First impressions with the Woodland Mills HM126

[MattVT]

I've posted a couple of times over the last few months and received tons of great advice from this forum in anticipation of the arrival of our new sawmill. Well, a few weeks ago it arrived - almost 3 months after we ordered it in mid-July!

We spent 2.5 days assembling it, taking it slowly and carefully to make sure every single nut and bolt was individually torqued correctly, and that the bunks and rails were straight, square, level and flat - the diagonals along the ~17ft length were within 1/32".

Since then, we've been milling when we can - weather and other commitments permitting. We started by milling some spruce logs to make some 4x4 cants and 1x1 stickers - we have a ton of spruce to clear next spring so it doesn't matter if we make some mistakes. We also milled some spruce 2x4s and 1x6s and built two saw horses. Very simple design, based on one someone here linked me to on YouTube.



From there we've switched over to our Eastern White Pine. The only logs we are milling are those from trees that were felled during our driveway clearing - we have about 5,000bf in logs, most of which is pine. The photo below doesn't include our pile of big pines (about 5 logs, 17ft long and 18-30" diameter) but the pile on the left is pine and our hardwoods are on the right. Not sure we'll get to these before winter sets in!



We're milling the pine into 2x and 1x material for now. We've decided to build a solar kiln, inspired by the Virginia Tech plans but modified slightly so we can drag it on skids onto our equipment trailer and move it around the property. Ours will be about 6ft 3in by 18ft 8in, making it large enough to dry 16ft lumber. We've built the floor structure so far (double 2x12 skids supporting 2x8 joists at 16" OC with 3/4" Advantech on top) and will finish the build in spring - we're stacking the lumber on the floor structure for now.



So far, we're really impressed with the sawmill. The assembly took a while but we were taking it steadily. The instructions were clear and detailed, and most parts were well labeled. We're really happy with the cuts we've made so far - I was a little worried about movement while cutting through knots in the spruce but everything has been straight and true.

Each time we mill a log we're learning new tricks, improving our technique, and I'm sure making loads of mistakes anyway! But we're also having an insane amount of fun. I can't put into words how satisfying it was to turn up to the property one morning, fell a spruce tree, buck it into logs, mill one of the logs into 2x4s and 1x6s and build a saw horse from it, all in one day.


Our Woodland Mills HM126 Woodlander XL is certainly a no-frills sawmill (manual winch, no hydraulics, etc) but the build quality seems solid and most importantly, we're happy with the quality of the cuts.

[Jim_Rogers]

Nice looking saw horses....

Jim Rogers

[MattVT]

Nice looking saw horses....

Haha, it was totally your video that inspired our design - thank you so much! They were so easy to build, use nice simple cuts of wood, and are SO strong and stable. I imagine we'll be building a load more of them when we start on the house build next year!
I'm actually writing a blog post mentioning the saw horses right now and will be linking to your video if that's OK by you.

[btulloh]

Looks like you've got it in high gear already. Nice work.  You're getting quite a bit of good lumber sawed already. Good luck with your whole project. It's a nice site.

Turning all those nice trees you have to take down into lumber is a good use of resources. Very satisfying to see that lumber stack up off the mill and then build something with it.  Very cool.

Jim's sawhorse recipe has become my favorite. I've made quite a few horses of that style plus some ponies. They work well and are quick to produce.  

[MattVT]

Thanks @btulloh ! We're really pleased with the progress we're making but we're still taking it slowly and steadily. Yesterday all we managed was two pine logs - about 18" and 22" diameter. I'm sure we'll get faster with experience, but for now we're content to take our time, double check what we're doing, and most importantly...enjoy it!

[btulloh]

You should be pleased with what you've turned out. Two nice sized logs like that is a fair amount of work on a manual mill, especially when you're still figuring out workflow and everything else. We can't turn out a 2800 bf stack in a day like the hydraulic guys, but a whack is a whack and it all adds up. With a couple helpers and more experience the routine will evolve and production will go up some but not to equal the more powerful mills with hydraulics.  It's all good, and we can only do what we can do.  It sounds like your enjoying the journey, and that's the best part. 

BTW - 18 - 22" logs are my favorite. Big enough to turn out a decent amount of lumber yet not too big to make handling too difficult. When I get down to the smaller end and the limbs I just make 6x6's and 4x4's. Even the junk makes good dunnage. Trying to make lumber out of an 8 or 9 inch log doesn't get much for the time it takes. You've got some good logs to work with but sawing some ugly or small stuff is a good part of the learning process. Worst case you get some designer firewood out of a bad miss.

