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Newbie looking for some advice.

Started by tim311764, December 02, 2009, 08:13:24 AM

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tim311764

Hey everyone!  My name is Tim.  I just joined and I have to tell you that I am very impressed with the site and the way everyone helps each other out.  I'm hoping that maybe someone can help me.  I want to start a custom milling business and have been looking at the Logosol-PH260(261).  I want to run flooring mainly from reclaimed lumber (heart pine) and I was wondering if anyone else has tried this with the 260?  Would a shaper style cutterhead work better than t&g cutterhead knives?  Does pitch build up fast on parts?  How many fpm can I expect?  I am fully aware that I will have to scan the wood very good with a metal detector and that I will still miss a nail occasionally.  If anyone has experience with this, I would appreciate any advice. 

red oaks lumber

tim,
welcome to f.f. i admire your wanting to get into milling reclaimed lumber, do you have any idea of what you are getting in to? we mill about 10 -15,000 sq.ft. per week of reclaimed flooring, it's the dirtiest, nasties, wood to work with. you'll have to be able to gang rip, preplane the wood before you can mold into flooring. will the logosol work for you? i have no idea, we run a 5 head moulder. you'll need to backrelief your floor also, use" flooring cutters" for your t&g.
my opinion, if your floor doesn't look like regular flooring you'll have a harder time selling it, with regards to the back relief and the side profile.
by no means am i trying to rain on your parade, just throwing some hurtles at you
good luck
the experts think i do things wrong
over 18 million b.f. processed and 7341 happy customers i disagree

James P.

Tim , welcome to the forum, I have no advice cause I haven't a clue about sawing flooring from reclaimed lumber. Those hurdles are better to jump over now than when your already weighted down. Good luck and look forward to hearing your progress as you go forward. James P

Tom

Remilling Heart Pine is a good business.  You can sell good flooring to wealthy folks building big homes.  The marketing is even already done.  It has been done for several years now and is a real status symbol. 

Be ready for some hard and frustrating work.  You have to take the building apart, denail each piece of wood, resaw each timber and board, constantly fighting the buildup of resin on your bandblade and sawmill, making a thirty minute job last three hours.  You even find yourself making 1/16" cuts on the outsides to get rid of the dirt, or you will ruin planer blades. You have to run blade lubricants like diesel, vegetable oil, or the like, getting it all over you the mill, the boards, the ground the sawdust, etc., and go home stinking like a truck stop.

Then you find someone who straightlines the flooring, planes it and joints it, going through much the same aggravation you did with the saw.  Then, to make your money, you really should have your own installers, salesman and finishers so that the contractor writes you a check.

While this is going on, you're looking for another old decent building to buy and getting the permits squared away for its disassembly.

The profits can be tremendous, but so can the frustrations.

Den Socling

Tom,

You certainly make it sound like a "good business". Stinking like a truck stop, huh?  :D

James P.

thanks Tom, I had know idea it was so easy. I have a dozen stumps to slab and when I am done I am going into the reclaimed wood business. :D  nothing like easy money :'(

Todd

Don't sugar coat it Tom, tell him straight :D
Making somthing idiot-proof only leads to the creation of bigger idiots!

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