New startup

[RICK2E]

High Y'all- I haven't posted in forever so I'll see if I remember how !! I've retired in the last few years and wanted a mill for my own use. I went and bought a Norwood chainsaw mill and after 2 logs decided that was not what I needed!! I went and bought an old Belsaw M-14 that I've been restoring for the last 6 months and I'm now about ready to set it up. I have a lot of experience with this model as I had one years ago when in Alaska. My questions are these - one - would there be any online courses or tutorials to sawing and grading Hardwood? All my experience has been in the North cutting softwoods with the only Hardwood being Birch. Two - are there any regional lumber association's ( I'm in southern MO) that could help with pricing - Thanks for any and all help - it's been almost 40 years since I had the stick in hand and I'm really looking forward to sawing again!!! Thanks 
Rick<><

[DanielW]

There are still some colleges that offer grading courses, but you have to figure out what certification/governing body is best to look into. You're probably best to call the NHLA (see link below) and ask about it. Unfortunately it's getting harder and harder to get into a stand-alone course for grading: These days most graders are trained/certified at full-scale production facilities, not at isolated courses.

If I were you, I'm not sure I'd worry about grading certification: Unless you're a full-scale production facility pushing out 100 MBF a day, you're probably selling in a small-scale way to people who either know enough about what they're buying to see the grade/quality for themselves, or to other folks who couldn't give a toss about the grade. A few days playing with your new mill and looking at the grain, boards coming off your mill, and how they dry, will probably teach you all you need to know about cutting hardwoods for anything you're doing. Being able to certify hardwoods is only really useful to the production facilities sending out rail-car or transport loads at a time, so they can guarantee their buyers that it's all of consistent grade without the buyer having to pick through and check. Softwood grading is a bit different: It's more handy to have a softwood grading license, as that way you can (legally) use your own lumber for building projects.

I applaud you for keeping another Belsaw from the scrappers. They weren't the fastest, nor most robust, nor most accurate circle mills by any stretch, but they sure are fun. And a single operator can still put out a lot more lumber from one of them in a day than you can on any band (if you can keep a steady log diet fed to it and keep up with the sawdust). I have five circle mills, varying from a little one-man M14 to a production unit with integral slasher, edger, and end-trim. But these days the M14 and M24 have become my favourites to use: Simple, able to operate efficiently with one-man, and more than adequate for what I need. Check out the two video links below - you can really see how some guys put the M14 through their paces.

https://nhla.com/services/certification-programs/

https://youtu.be/zAIMtQKPTOk?t=238

https://youtu.be/E53bdvrviZk?t=60

[barbender]

There is a book available for free download called "Manufacturing and Marketing Eastern Hardwood Lumber Produced by Thin Kerf Bandmills". Drop the thin kerf bandmill part and you'll find what you need in there I think, it has a lot of good basic info for grading logs and lumber.