Portable Sawmills- Are they worth the money?- Woodland Mills HM126

is buying a portable sawmill worth it stay tuned to find out I purchased my portable sawmill almost a year ago now and I've received a lot of questions about it since then the main questions are why did I choose a bandsaw mill over a chainsaw mill am i happy with the quality of my Woodland Mills sawmill is it worth it to buy a portable sawmill for personal use is it a good business investment I wanted to hold off on giving my opinion until I had used my portable sawmill through all four seasons so that I would have a good grasp of the pros and cons of owning one and so four seasons later here we are the portable sawmill I own is a Woodland Mills HM 126 now just to be clear this is not a sponsored video this is just my opinion straight and simple the HM 126 comes with ten feet of track a 9.5 horsepower Kohler engine and a cutting head that is capable of handling logs up to 26 inches in diameter I bought the six foot track extension so that I would be able to process logs up to 16 feet in length I've since used the sawmill to construct a tool shed and to begin work on a log cabin that I'm currently building if you're interested in seeing those videos check out the card that will appear on the video now the links to them will also be in the description below anyway let's get down to it first of all my decision to buy a portable bandsaw sawmill over a chainsaw mill was easy chain saw mills are built to be ultra portable if you own a high quality chainsaw with a big bar the rest of the equipment could be thrown onto the back of a four-wheeler into a boat or even a bush plane in some cases on the other hand the thickness of the chain compared to the ultra thin profile of a bandsaw blade means a chainsaw mill is inefficient by comparison it takes more fuel to rip each board plus the chain wastes more wood per cut another huge downside to a chainsaw mill is that it takes longer to set up for each log however portable sawmill can get going on a log with much less prep which means a ton of time saved overall here's my overall opinion on purchasing chainsaw Mills versus portable bandsaw Mills if you're working in an extremely remote area only reachable by boat or four-wheeler then probably your only option is a chainsaw mill although the equipment is much cheaper than buying a band sawmill remember that you'll also have to get yourself a high end chainsaw if you don't already own one however if you're able to get a truck or even a tractor back to where you need to go then I think a portable band sawmill is the best option but it'll pay you back in time and money saved onto the next question am i happy with the quality of my woodland mill sawmill the short answer is yes I am extremely happy with my purchase from woodland mills I love using their HM 126 and I have zero regrets and buying it now for the longer answer these are the things I loved about it and things that I'm not too crazy about but before I get into talking about the equipment I first want to mention the people behind the product I took a road trip down to the woodland mills headquarters in Ontario and I spoke with the representatives in person I just got to say they are awesome people they're friendly and extremely helpful the company is well managed and the employees obviously love what they do which I think indirectly speaks to the quality of their product the salespeople and warehouse manager happily answered my slew of questions after speaking with them I felt completely comfortable putting my money down on one of their sawmills they also have great follow-up support and are happy to troubleshoot with their customers even after the purchase has been made anyway onto the equipment it has a Kohler engine which is a solid product I've ran it in all kinds of weather and it always fires right up and runs without any issues the track is solid and well-made the log clamps are easy to use and strongly secure the log the blade is easy to put on and take off for sharpening the adjustable feet help to level the track on uneven ground the cutting head is easy to raise and lower the whole assembly rolls smoothly and easily on the track the sawmill is fairly easy to assemble and we didn't run into any problems while putting it together the parts are cheap easy to replace and most of them like the bearings can be purchased from most hardware stores now onto the negative stuff I'm kind of reaching here because I can't find much wrong with it but here goes since there was no place I could put the sawmill on level ground we did our best to level some cinder blocks in the ground we then used the adjustable feet to compensate for the remaining difference however we still found it quite hard to perfectly level the track it took us a long time to get it right and when the ground thawed in the spring we had to reel 'evil the track all over again basically if the sawmill is on uneven ground I found it almost impossible to make 100% level however the slight variance in the track hasn't shown up in the boards at all which is the most important thing here's my recommendation if you can get away with putting a sawmill on a concrete slab that is already level then do that that way you can avoid the leveling problem altogether or if you can build a trailer to set it on you wouldn't have to worry about leveling it either it's easier to level a trailer than it is to level a sawmill with its several independent sections of track to deal with the good news is that woodland mills provides a detailed trailer design on their website to help get you started now I know that Woodland Mills will likely see this video as I know they've seen my last video on their sawmill so if you're listening woodland mills I would love it if you guys could begin manufacturing sawmill trailers to go with your sawmills and when you do please let me know because I'd love to get my hands on one anyway that's the only negative thing I can say about an otherwise excellent portable sawmill now on to the third question is it worth buying a sawmill for personal use my short answer is yes I think so at least purchasing a portable sawmill is a great idea for someone who owns a healthy chunk of bush lot and uses lumber on at least a semi-regular basis maybe to build or repair their outbuildings or to construct their own high-quality furniture if you're willing to invest the time why go to the hardware store to pay for lumber when you can make your own for next to nothing and why pay thousands of dollars for that harvest table your wife has always been wanting in the kitchen when you can build your own with your own trees at a fraction of the cost and now the final question is it worth buying a sawmill as a business investment my short answer is maybe if you're hoping to make a little extra cash on the side by selling some quality lumber or furniture then go for it but if you're hoping to make it a full-time gig then you're going to need a much more expensive sawmill with hydraulics and some automation although processing lumber with a portable sawmill is much quicker than using a chainsaw mill it still takes a good amount of time to process each log the log must be manually loaded secured and rolled the blade height must also be manually adjusted for each cut this can eat up a good amount of time accounting for the time spent processing and the value of the lumber being processed I highly doubt you'd be able to make a good living at selling two by fours and two by sixes but I do think there's money to be made with the higher quality woods involving less cuts for example maple slabs can sell for a good price and they require far less cuts than making actual boards I also think good money can be made from constructing furniture made from more valuable woods anyway I hope that was helpful just remember this is only my opinion if you ask someone else they might have a different take on the topic that's it for now I'll see you in the next one

Channel: The Outsider

Views: 962,301

Rating: 4.8368587 out of 5

Keywords: portable, sawmill, mill, lumber, wood, chainsaw, band, saw, review, logging, furniture, outsidefun1, outsider

Id: vO33gVebWtE

Length: 8min 43sec (523 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 29 2017