What makes you mill?

[Nate Surveyor]

I think it is the excitement of seeing what is inside the log. 
Seeing something that would have been firewood, turned into a fantastic piece of art.

Nate

[Daren]

I think it is the excitement of seeing what is inside the log. 
Seeing something that would have been firewood, turned into a fantastic piece of art.

I reckon those would be my top two reasons also...sure ain't because that it is easy work and the money is good  :(.

[LeeB]

For the exercise and all the fiber it adds to my diet. Yea right! Same reasons as you and Daren. I started out wanted to get wood for my woodwork hobby and now I just like making sawdust.

[oldsaw]

Too cheap to buy hardwood, but opening up a log is pretty cool.  Christmas any time of the year.

Mark

[rbarshaw]

The sheer joy 8) of opening up a log to see what's in there. I have cut it having no ldea what I might do with it, knowing it's probably going to be junk and find something wonderful in there ;D

[kderby]

I like saying "Opening a log is like opening a new book",  :P with lots of pretty pictures.

Do I hear an Amen! 8) 8) 8)

[hansbaba]

I guess I am different than most. I'm milling because I am surrounded by D-fir and Redwood and I want to build a house with all the framing, siding, flooring and trim provided by myself. I am hoping to save a bundle and am going to completley ignore all the time, and labor that goes into making your own lumber. I also like the fact that I am probably saving thousands of barrels of oil by not having my lumber cut in canada, trucked to a mill, shipped to a train station, loaded on a train, shipped to california, loaded on a truck, shipped to a lumber yard, loaded on another truck, and finally driven to my building site. Did I miss any steps???  I figure its probably an order of magnitude or two less energy that goes into cutting my own 2x6 as opposed to buying one from the store. It amazes me that after all the traveling that 2x6 has done and yet it sells for as little as .40cents a bdft. Go figure???

Bring onthe logs!!!!

[ljmathias]

I mill (so far) exclusively for my own use so there's a selfish satisfaction in finding the best lumber and beams in a given log.  Sure, the art and beauty factor are important but there's a pragmatic aspect that I really find enjoyable: I'm getting better products than I could easily find anywhere else- not that you all couldn't saw better (of that I am certain) but you all don't live close enough to saw for me at the same price I can... 

Let me give you an example of how I'm finally making progress: been catching up some on the Katrina logs I've had setting.  Gotten into some of the big old red oaks, 24-30" in diameter, 14-20' long on my new-to-me LT40 hydraulic.  Loaded one up a few days ago and sliced off the soft and rotten outer layers to expose some still-red-and-beautiful heartwood.  Well, I looked at that cant for a while and finally decided to slice some 1" boards off the sides to remove the last of the punky stuff and use the rest for 4X6 beams for my workshop under construction.  Couldn't believe I actually did this one right, getting the pith exactly centered in the middle of six beautiful beams that fell out of this old log.  I just stood there for a while, admiring how straight and smooth and perfect red-oak-ish they were, then proceeded to the back-breaking job of loading onto the front end loader, moving them to my stack of posts and beams wannabes and getting them stickered and weighted.  What a great feeling to finally do a whole log pretty much the best way I could imagine it (course doesn't take much imagination when you're still learning...).

So I guess there's more than one reason we all fall in love with making sawdust and occasional near-perfect pieces of lumber, but they're all good ones.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

LJ

[Bibbyman]

I like..

Waking up in the morning stiffer and sorer than when I went to bed the night before.

Being dirty and sawdust covered 80% of the time.

When I think I'm almost getting something done and then the unexpected happens.

Ending the year with enough money to pay the taxes. 

Having at least one new fingernail growing back at all times.

Having a knock on the door or the phone ring every time I set down to eat or enjoy something on TV.

Most of all ... I like being able to provide for my family without going to that gowd-awful office job and be bossed around by idiots.
   

[bandmiller2]

It's just in your makeup, like farming or commercial fishing.In our world today its rare to be able produce a finished product from the raw material.

[Cedarman]

What Bibbyman says. 8) 8)

[mburrow]

Most of all ... I like being able to provide for my family without going to that gowd-awful office job and be bossed around by idiots.
   

I think Bibbyman hit the nail on the head, for most of the millers in this area.
I tool my first load out yesterday, it made enough to pay my expences. for a start up with a used mill that needed a few repairs I feel I did OK
Mike

[musikwerke]

For the do-it-yourselfer a mill is just one of those tools you knew you'd find a way to have someday.

[ely]

just a little bit of what everybody before me said. ;D

[Tom]

I'm not sawing since last October, or so. Not that I don't want to, but some folks get the good genes and some of us get seconds. :D

Sawing to me was many fold.  I love to see a log opened.  There are the different species that produce different colors, there are the growth patterns that differ from log to log, there is the challenge to collect what the log is trying to provide and there is the challenge to provide what the customer wants.

There is a sense of power associated with bucking and ripping a tree.  They are huge and heav things.  Most people are intimidated by them and will hire an entire army to get one out of their backyard.  Some of us, those that stay in the business, slow down and see the rigging possibilities of moving and turning a log safely with less strain than others.  There is a great feeling of accomplishment when you balance a log on a stick and it spins when you touch it with your finger.

The other part of sawing that I think I enjoyed as much, maybe even the best, is meeting the world's fine people.  This business has given me the opportunity to rub shoulders with  great and famous people. Maybe not of the famosity of a F.D. Roosevelt, or  a George Washington, but famous in their own right just the same.   Every little town, county and State has their heroes.

I've met men who were millionaires several times over.  Who wold lose it and gain back.   I've spent weeks with WWII heroes like my friend "Groundhog" who lives on a little island next to the inter-coastal and built his daughter a house when he was in his late seventies.   I've spent time with my old-timers who keep bees, wind motors, turn bowls, repair appliances, still practice their machining trade, build horse drawn wagons and carriages, own and run cattle ranches, care for family timber, build and rebuild tractors, grind cane, make syrup, some make libations as well. 

