Before You Buy a Portable Sawmill | Things I Wish I Knew About Sawing Logs (Updated)

[Music] you got to put the foot to the rug here boys and girls it is a little bit muddy oh yeah [Music] come on this thing's one wheel drive here okay we're almost there as you guys can tell we are pulling up we're pulling up on the sawmill shelter sawmill shack the hillbilly hideo and we made it and i think this little girl here is a little worse for wear this is one of my favorite pieces of equipment if you're brand new here this although a little muddy at this at this point this is a 1988 club car ds this thing is one of my favorite things to drive around when there's no snow on the ground however this thing's no atv or side by side or four-wheel drive tractor for that matter this thing is pretty much a one-wheel drive uh well golf cart now and speaking about golf carts there's a few things i like to collect i like to collect lumber and while i like to collect tools and i think collecting golf carts is probably going to be my next problem although it might be a good problem to have having these golf carts around is pretty fun i've got another one of these i've got a 1982 yamaha g2 that thing has a two-stroke engine that thing's a little uh well it's a little under the weather at this point hopefully i get it fixed up before long you guys will see it out here with this whole thing now what i've done here today is i brought you guys along because i'm going to talk about a few things related to my sawmill first and foremost i've cut some more stickers for my wood to dry now you guys can see here this is just some some scrap lumber i had up at my shop i run it on the table saw at one inch by one inch and i just make sure every piece is the exact same dimension and i just load it up there with these blue bins and keep them handy for when i'm stock stacking lumber anyways what i'm going to talk to you guys about today after i fill up the sawmill with uh with gas here is i'm going to talk to you guys about things i wish i knew before i bought this sawmill because at one point in time i was probably like many of you guys i was probably surfing the internet and uh you know i realized that hey i can make my own lumber save some cash potentially and well make my projects with that lumber and there's some things i've learned since that time and i'm going to share those with you today and hopefully that ends up helping you guys anyways glad you're all here and let's get down to it [Music] so all right guys well take a step back in time here and think to yourself me sitting in front of a computer maybe i was even on my phone researching this woodland mill sawmill now what i'm about to tell you probably applies to many manufacturers of sawmills not just this one but for my sake i'm going to talk about this one because that's one i ended up buying now when i was looking at buying that sawmill i had in my mind i have logs available in these trees all around me and hence i can make lumber like you see behind me i forgot about her i didn't think about her i didn't even know about all the steps in between and all the things i'd have to encounter and overcome in order to get from well these logs into that lumber now some of those things include the hard work it takes to get these logs right here now i have a variety of options of getting logs to this location i can pick up the phone like many of you guys do i can make a phone call and i can get saw logs dropped off this is probably a bit more money than my firewood logs that i would pay for so i'd have to consider that but i can get them delivered here the option that i went with to get these logs where you see them before you is i actually go out and i harvest the trees myself i de-lim them i bucked them to lengthen well i get them to this state prior to being made into lumber this whole process is probably the biggest challenge the biggest effort and it actually makes making lumber seem easy for me this is the hard part getting the logs sitting here getting the logs from a tree getting them from the bush and getting them dragged out to this location for you guys if you make a phone call well you probably will skip all that effort you'll have to spend a bit of money or maybe you got a good friend who'll deliver it for free and then you can focus on making the lumber but for me this is probably most of the battle making the lumber is just a very small part of it now another thing i wish i knew before i bought that sawmill and don't get me wrong i'm still happy i bought it but i wish i understood the importance of keeping these logs clean now if we have a look at these logs they're not too bad most of them were brought out here with snow still on the ground and having snow on the ground keeps the dirt from out of it but if you are skidding logs and there's no snow on the ground i get cake full of dirt and although i seem to think that i can brush it off i can't get every morsel of dirt off there and that is very important and something i didn't know because that dirt ultimately dulls my blades and that ultimately cost me more time and more effort and potentially more money so keeping these clean i wish i knew a long time ago very very important that brings me back to the point of when you're going to harvest your trees when you're going to get them delivered even or when someone else is going to harvest them if they can be harvested in the winter all the better by harvesting them in the winter they're not going to touch any dirt or as i like to call it soil and hence they're going to get here they're gonna be nice and clean and you're not gonna dull up any blades like you would if they're harvested and dragged across the muck another thing i wish i knew was that having a setup like the one i'm standing under is critical why is it critical well when i first got that mill i pretty much set blocks on the ground and i set the mill on it and it didn't really well it didn't really cut that good it's because i have to have a perfectly flat base i didn't realize the importance of that now i do hence why i'm standing on this deck platform which i can guarantee is perfectly flat but i didn't realize that to make a really good cut really good uh piece of lumber without waves and you know crooks and all that junk well you gotta have a really flat base now i know and i'm passing that off to you guys another thing i'm gonna mention you guys that i had no idea about when i was ordering this sawmill was how important it is to stack the lumber after it's been cut now i have this drying shed and it's more or less just an open-air shed it air dries in this location but i can tell you the base on that is perfectly flat the stickers that i use to stick in between the lumber is also the same thickness the same the same dimension that's because i didn't know when i first bought the mill that the that the