getting rich with a sawmill

[moodnacreek]

Something breaks almost every day either in the sawmill or in the yard. To day I have help coming to finish the cedar that didn't get cut last year. I was in the mill til 10 last night, that's the way it goes.

[Southside]

Try farming. Stuff breaks, runs off, gets fetched up, floods, dries to a crisp, or just tries to kill you.  That's before noon. 

On a good note I have never had to call the vet at 2:00 AM because the sawmill was stuck in a mud hole trying to give birth to a baby sawmill.  :D

[Nebraska]

Things like that  are why I have a tiny farm and a sawmill..... ;)

[metalspinner]

 :D :D

[Magicman]

New sawyers need to not be discouraged because they can not afford to have everything to begin with.

If you have a fully hydraulic sawmill, a good website, advertise, answer the phone, and are willing to travel wherever the logs take you, you can do very well with a startup totally portable sawmilling service.

My furthermost sawing job was 236 miles away and would be for 2-3 weeks, 2-3 times per year, lasted 4 years, and with the customer providing lodging at the Hampton Inn.  Oddly enough, this same repeat customer has now scheduled me to return, still sawing timbers, but to a much closer sawing location.  

Knocking down ~$3-4k+ gross per week ain't rich but it ain't too shabby for one man with no support equipment.

[moodnacreek]

Try farming. Stuff breaks, runs off, gets fetched up, floods, dries to a crisp, or just tries to kill you.  That's before noon.

On a good note I have never had to call the vet at 2:00 AM because the sawmill was stuck in a mud hole trying to give birth to a baby sawmill.  :D

I grew up on a very small farm and worked on a dairy farm later and thought that would be for me until I discovered hunting and fishing. So I eventually settled  for a sawmill. Alot of the same problems but not 7 days a week with the animals. Compared to dairy it is resting.

[Peter Drouin]

I'm all fix, thanks for all the extra parts I have on hand. 8)

[Walnut Beast]

New sawyers need to not be discouraged because they can not afford to have everything to begin with.

If you have a fully hydraulic sawmill, a good website, advertise, answer the phone, and are willing to travel wherever the logs take you, you can do very well with a startup totally portable sawmilling service.

My furthermost sawing job was 236 miles away and would be for 2-3 weeks, 2-3 times per year, lasted 4 years, and with the customer providing lodging at the Hampton Inn.  Oddly enough, this same repeat customer has now scheduled me to return, still sawing timbers, but to a much closer sawing location.  

Knocking down ~$3-4k+ gross per week ain't rich but it ain't too shabby for one man with no support equipment.

I'm confused on the numbers from your post early on when the thread got started.
3 to 4 k + a week is quite different than these numbers. 100Mbf seems like a good round number to shoot for but lets break it down.  1/3 for the sawmill, (repairs, replacements, blades, fuel, etc) 1/3 for taxes & insurance, advertisement, etc. and 1/3 for me.  @ $400Mbf = $40K so my 1/3 = $13K.  This year I will saw around 200Mbf so that kicks it up to $26K.  Good but it depends upon one's definition of a "living".

[MattM]

I assume that it's because he doesn't saw full time. He grosses 3-4k a week but only works part of the year. 

Sawmilling is like anything else in life, how much you make depends on the person doing the work and what they put into it. Some people can get rich selling or doing just about anything and I've known lot of tradesmen making between 150k-200k CAD that lived paycheck to paycheck and had nothing to show for it.

[sherpa]

"Getting rich" is all in perspective interestingly enough!  I can say after 27 years of sawing and processing wood I have done well.  The key is finding a niche and sticking with it.  I will say it has supplemented my income and came in handy to pay for extra things - mostly travel softball for my daughters!
I enjoy the work and the relationships I have build over the years with customers and I am never without work with the mill, kiln or planer!

[Walnut Beast]

I assume that it's because he doesn't saw full time. He grosses 3-4k a week but only works part of the year.

Sawmilling is like anything else in life, how much you make depends on the person doing the work and what they put into it. Some people can get rich selling or doing just about anything and I've known lot of tradesmen making between 150k-200k CAD that lived paycheck to paycheck and had nothing to show for it.

I would like to hear from the guys full time that are successfully making that 12 to 16 thousand + a month portable sawing 

[Magicman]

I'm confused on the numbers from your post early on when the thread got started.

No need to be confused because I said:  

and are willing to travel wherever the logs take you

I am old and only part time.  Remember that I only "portable saw" and sell nothing.  In addition to saying "No", I am passing jobs that I don't want to saw to another sawyer.  I also chose to be off for the past 2 weeks when I could have been sawing.  I have already sawed over 100Mbf this year and that is part time and this is only the first week of August.

The sawing is there but you have gotta find it and be willing to travel and at times live out of a suitcase.

I was also referencing off of a couple of previous replies regarding growing and having support equipment.  If you have nothing then in order to get big you start with what you have and grow.