Then I have the younger heroes who work hard in their businesses, raise families to standards that the rest of the world is losing and will spend time with any one's kids to answer a question rather than sending them down the road making them think they are in the way.  I've seen a slower life-style that allows the dollar to be earned tomorrow if something family oriented comes up today.  I've watched children be given tasks from the time they could walk so that they could be a part of the action.

I've eaten some of the best biscuits ever made and filled myself on fresh vegetables from the garden, cooked with fatback from barn and potroasts from the field prepared by the nicest ladies in the area.  These aren't spic and span, neat freaks who allow you in only one room of the house.  They aren't hurrying family from a meal so that they can go shopping.  They are true homemakers.  Their care is for their family and their visitors.  You will be questioned later about their biscuits and whether they are as good as Mrs. So'n So down the road.   It's important.   

An occupation like sawing trees will open a whole new dimension if you allow it.   It's the kind of life that would allow you to lie down in your grave knowing satisfaction. 

What I miss the most is the people.  Being able to ride down a dirt road in the backwoods of a county in a neighboring state and have someone honk their horn and wave and holler your name as they go by.  To go into a resturant and have the mayor shake your hand only to go to the parking lot and have the local laborers run over and shake your hand too.  There really are good people in this world and sawing has given me the chance to find them.

[lmbeachy]

Tom: Coulnn't have said it beterr myself, for that matter I couldn't have said it near as good. Tom is right.

[Coon]

Tom has the truth nailed right on the head.  Sawing and milling is the heart and backbone of our livelyhoods.  It seems to bring a local economy together in ways often unnoticed, keeping the barter trade and such alive in these parts.

[thecfarm]

Kinda hard to top Tom when it comes to writing.
I saw for own use most of the time and I tell people that.I will saw enough for a dog house.
I just saw so I can build what I need around my house.I have my own trees so the savings is alot.I all ready have all the equipment needed to handle the logs.Time I have but money I do not have.It's a good feeling to look at a buiding that I built from my own land and know how.

[tcsmpsi]

I gotta tell you, Tom....hearing you talk about milling in the past tense, even more especially with your eloquent approach to the whole endeavor, is something similar to (what I would imagine, having only given them and not taken them) swallowing a pill for the scours. 


" What makes you mill?"

A, if not the, significant factor of it is, that nothing makes me mill.  I don't have to mill.  It is likely my most free will endeavor of substance.

I have a lot of diverse things I have to do to make a living.  And, though I loosely  weave milling into that fabric, it is intentionally not enough for a dependent source.

Much in the way of cfarm, I have trees to mill.  Initially, I thought I might have to temper my tree cutting to feed the mill, I now find I underestimated the standing stock that I have.  In time, I will have to thin and remove trees beyond my own need of lumber.  I have sold a little here and there, but in the not too distant future I will have larger loads available. 

The vast majority of what I have is SYP.  I do a bit of trading from time to time, milling for oak, cedar, etc.   And, I like doing smaller milling projects for others who are and/or have been intimidated by some of the antics of other mills (millers).

All of that is good.  But, as cfarm noted, taking the wood from the land (with explanation, of course), and shaping into structure on the land from whence it came is a proper gesture which brings honorable satisfaction.

I have a lot of long-term building projects ahead for my own use, and am working the mill to help bring forth the fruition of others' building projects, make a little money and a lot of sawdust, expending a little blood and lot of sweat along the path.   ;D

What more could a feller ask for?   

[Frickman]

Good reply Tom.

I'm an at least fifth generation sawmiller, and upteenth generation farmer. It's just what I do. It sure beats having a real job.

[Dave Shepard]

I am a lot like Frickman. I grew up here on the farm, which has been in my family five generations. Sawing often goes hand in hand with farming, many farms around here had mills to run in the winter. My grandfather was involved in the forest products industry his entire career. He started with Morbark early on, and also worked for HMC, and then cofounded the Forestall corporation, manufacturing mills. I heard a lot of sawmill stories growing up. ;D My father wanted me to buy a Wood Mizer when I got out of high school, but I had no interest at the time. : About six years ago, I got the sawmill bug, and have been trying to get a mill ever since. Last winter I got the chance to run the mill that I run now. A friend of mine, Bud, a very long time WM owner, used to run the mill. Bud and I have had many long sawmill talks over the years, and probably has had much to do with my mill addiction. I can't wait to open up a log and see what is inside. I always try to see how much I can get out of each log, and to make the best use of really crummy logs. I also like to see all of the good lumber that can be made out of logs that other people were just going to push in a burn pile. It doesn't seem to ever get boring.


Dave

[WH_Conley]

Pretty much what Bibbyman said, especially the "idiot" part.

[Handy Andy]

  Tom and Bibby both have a gift for putting into words what the rest of us feel.  My reason to get a mill and saw is kind of hard to explain, but I have a farm, and there is a crick through the farm, and trees grow down there.  Have always enjoyed working with wood, and want to build things for my kids and grandkids. Went into a career of building, and enjoyed the work but not most of the people I worked for, and not some of those I worked with. So when finances were right I retired and just farm. And saw and build things.  Right now I'm excited about getting started on my saw shack, been cleaning up the site, and planning how to do the building.  Jim

[treebucker]

What makes me mill?

A gun in my face, or money.  Both work equally well. :D

Opening a log is like opening a book...only the pictures are better.

[Rancher]

I mill first off for me. Every log is the same yet every one is different. What I really love to see is the look on the face of someone seeing a log opened for the first time. Like a kid at Christmas. Most guys say"I want one".