I have absolutely no need for a portable saw mill. That said...need has nothing to do with it. I want one of these suckers!

Is there actually an opportunity to make money from them? Are they usefull if you need the lumber? Or is it more of a toy to have around and have some fun with?

I have been seeing a lot of advertisement for the Norwood Portable Sawmill. Does anyone here have any experience with them? I'm all ears to other manufacturers.

The closer to zero the value of your time is, the more money you can make.

I 'want' one too!
Never seen the Norwood but have gone to a nearby Hudson dealer and they let my wife and I saw several boards with one. Not a lot of skill required the best that I could tell.
When you already have timber-we live on 75 acres covered in hardwoods it just seems like we should have one.
A guy out the road has a fairly high end one. Brings it to your site, saws logs and takes part of the lumber or cash in exchange.

Wood Mixer has been the standard for a very long time... lots of copycats out there. Whatever mill you choose, Suffolk Machine is the place to get your blades and advice on running a mill.

http://www.suffolkmachinery.com

Hard to make money with any sawmill unless it is equipped with lots of horsepower to move the logs and lumber around. It also can be tough to get rid of the waste which often determines how well the mill pencils out. Not much of a get rich quick scheme.

They are a lot of fun though!

No real trick to cutting slabs from an already mounted log, but there is a tremendous bit of skill in setting the saw up, getting the most out of a log, recognizing when something starts to go wrong and knowing how to correct it. Also knowing how to get the most out of different species is not something that comes without lots of time.

If you like uncertified unkilned lumber, go ahead. Friend of mine had a Woodmizer. He had one of $20k ones with the integrated trailer, self loadind hydraulic arms and more.

All he did was cut raw lumber packages (mostly tulip poplar) for the many different dark-fired tobbacco operations. Barn lumber.

No lending institution that I know of around here will let you build a house with raw lumber due powder post beetles (lyctid and bostrichidae). I suppose if youre self-funding your dream home you can use elephant dung bricks if you want. Unless your tax assessor of property pops you, but doubt you'd make it thru codes inspections anyway first.

I wish my buddy still had his mill, I'd like build a hunting cabin. I have about 15 acres of mature red cedar. Some 18" DBH stems.

Those portable setups look cool. I’ve always had thoughts of taking down some timber on family property and having the wood milled to build furniture.

waste becomes your firewood ,,or somebody elses. .
my friend with a boat yard has one that is set up for 40' cuts builds docks and such , one guy up here is doing slabs up to 6 feet wide [we do have trees that big.
they also cut stumps [washed off of course ] for signs and address numbers , just tell your friends to look for the 10' tall stump on its side ,
THATS MY DRIVEWAY,.

VALUE ADDED what is your imagination ,where will it take you.

norm

A friend in NM built one of those saw mills that uses the Suffolk band blades.

He was an excellent welder and fabricator, and you couldn't tell the mill wasn't factory made.

He ran enough wood through the mill to build his house, and quit milling wood afterwards. I know a nail would total one of his blades, and he was frustrated with the numbers of nails he found. Or fencing staples. etc.

I have a timberking "BELSAW" circular saw i use . Its what used to be called a portable sawmill ! The answers to all your sawmill questions can be found here . Don

http://www.forestryforum.com/board/index.php

You can sell tulip poplar around here to farmers about as fast as you can mill it.
Between barns, sheds and fence panels they use it plenty.

LOL. True

Around here the going rate is $200/ 1000 board ft.

The woodmizers got popular after Katrina. Lot of timber on the ground after it came thru.

I got a 5 year plan....2 years to convince the wife it's a good idea.

Actually, when the new baby tzone isn't in daycare we're going to build a cabin. I want it to make the trim and interior boards, making the smoke shack, grilling area, and just plain pissing around to keep me busy.

Having been around a number of mill operations there have been very few with no waste issues. Most will not like feeding slash to their stove and any modest operation makes a lot of slash.

I've built a couple of pieces of furniture over the last 2-3 years at my wifes request.
I make it a point to show how expensive the lumber is.
Brother has a planer he no longer uses I can get cheap.
We have oak, hickory, beech, walnut, poplar, cherry, cedar and a little pine at our disposal.
If we stay where we are, I'll have one some day.

I'm not looking for a get rich quick type of deal. I'm sure I'll get some folks that want boards made though.

Plus, my step-dad is cabinet maker, so we can get some cool crap made.

Most operations I have seen will cut wood for half the lumber. Grade is everything in lumber, even green, and how they split the lumber has a lot to do with how they come out in the deal.

Saving money by using your own mill to cut your own lumber is not going to happen! But a fellow can, and should, dream a little!

Then you will need a kiln.Saw mills are kind of like boats.Always something you are going to need for one.

Quit [bleep] on my dream!

I just want something to do.

I have owned a Cook MP-32 for about ten years now. It is a great milll, with many particulars that are well thought out. If you heat at all with wood, your waste is taken care of. Mine is heating the house right now. Once folks know that you have one, you can keep as busy as you want. You can literally work every weekend if you want to. You will also come across a lot of free logs along the way. If you dont have a way to load and unload, they will work you pretty hard. They will keep you in pretty good shape if you work them regularly. I would highly recommend the Cook, as well as the Cook Super Sharp blades. The folks at Cook are extremely helpful and knowledgeable. Only real down side is that folks like to try and barter you down too much. There isn’t a lot of work involved and folks like you to throw that in for free. Pot bellied sons of bitches don’t have a clue, or value, the work involved.