lumber had to be perfectly flat it had to be it had to be sitting uh perfectly flat on top of the piece before it and if you don't do that you end up getting pieces that look like this or like this i didn't know that i do now i also didn't know that it is important to give lots of space between the lumber so you guys will notice i actually err on the side of caution here no pun intended i actually put a solid inch in between the different layers of lumber and i keep i keep distance between each uh each subsequent piece side to side i also didn't know and you guys might that it's a good idea depending on what you're doing to actually put force down on the lumber now i don't have any force down on it right now so you guys can call me a hypocrite but i do know that it is important not only to have a flat base here and have the lumber stacked evenly but have a bit of weight on it so that well the lumber can't especially at the top sort of curl upwards or bow now another thing i didn't know was that some species of wood and i'm not talking about the fur or the pine that i've got here but some species it will actually crack as it dries i've i've encountered this first hand with poplar i don't cut a lot of hardwood so i don't have a lot of experience with that but i understand many hardwoods as well they require you to get some sort of sealant on the end many people use latex paint just to uh just to prevent that cracking this pine and this fur in my experience it doesn't matter it it won't crack on me as it air dries on that point about drawing wood i didn't think about it or i didn't know or i didn't maybe recognize the importance of having a roof over top of my lumber pile i used to just put steel across the top and that's fine and dandy if you live in an area where maybe you get very little snow or no snow at all but for me if i'm out here cutting in the middle of winter you guys have seen the big blasts of winter we get out here that steel it quickly got covered overnight by like a foot or two of snow and then i'd come out here and i'd have to try to heave that off the top of the pile so i could stack new stuff on it sometimes that worked but other times what ended up happening was we got a little freezing drizzle in there so that's snow that two or two or one foot of snow it actually froze to the steel it made life pretty miserable i had no idea how difficult that was gonna be in the snow just to get lumber piled up so having a structure like this i think if i knew this initially i would have kept that in the back of my mind knowing this should have been one of my first projects so we talked about lumber and the importance of sort of keeping something over it depending on your circumstance and airing it out and potentially sealing the end and keeping it flat and potentially weighted down let's talk about something else let's talk about waste when i was looking to buy a sawmill like the one you see behind you waste was not even a consideration i just figured hey i'll cut some cut some logs i'll get some slabs like this and you know i'll just throw it into a pile and i'll deal with it somehow i'm not sure how but it'll get dealt with well if you guys would have seen one of my videos from oh gee well over a year ago maybe a year and a half ago you would have seen one of my my early setups for this sawmill and i more or less just cut the logs and i threw the waste out back here behind the sawmill well eventually that pile got unmanageable the pile was like six feet high probably more like five probably 10 or 12 feet wide and then whatever length the log was that was a huge effort to deal with it was to the point where it was getting so high i could barely throw the slabs on top of the existing pile without hitting the underside of my old structure so finding something to do with the waste wood figuring out a solution and sort of putting that into play before you buy the sawmill is probably important for me i wish i built this set up a long time ago this setup you guys could have seen in one of my other videos this is what i call the slab rack or offcut rack i just throw it in here so i can make little pieces like this and uh you know even that piece and then i just hoof her into the old ibc cage there and then the tractor comes along and i load it up into piles like that over there to air dry and then i use it for heating and whatever ever whatever ever in whatever application i need it for and when we're talking about waste i'm not just talking about like the slab water the offcuts i'm also talking about this stuff down here you guys see this that's sawdust and that is not well that is not from a lot of logs this is from fairly recently when you're cutting logs you pre you produce an awful lot of sawdust and you got to have a way to deal with this early on what i was doing was unfortunately i was having to rake a lot of this by hand and shovel a lot of this because i didn't think about access for my tractor so when i was cutting logs in my old setup the sawdust simply shot off the back of the sawmill into an area that was inaccessible by a tractor or equipment and therefore i had to i had to hand bomb this stuff i had to rake this stuff out of there because i had to make room for more sawdust to take its place eventually what i did was the current setup you guys see here and that is i created a bit of a space here my tractor comes in with a bucket i scoop up the dust i go and i use it for whatever i tend to use it for my trails to keep the keep the brush down and stuff of that nature now something else i didn't know when i was researching sawmills and ultimately i was buying one was that the time between cutting the tree down having the log on the ground and sawing it into lumber well that time determines what the quality of the lumber will be i used to think that i could go out and cut down a whole bunch of trees top them delim them and cut them to length and i could just leave them in the bush and go and get them whenever i needed them and they would just dry in the bush and then i'd saw them in the lumber well i quickly learned this if you have a log like this and let's say you cut it down in the winter time and you leave it there and then the weather gets warm the snow goes away you do not have an infinite amount of time to move that log unless you want bugs in it bugs will start especially in my area dealing with pine bugs will start boring holes into this stuff and ultimately it will get discolored the lumber will get discolored because the bugs will be in there moisture will get in there and then you'll end up getting something like uh let's see what we got over here i'm gonna head to my waste pile because i'm not gonna lie i cut wood every once in a while that i've left on the ground too long uh something like that that's sort of a uh that's sort of a drastic piece you guys can see some of the