Thoughts on spending $3-4K for a new portable sawmill such as something like this.

?

I have a smalle Kubota tractor and a 8k lb mini excavator already.

What are you milling lumber for?

Your own use building sheds/shelters/outbuildings?

Resale?

Use up trees you have to get rid of anyway?

For rough buildings and fences and such, sawing your own lumber from your own trees is a good way to save money. All you have in it is sweat equity.

For finer work, lumber must be dried and ideally planed. Now you're talking about a lot more work and expense. This is particularly true if you plan to resell the lumber.

Custom sawing for other folks (portable band mill) can be a money maker but involves a LOT of time and not a little liability.

Yes mostly. I have my own supply of logs.
I would not be looking to do it commercially. Hence the small mill.

That seems to be an excellent price for a Woodmizer.

I considered one several years back and Woodmizer was a big name then. I assume it still is.

I'd say go for it. If it doesn't work out the resale is good on them based on what I saw when I was looking for a used one.

I don't have or use a mill,
After watching a few hundred wood yard videos,
There is a pattern I see.

A lot of people purchase portable used mills at great prices,
Then within 7-9 months they find that they want a medium size or larger sized mill.

So they sell or trade in the smaller one.

If you have access to your wood where you are at,
Why do you feel the need for a smaller mill?

A friend in AK has one of those, and it has saved him a bunch of money and time (he's hours from the nearest lumber yard) making lumber for his own projects and stuff around the camp where he works. Like PHPaul said, it's not quite to the same standard as kiln-dried commercial lumber, but for what he's using it for it's been fantastic. He gets logs for free, so it pretty much only costs him gas and time (and periodic replacement blades
) to churn out whatever he needs.

quote:

Originally posted by old rugged cross:
Thoughts on spending $3-4K for a new portable sawmill such as something like this.

?

I have a smalle Kubota tractor and a 8k lb mini excavator already.

IF you have the trees and will be harvesting them than sure why not, or, look around for a used one, someone that got it, figured out it was a lot more work than they thought, or upgraded to a larger unit. At least you'd have a lower investment into it, should you decide it's more work than it's worth.

I have a LX-55 in my back yard.
A guy doing clearing work for me had it sitting mostly idle at his business and I agreed in Feb to move it to my 5 acres to make lumber vs. burning the pine trees we were clearing.
He has a 23hp 35G John Deere excavator and I have a L2501 Kubota with grapple. We can drop a 85’-120’ pine and have it limbed, brush gathered in a burn pile and in 12’6” logs in 20m minutes with our equipment.
To date we have air/kiln dried $4K of heart pine flooring. We have cleared and milled probably 30-40 pines to date. I’d guess we have 2-3-4K Board feet of lumber air drying now.
I am retired and we mostly work 2 afternoons a week at the mill and clearing the property.
If I run out of trees on my property there are usually a dozen tree companies hauling pines to the local dump. They pay $200 a load to drop off their trees so I am not worried about running out of pine tree inventory.
We plan to use the majority of the lumber to build my barn and other on property projects.
I enjoy clearing the property and making lumber, as long as it’s not 95+ degrees here.
I’m going on 72 and the excavator/mill owner is in his 50s. We have a great time working together.
Enough of my rambling…. BE

This message has been edited. Last edited by: p113565,

Thanks for your first hand experience. How much track do you have on the one you use?
The $2995 LX50 package you can cut a 10'6" board.
I want to be able to do 16' lumber. So I am going to find out how much more $ that would add to this deal.

We have just over 12’ of track. It is expandable in 6’ increments, relatively inexpensively I believe.
We cut the logs at ~ 12’6”.
Looking back the excavator is a JD 35G at 23 HP. I believe it weighs in just under 9K lbs.
I will attempt to fix my first post to reflect same.
Excavator operator has 1000s of hours across various models, I have just over 1000 running my Kubotas.
I don’t want to pretend to be an expert, just sharing observations. All of this is a learning experience for me.
I started helping run the sawmill in February this year. BE

Our LX55 has the 14hp Kohler option.
It works hard at cutting 13” wide pine boards, not sure I would opt for the 9hp version if the 14hp is an option.
Also, Cotton Picker Spindle Cleaner is hands down the best blade juice to use. We’ve used diesel and solutions of Pine Sol but that cleaner works much better.
“A little learning is a dangerous thing”… BE

If you have the capability of hauling the logs, try to determine the cost of having them milled and dried vs doing it all yourself. Air drying lumber is generally a years long process. However, if you’re the type that will enjoy the process and the satisfaction of doing this yourself, go for it and enjoy. If you get the mill, also invest in a very good metal detector and/or magnetic scanner. A few pellets/bullets/nails/etc will cost you a fortune in down time and new blades.