Portable sawmills are a good idea that just doesn’t work.

Oh, they work. You just have to have some motivation.

Two of my pards here in WV have mils. Both make a decent living.

I got buddy that owns a high end tree service company. He Bought a brand new wood miser thinking it would be beneficial to his business. He said he used it twice and called the company he bought it off of to come and pick it up. He took about a 2000 dollar lose just get rid of it.

His main complaint on the one had was the lack of a powered feed drive. Which I can understand that. He did learn enough that he changed his mind about needed one altogether.

A guy building a house down the road from had on set up while he was clearing is house seat. I didn't stop to look at it but from the road it looked to do a heck of a job for what he needed. He slatted and stacked his lumber next to it and covered it with tin when he was done to air dry it.

Now days it seems that live edge slabs are the going thing. But it takes a saw with a wide throat to fit the bill.

Kilns are not required for most operations. Kilns, despite the myths, do not improve lumber. They simply dry the wood "with an acceptable level of degrade."

Well in this case if they're like boats, I'm going to need a few of them for different applications. I like your style.

Saving money or making a living has nothing to do with it. I just want to go to the land and piss around.

And that is worth a lot! I am starving here for good wood as we have no decent hardwood here, at all. paper birch is only mediocre firewood and for anything else it is worse...

The Norwood, with the chainsaw and your ladder looks interesting. In the early 80's I had a Grandberg chainsaw mill. Cut some 8" x 8" x 10' columns and about 30' of beams. An absolute ton of work. Used them in the house I spent 2 1/2 years building. Wished I had the money for one of the portable bandsaw mills. If you want it to play around with, go for it!! You will need more than just the mill to make money. Some way to move the logs and lumber, other than by hand. Lifting equipment. Heavy truck.

And in my case, it adds variety as another piece of machinery that drowns out the wife. Bush-hogging gets old, but hey.

I have wanted one for a while now.
Keep hashing it around in my head.
Tools and Equipment are my addiction you can never have all of them and can never have enough of them.

Go for your dreams it is the only way to Live.

Now yer smellin what I'm steppin in!

I’m working a trade up north that he’ll cut anything I want for half the wood. That’s a bargain at half the price. 😁

He has a real nice Wood Miser and it’ll cut the heavy timber beams I want. There’s also a kiln not terribly far from my place up north so I will be doing it right the first time rather than deal with twisting and checking post installation.

Keep a eye out on craigs list. They show up quite often and sell fast if they are not to over priced.
I want to buy this one but there is no way I could get it to my land up north in the winter.
Timber Mill

T...this guy (although long winded) is full of pretty good info. He was a newbie with a Wood-Mizer and shares a lot of good information about it. Several videos are worth watching.

Portable Sawmill

You can make a little selling lumber but wood projects like benches and mantles bring a whole lot more. Me and buddy work our mill and the proceeds helps to fund our hunting trips.

About 25 years ago a neighbor bought one for a hobby. He and my dad were both retired farmers, both in their 70s and both into woodworking. Bernard and dad would cut down a few trees, load them on a truck or trailer with a front end loader on a tractor and haul them to wherever they had the saw setup. I was working nights at the time, so helped when they were working lumber. They'd use the tractor to load the log on the mill and then cant hooks to position it. We sawed ceder, walnut, coffee bean, hackberry and whatever they or other neighbors needed for some project. Lumber was stacked under cover with lathe between the layers for air circulation. Seems like they used the lumber after a year or so and moisture meters showed below 8-10
The coffee bean was my favorite, wild grain that looked similar to a real redish oak. It was bad about chipping out on corners in some of those grain patterns, but made good looking tables and such.

So THAT's where all the trees in South Dakota went to......

I can see why it's for sale: there's nothing left to cut, up there.

T, a few years ago I bought a used Foley-Belsaw which was not portable, but I got thousands of hours of service out it. I ran it off the PTO of a Ford 5000 tractor. First thing I sawed out was poles, beams, rafters, roof sheeting and siding for a building to put over it. The sawmill paid for itself quickly by sawing out corral and pen boards for myself and the neighbors. When it was set up and I had help I could saw about 400 bdf/hour. What I charged for custom sawing was all over the spectrum, but I tried to average about $160.00 per 1000 bdf.

I sawed out materials to build 3 different cabins and 1 horse barn.

Making money was not the object of the setup, I really enjoyed the work and was a great distraction from farm work. I got a lot of satisfaction transforming a log into something useful.

With that said, you have a dream...go for it. The only warning is be on the alert for trees from fence lines and around homes and farm buildings. When you hit metal, it is expensive.

Not to rain on anyone parade! But a sawmill is a great thing to rent and the owner can do all the maintenance and sharpening. I have been part of cutting about 30 -40,000 bft. One of the sawyers told me that the mill was the easy part. Add a truck,loader tractor,sharpening settup,chainsaws and working every weekend! Then have to educate every client how the whole thing works!