boring insects in there uh i don't think this is a piece of pine though that's actually a piece of fur i don't know if i have any red pine that's been around here there's a piece of red pine there we go you guys see that little hole right there right there well notice how this is very close to the outside of the log that is a boring insect that has started to get into this tree uh or in this case whatever this log was if you guys leave your logs in the ground too long you're gonna get insects into them and ultimately that's gonna cause this stuff this discoloration you see it there and so whatever piece of lumber this made it definitely has that discoloration on it and uh not to mention the bug will probably still be in there so you got to keep that in mind when you cut a tree down you want to have it processed in a timely fashion especially when the weather gets warm i like to cut trees down in the winter i like to get them over to the sawmill and cut before we get into the nice warm temperatures i try to cut the trees down right when i need it make it into lumber at that time instead of leaving the log sitting in the bush oh here's a good example down here this is my little boardwalk here you guys can check out uh upcoming video if you want to see what i'm doing here you guys see this piece right here get a good look down there see all those little those little dots that's a piece of lumber this is scrap that's why it's on this boardwalk this piece of lumber would have had those boring insects get into it because i would have left that tree in log form on the ground too long same thing over here you guys see right here all these insect holes boring insects right and then the moisture gets in and discolors it that is what you can expect if you get your logs leave them on the ground too long especially when it gets warm out so some of you guys are probably wondering well what's that magic timeline from leaving a log on the ground to getting it sawn i'm not going to comment on that because that's going to depend on where you live now for me i don't really measure the amount of time the log sits on the ground because i take the log pretty much a day or maybe even up to a week after i've cut it and i bring it over to the sawmill and make it into lumber that way in that short amount of time there's no way boring insects are going to get into it and ultimately i'm going to end up with some nice clear lumber now getting back up here by my woodland mills hm130 i'm going to bring your attention down here to the blades now this blade right here is a lennox blade this has been the blade that i've used since i've owned the mill i know many of you guys use a variety of different types of blades and i'll get there one day this one seems to work for me and so i'm going to stick with it now this lennox blade i think if i'm not mistaken it runs me said and done about 25 bucks canadian a pop well that gets pretty expensive every time you dull that thing if you did what i did and didn't have a plan for resharpening when i bought this sawmill my whole idea was that i'd get a 10 pack of blades and every time the previous blade got dull i'd just replace it with a new one that was fine and dandy until i had to buy another 10 pack of blades and then i started doing the math and i started realizing to myself that you know what this is probably not going to last long term i got to either get a sharpener or find someone to sharpen it i should have thought about that when i first bought the sawmill so i had a plan in place i didn't and ultimately i bought several blades before i ultimately bought a blade sharpener for you that might not be the best solution maybe you've got someone who will sharpen them and thus you don't have to get a sharpener so some of the final things that i'm going to tell you guys about and i probably should have thought about and maybe maybe write a little bit more about was how heavy a green log is before i ended up buying my sawmill these green logs they're fresh meaning they were just cut down well not all that long ago and because of that they're still full of moisture these are heavy i originally thought i would just sort of pick these logs up from deep in the woods and get them out to a little trail where i could access it with my equipment well lo and behold that certainly didn't work and so now you guys know what i'm using i got a little bit of a winch and a little bit of equipment to help me along knowing that these were heavy as they are well i probably should have knew that before i bought the sawmill regardless it hasn't uh well it hasn't killed me yet maybe made me a bit stronger but that's the reality now one final thing that i didn't comprehend or didn't sort of grasp before i jumped right into sawmilling was the amount of sheer manual labor involved in making logs into lumber now i've got friends out there and they say wow it must be nice to have the equipment you can make lumber in a few seconds and then i sort of take a step back and i laugh inside and i say yeah a few seconds i can cut the logs into the lumber in a few seconds but then it takes me hours to get more logs and it takes me hours to process the waste and hours to stack it and hours to deal with maintenance and hours to deal with dust and you guys get the point if i knew the amount of manual labor involved i would probably put that at the forefront of my decision making because that is definitely a reality of that portable sawmill so guys the next time you're on your computer you're on your phone you're doing some research you're looking at pressing the pay now button to get a sawmill like the one you see behind you think to yourself all those things that go into going from a nice log like that into some lumber the whole process is really enjoyable for me and i'm not complaining in the least i come out here because i want to and for no other reason but for you guys just make sure you consider it because it certainly is enjoyable and rewarding but you definitely have to understand it's certainly some work guys i appreciate you watching check out some of my other videos if you want to see that sawmill there in action make sure you come back next time and i'll see you then

Channel: Sawing with Sandy

Views: 126,886

Rating: 4.9271755 out of 5

Keywords: things i wish i knew about sawing logs, Things you should think about before buying a sawmill, What's involved in sawing logs, Consider these things when sawing logs, Pros and Cons of making your own lumber, Why sawmills aren't for everyone, Making your own lumber is work, What's involved in making your own lumber, Why I bought a portable sawmill, Are you ready for a sawmill, Woodland Mills portable sawmill, Why you need a portable sawmill, Before you buy a portable sawmill

Id: kd6dynevmJY

Length: 20min 4sec (1204 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 14 2021