[MattVT]

I couldn't agree more @btulloh about the 18-22" logs.

We milled a 24" log a few days ago and it was a real stretch on the HM126 - we learned some important lessons about log stop positioning (i.e. don't clamp at the widest part of the log or it won't sit centered on the bunks) and how to shave with a chainsaw! We got about 30 2x4s out of it, but it really made us think hard about how to work the log - a good experience, but a challenge.

We do have a 17ft pine log that is 26" at the thin end and 30" at the fat end. Not sure what we're going to do about that yet - it'll be a LOT of shaving to get that on the mill, not to mention that I'm doubtful our tractor will be able to lift it even after we cut it into two 8.5ft pieces. The only thing I can think of is to build a little ramp and log support system that's the same height as the bunks so I can use the tractor to roll it up and across. Alternatively I'll just rip it in half with the chainsaw.

[btulloh]

Ha, yeah, the first time you go for a max log you figure out the log stop thing pretty quick!  That 30" will take some creativity for sure. Some people just split down the middle with the chainsaw freehand. Probably quicker than shaving (bibbying). 

One thing that really helped my productivity was to build a simple log deck to feed the mill. Doesn't have to be elaborate. I built mine in a couple hours and it's just sitting on the ground. Easy to move or disassemble but improved throughput significantly. 



 

[230Dforme]

Good afternoon 
I am assuming that the third photo is 
the kiln skid
In 97 I built a 12x16 camp on a steel
skid with a 12" pipe roller on each end
like the Flintstone mobile 
Even that made a 450 dozer work hard
and I was hooked to the dozer w 4wd pickup on a good woods road 
When we got most of the way in got
to a steeper grade 
Had to get a skidder after that 

Believe you'll need a good size piece of
equipment to drag and turning may not
pretty 

Just a few observations 
Thankyou 

[MattVT]

@230Dforme thanks for sharing your experience!

You are absolutely right that the structure you can see is the solar kiln floor we have built. Our design is based on the Virginia Tech designs, but with a few modifications. One of these is to build it on skids - doubled up 2x12s with a shoulder added in each corner to make it triple thickness.

The other is a change in the dimensions - making it longer to accommodate 16ft 11in lumber (the longest our mill can manage) but also making it 3 inches narrower. The reason for making it narrower is so that it fits on our equipment trailer (you can just about make it out in the photo of the cants and stickers).

Our equipment trailer deck is 6ft 5in wide and 20ft long so our plan is just to drag the solar kiln up onto the equipment trailer using either our truck or tractor, or maybe even a winch. Once on the trailer it'll be easier to move around. That said, we're not planning to move it very far - probably a few hundred feet at most as our site evolves.

We're also hoping to make the solar kiln doors easily removable so that we can use the tractor to lift the doors off before moving the kiln. That should hopefully reduce the weight significantly.

[Jim_Rogers]

Nice looking saw horses....

Haha, it was totally your video that inspired our design - thank you so much! They were so easy to build, use nice simple cuts of wood, and are SO strong and stable. I imagine we'll be building a load more of them when we start on the house build next year!
I'm actually writing a blog post mentioning the saw horses right now and will be linking to your video if that's OK by you.

Sure that's fine
Jim Rogers

[230Dforme]

Makes more sense now with trailer. Would suggest the winch, I have one on
most of my equipment including 25 and
50 ton winches
Use them all the time
Tilt bed trailer ?

[MattVT]

It's not a tilt bed but the rear 18" of the 20ft deck is dovetailed. Based on some rough math, I think the finished kiln will weigh in somewhere around 5,000lbs. If it comes to it, we can always jack it up onto some supports and then back the trailer in underneath it, removing the supports one by one. We'll figure it out.

I've literally *just* published a blog post (Solar Kiln Build: Part 1 - Floor Assembly | Adventurous Way) about how we built the solar kiln floor assembly. Fingers crossed it's strong enough to support the weight of all that wet, green lumber!

We won't be doing any more with it this winter (we're RVers and are heading south in a few weeks) so for now the solar kiln floor assembly is prime flat and level real estate - we're using it for stacking lumber!

[GAB]

MattVT:
Glad to read that you got your mill and got some practice time in.
Hopefully you have not crashed a blade into a drywall screw yet.
Enjoy,
Gerald

[MattVT]

Thanks @GAB . I'm pleased to report that we've found no drywall screws so far!