If you just want a cheap sawmill to mess around with, check out the one made by Harbor Freight. My brother bought one and it surprised me how well it worked and how cheap it was. He has sawed quite a bit of lumber with it and does fine for him. He has a Bobcat so loading the logs is easy. That's the hardest part.

I used a Mr. Sawmill brand sawmill when I lived in Arkansas. I felled and cut up a bunch of cedar for posts for a 30' X 60' building, a 20' X 30' woodshed and I had enough left over for a 10' X 30' garden shed that I built up here in ND. The sawmill is made in AR and was on a trailer. It was bare bones but worked well for what I needed to do. I sawed the cedar 12 foot. It's a lot of work but I enjoyed it.

Random thoughts: Woodmizer is the gold standard, similar to JD tractors. Can you "make money" ? Some do. Most don't. To dink around on your farm, using your own logs, sawing lumber for your own use, yes, they can be useful. AS noted above, for anything more than dinking around, the mill is only one portion of the set up. To do ANY serious amount of sawing, need to include at least a 3/4 ton truck to safely move the full size mills, truck/trailer to haul logs and lumber, a "real" forklift or skid steer to move logs and packages of lumber, a kiln if you intend to use any of the lumber "indoors" for furniture, trim, gun cases, etc, multiple chain saws, blade sharpening equipment, multiple tool boxes on the truck above to store all of the tools and spare parts to maintain the mill, a strong back and a weak mind.

Old farmer joke... "How do you make a small fortune farming ???? Start off with a large fortune..." Substitute sawmilling for farming...

Have had two different Woodmizer sawmills. Nearly went broke trying to do it full time for a year. LOVE the work. But squeezing a profit out it? That's another story. Can be done. But takes the right person in the right situation. That wasn't me... Forestryforum.com has much good info...

I got another walnut log needing sawed into gunstock blanks....

Woodmizer or bust for volume.

Then you'll want a skidder with forks or some other setup to handle material.

Then the first time you find wire, nails, screws, grown in tree steps, or a host of other goodies you're going to shidt.

If you don't know what your doing and don't go into the milling of each piece with a plan then prepare for a big pile o'[bleep] in the end.

You don't need a kiln to dry, air drying produces wood every bit as high quality if done properly. But air drying takes time (months on the low end, years for thicker stuff). If you mess up drying - prepare for a big pile o'[bleep] in the end.

Best way to dip your toe in is get an Alaskan Mill and a big ass saw - that way when you decide its not for you you can dump the mill and you still got a saw out of the deal.

Stock blanks are best cut individually with a chain saw. Once you are into a bandsaw mill the with a high quality log the notion comes in to just cut it and sort it once it is done... that always fails on the logs really worth cutting into blanks.

The old saying goes something like cut the very best blank you can visualize in the log... then cut the second best...

If you cannot visualize what is there it is probably just lumber...

The old Forest Gump line about "Life is like a box chocolates. You never know what you're going to get..." is also true for sawing. Occasionally the best looking logs have ants in the middle. Occasionally an old rough looking log turns out some pretty nice lumber. Have probably only sawn out maybe 200 walnut logs in the 13-14 years that I have been sawing. Had one old rough walnut log come in. Bark had already sloughed off of it. Only walnut log that I have sawn with quilted grain pattern. IIRC, 14 foot length, and the first 6 to 7 feet of the log was quilted just about all the way through. Some of the most pretty 5/4 x14"x14' walnut lumber I have ever sawn. Would have loved to have sawn blanks out of that. But, alas, the customer wanted 5/4 furniture lumber... Same customer also snagged a 25ft white oak log off a construction project that was 57" or 59" on the small end...

Tom, my buddy on an adjoining 1/4 section bought one 2 & 1/2 years ago, to build a pole barn.

He dropped & limbed a few trees, the fist fall, after he got it.

It seems, not much has happened since !!

Made me howl. So true with many things.

Quite a few people have small mills around here. Most set up in one location which is usually close to a source of trees and cut what customers need. One guy, retired, makes and sells lots of sharpened fence posts and he can't stay ahead of demand. Rough, full-sized lumber for corrals, barns, etc seems to be what many people request.

I had one guy cut up some blued pine for me on my property. I couldn't believe how much lumber I ended up with for such a cheap price. It wasn't planed or dried, but it works for what I need. I don't know whether or not the guys in this area make money or not, but they seem to be able to keep as busy with it as they want to be.

A guy could find many more ways to piss away as much or money on less return. if it interests you, I'd do it.

Rule of thumb for proper air-drying is 1 year per inch of thickness. So, 3" gunstock blank is a minimum 3 years. The need for a kiln depends on location. For furniture, cabinets, etc that will be used in a heated house, wood needs to be dried to 6% to 7% moisture content to avoid issues. Here in KY, ambient humidity (60-80%) is such that air dry only gets wood down to about 12% moisture content. Have to kiln dry to get down to the final 6% to 7%. Air drying saves kiln time. But does not eliminate the need in many areas.

We have built a lot of project with air dried lumber. Let it take the time it takes.