[longtime lurker]

I did it, but using what's considered a portable sawmill working fixed.
Took me... ohhhh about three weeks... right at the start to figure out that mobile operations were hard work because the lack of log handling equipment and secondary processing options meant my income was limited by the customers equipment. I shifted to static operations and having the customers send me logs real fast, and once i was static sawing for myself as well was easy.

There's this idea that you have to be all one thing or all the other to make money with a saw, either a mega mill or some niche market processor with all the toys to value add out the wazoo. But as with a lot of things that's not really true, it's just the outliers at either end. Ive always found that the secret to making money with a saw was KSIW... keep saw in wood... and that its not the amount of equipment you have but the amount of work you put through it that matters.

So I had a little dozer and got a portable sawmill with a roof over it, and I ran that saw hard. Then a loader, then a truck.
Then a sliding table saw and a thicknesser to tidy up mistakes.
Then more shed to hold my own stock.
Then a skidder and a bigger truck.
Then more shed to enlarge the green mill.
Then a kiln.
Then another skidder.
Then more shed.
Then resaws to make it all faster
And so it goes.

Now I'm vertically integrated to a large degree.. skidders and dozer for log supply for when I can't get logs elsewhere ( though my preference is always to buy them in/ engage a logger), we hack them and stack them and sell them as anything from rough sawn green product to finished mouldings, and if I can't do it in house I buy it in or subcontract it out but i make a couple percent every which way.

I've been told from the time I started I had not enough saw for what I do, and I agree with that.  But I did it anyway and I'll cut whatever logs I can lay hands on from wholesale framing and downgrade work to high end cabinet and joinery timber direct to end user. KSIW.

You want to make money with a saw then saw, keep the blade in logs 8 hours a day. Cut so much that stacking wood means staff cuz you can't let go of the feed lever with the work you've got booked in. Feed it logs until kilns and dry mill equipment means yet more staff cuz the green mill crew are task saturated, meanwhile don't fret about some other guy who's got that gear making a buck as well. Saw until you've worn a mill out then buy a better one and do it all faster. KSIW.

My greenmill operation makes money with or without the dry mill/ value added/retail part.
My limited dry mill/value added/retail operation takes some of that money and multiplies it exponentially. It'll grow, cuz I'm good, and being forced to play in the wholesale space for years made me cost efficient in ways few small mills are and fibre efficient in a way no big mill can be.
My logging operation is limited by lack of staff, but here's me heading off for a Saturday in the wilderness listening to the warble of a white breasted stihl while the greenmill crew point stakes and process byproduct. Cuz we need logs and I can't always get what I need or wait for a contractor, and there's no time through the week for anything much except butchering logs.

KSIW... I saw that phrase here years ago and it stuck, because it's true. Just keep on sawing, don't be sucked into the trap of saying I need x,y and z to make money because I'm little while what you have - which is a saw- sits idle half the week. Run that thing until it pays for the additional equipment.

Worked for me. But I'm mad, everyone knows that. :D

[hersnsh#590]

I just sent a small donation to MM for the annual fundraiser.  After going thru this thread, I figure I got way more than my ROI in just one session.

Dale

[moodnacreek]

I know 4 guys who started out portable mini band, then fixed location and went to circle. 3 of them kept the band for special work. The biggest mistake I made was a truck and picker on the road and chasing logs other people cut. I started to hate just about everyone I picked up from. One problem is that I was always out with the truck when customers where looking for me. Over time I started buying from loggers and that kept me at the sawmill where I should have been all along. For a long time I did not really know what I was doing but I could saw and had a lot of energy plus another income. Going portable down here is impossible, many have tried. In the north you have straight softwood logs and land owners with some common sense so it is possible there.

[customsawyer]

I'm not try to discourage anyone. I'm just saying that it takes time to work up the customer base and depth of contacts. It's easier now with websites and social media but don't expect to have every week booked the first year. You will get out of this what you put into it. The successful guys on here have spent years working up to where they are at. Most of us are diversified. Mine is extremely diversified. I'm set up this way so I don't have to say no unless I want to.   

[Walnut Beast]

Another BIG factor is emergency cash!! This does people in!! A thought comes to mind recently. A guy that got started in mulching had a new Deere skid and mulcher with a used gooseneck and Ford Dually. Everything was going good with all expenses but then his fuel delivery system went out on the truck and was going to be 12k. He couldn't get out of the hole and he's selling everything and waiting to see if the dealer will take the skid back and sell as a demo with less than 400 hrs. 

[Southside]

Being diversified is absolutely essential as a small operation. It brings it's own set of issues, especially if quality help is hard to find, but if you are able to do many things nobody else around can, then you will have the business. 

We have several very different revenue streams in our business, the mill and farm side compliment each other in many ways. 

Right now I am streamlining the mill side of things in order to expand the farm side, it will actually produce more product but less variety. If need be I still will have the unused capacity on the mill side.

As a small guy you need to be flexible and willing to adapt as necessary.