Small stationary mills - what do you sell?

[UncleMoustache]

I have a stationary LT15 wide.  No plans to convert it to a trailer, but hoping to be able to sell extra wood.

For those with a similar set up, what do you sell?  What are customers after?
Deck boards?  framing/dimensional lumber?  Live-edge slabs?  Fence posts?  Cookies for decoration?  Toothpicks?

I get a variety of wood from a variety of sources, so not much in the way of quality logs for lumber, but some.
Lots of oak and silver maple, and a variety of other things - cherry, sycamore, ash, hickory, walnut, etc.

Thanks for your help!

[Southside]

You have a small, slow, mill that requires a lot of manual input to produce anything.  Therefore, anything you produce needs to be of value.  Fence posts, deck boards, framing lumber are all on the low end of the scale - even with todays prices, and there are lots of other mills producing them so you become another price point - race to the bottom.  Find a niche, something nobody else is doing, and something nobody else wants to do or can easily do to replace you.

You have a small, slow, mill that requires a lot of manual input to produce anything - so you are looking at each and every piece of lumber, cut, log, etc, which gives you the advantage over the faster, more automated mills in that you can find the one off pieces that capture value.  

There are many species of lumber out there that are considered trash wood in the commodity world.  The characteristics that make them unattractive to the commodity world create are the same characteristics that create opportunity for the little guy.  

Urban trees for all of their issues (embedded metal, rocks, small children) are often unique species that nobody else locally has access to, meaning they can give you unique, one offs that sell for a premium.  

I didn't start out planning to sell vertical grain pine flooring or lap siding, but local market demand presented itself and now I make a lot of it, heck I was just going to saw cedar.  The concept is the same but the actual products and methods that work for you there will likely be different.  Find a niche.    

[busenitzcww]

We have the same mill and cut almost exclusively slabs. I'm hoping to get a log turner but as for now dimensional lumber is too much work unless it's walnut or qtr sawn oak. We don't have that many nice trees in Ks either lol. We sell a lot of 5/4 live edge walnut as charcuterie board blanks, shelving, side tables etc. Cookies seem to sell decent as well. If we have logs big enough we cut 10/4 slabs for countertops. We operate a Nyle L200 which really helps us move product. I think the key is to have a wide variety and get your name out there and see what people want.

[moodnacreek]

The easiest thing to do is saw live edge shelf boards, coffee table tops, etc. from catalpa or cedar if you can get it. These 2 woods are light, pretty and dry fast. Tree service connection and a metal detector are necessary.

[WV Sawmiller]

Uncle M,

  Are you just sawing to sell your own wood or are you interested in sawing for the public? If interested in sawing for the public you might offer to saw small logs for others who can bring them to you. It is common people will have a sentimental attachment to certain logs and want to salvage wood from trees they or their parents planted. LE Slabs and cookies/ovals a common items they want. Are you set up to unload a 4-6 ft long log off a small truck or trailer and load on the mill? Are you set up to saw cookies? Maybe you need to investigate the new WM cookie mizer? Good luck.

   It might take a while to build up a decent clientele for this kind of service but it might be a good supplemental income source.

[Patrick NC]

Like some of the others have said, find a niche. Mine is Eastern red cedar. I've made a lot of money with cedar and short,odd shaped logs. I still saw a lot of cedar, but now that I've gotten more productive with my mill, I'm branching out into mobile sawing. 

[UncleMoustache]

Uncle M,

 Are you just sawing to sell your own wood or are you interested in sawing for the public? If interested in sawing for the public you might offer to saw small logs for others who can bring them to you. It is common people will have a sentimental attachment to certain logs and want to salvage wood from trees they or their parents planted. LE Slabs and cookies/ovals a common items they want. Are you set up to unload a 4-6 ft long log off a small truck or trailer and load on the mill? Are you set up to saw cookies? Maybe you need to investigate the new WM cookie mizer? Good luck..

The only money I've made so far has been sawing logs for others.  (Two others so far- I haven't even begun to seek customers yet).  I can transport logs if they are willing to pay extra.
Most of my milling is for the ranch where my mill is located, and I put in about 10 hrs/ week there. But I mill more than then can use, and their barns are now full of drying slabs. My thought was to just keep milling a variety of stuff and see what sells.  But the Ranch will work on the marketing to see what people want, so I only need mill what they tell me. I don't care- I just want to make sawdust, and a little ROI wouldn't hurt either. 👍

[WV Sawmiller]

   Try it all. All knowledge is good and you never know when you will get a special request. I got a request yesterday for LE shelf boards which turned out to be the same process as I had used when sawing LE lap siding. Because I had done it in practice at home I could breeze through it on the customers site which pleased everyone and may get me more work in the future. 

   I cut up 2 uprooted maple trees off my place and have had them sawed and drying a year now. A guy saw my sign on my truck door last Thursday, came and looked at them the next day and will likely buy them all. What is funny is when you saw something thinking it will be used for one purpose then have a new customer come by and see it and immediately realize a new purpose for it and have to have it. The more different things you have on display the more options it gives the customer and helps your sales. I guess a lot of the decision is what what kind of wood you have access to and how much storage space you have. Good luck.

[YellowHammer]

When I had my LT15 I just shotgunned it.  I made stacks of 4/4 x 8 feet and put it on sticks and sold it as "air drying" lumber for $1 per bdft.  I got the logs for free and sold about a stack a week for people building everything from doghouses to chicken coops.  

[longtime lurker]

Saw every log on its merits: dont be afraid of a growing pile of garden sleepers from low grade logs or stakes out of the slab pile or something else that you aren't certain will sell.
And cut good boards... square and straight and dimensionally accurate.

Well cut boards pretty much sell themselves. And it all sells eventually. Finding your niche is nice... but niche markets are often small and easily saturated and there's always some guy down the road wants in on it... or they're niche with super tight specifications that take patience and experience to crack into.

Figure out your operating cost and take every job that turns a buck. The secret to making money with a sawmill isn't to find some ultra lucrative marketing opportunity everyone else missed, it's to cut wood and cut it well... all day every day. You do that long enough and the ultra lucrative jobs start to come looking for you.

[Joe Hillmann]

 I have a small manual mill.  I have tooling set up to allow me to cut curves(up and down and side to side), spirals and 40 foot long.  All are items that would be hard to get otherwise and very specialized.  With that in mind if there ends up being a market for any of the products I will charge as high a price as I can for them.

If you try producing regular lumber for sale with a manual mill you will work yourself to death for less money then flipping burgers at McDonald's.