house.  Got the rafters set and it was time to put on the decking.  For some reason...I don't Remember what.  Maybe hurricanes or something found that OSB board was a good bit over $20.00 a sheet.  I said no way. 

 I knew a man with a wood mixer....went to see if he had any thing to use for decking.  He had stacks of the prettiest pine 1 x 10 and 1 x 12s I had ever seen.  We bought enough to deck out the boys house and I got the bug for a mill of my own.

I had been pouring concrete for a living...mainly for Vulcan Materials and the economy had started to slow down, but cross ties were a hot commodity and I had a bunch of sweet gum that needed cutting.  

So I bought a mill and cut ties as long as that market was hot.  Ties cooled off and I went to work for MDOT for 8 years and just run the mill on the side.  I retired from them an now I run the mill 3 or 4 days a month, unless I have some custom sawing to do.  I have one main customer keeps me as busy as I want to be.  

Nice job bringing this back up Jeff....never seen it before.  Banjo

[trapper]

62 or so worked in the winter on a portable circle mill crew.  also enjoyed cutting firewood.  in 64 worked full time in a mill in town  for a year last 6 months owner let me run the saw a split shift 4 hours in the morning and 4 to 6 hours 2nd shift.  left to work at mercury marine  43 years.  Still always interested in wood and the outdoors and watching woodmizers at the farm shows I wanted one. Got divorced and when I got remarried my father in law asked if i wanted to buy his place and ended up with 57 acres worked a lot of overtime one year. put in outdoor furnace and and wife got kitchen redone.  friend on the way to his hobby farm saw a used lt30 at an estate sale and the rest is history.

[Chuck White]

I've always been interested in making stuff with wood!

In 2005, I decided to give my FIL a hand (tailed for him) on his 1992 LT40G18 Wood-Mizer!

In May of 2008, my wife and I bought our own, a 1995 LT40HDG24 Wood-Mizer from @petefrom bearswamp and have been using it every year since.

Still look forward to sawjobs in the Spring

[Napoleon1]

In 1993 I just finished helping my father in law pick his cotton crop.  I walked from his shop going home and saw my neighbor John David Sanders. I was telling him I didn't have anything to do now we are thru picking ( I had a full time job) he said boy buy a sawmill and you will have plenty to do. I asked him where you buy one at he said look in the back of a magazine.

I got home and started looking in the back of magazines and found woodmizers ad. I couldn't sleep that night waiting on the morning to come so I could call. Well I called and tried to buy a sawmill they wouldn't sell me one till I slept on it. I tried to tell him my neighbor told me get one. He still wouldn't sell me one. So the next day I called back and told him I wanted a sawmill. Man said mail 2500 dollars for deposit I said ok.  Sent the deposit and started the wait. 

After I sent the deposit I went over to John David Sanders house and told him I bought a sawmill. He laughed so hard he hit the floor still laughing. When he calmed down he said boy you don't even have a chainsaw laughing again at me. He kept saying boy you didn't buy a sawmill and I kept trying to tell him I did but he didn't believe me. I told him I'll be back in a little while and left. I drove to a hardware store in town and bought my first stihl. Then went back to his house and put that saw on his kitchen table. He looked at me and said you bought a sawmill. I started laughing then. I did not know the first thing about sawmilling.  

He let me take in half of his garden for my sawmill operation(his garden was 6 acres). We then started going around getting trees that no body wanted. I had cut and stacked about thirty logs. That is about the time woodmizer said my saw was almost ready. 

My wife,daughter,dog and I loaded up and drove to Indy to pick this great machine up. Went thru the training then it was time to look at the sawmill. We were led to some doors. They swung those doors open and there it was. I was so excited. My wife looked at me and said you spent 27000 dollars for that. I said no I bought 2 cant hooks, extra gas can,12 boxes of blades,and some other spare parts. She looked at me like I was crazy. 

I'm on my third woodmizer now. I miss my friend John David he was 75 when he told me to buy a sawmill.