Portable Sawmill Lumber or buy?

[crowbar032]

Really ?

I think you are confused - black locust is sometimes (commonly) referred to as "yellow locust" ....

AFAIK, there is no separate and unique genus and species recognized as "yellow locust" ....

And I believe that both black locust and honey locust leaves can, and do, turn yellow under certain circumstances.

Yes, you are correct. However, I've spent many hours arugeing black vs yellow, so now I've given up and just list them as separate. I thought the black vs yellow discussion came from the wood, not leaves. When I started fencing, I split about 1000 posts with a sledge hammer and a wedge in July and August. Some of them looked like they had been stained yellow on the inside when first split. Others were much darker with no traces of yellow. After they weather, it's impossible to tell which color they started as.

Like I said, you may want to check into it ....

Scope out this paper from the US Department of Agriculture, US Forest Service for starters:

Gleditsia triacanthos

Part of the reference sourcing for the uses of honey locust for that paper come from the American Forestry Association.

From the above publication:

"Honey-locust wood is dense, hard, coarse-grained, strong, stiff, shock-resistant, takes a high polish, and is durable in contact with soil [11,14,16,22,42]. Honey-locust wood is used locally for posts, pallets, crates, general construction, furniture, interior finish, turnery, and firewood [8,36]. It is useful, but is too scarce to be of economic importance [8].":

Thanks for the info, I will read up on it. However, from what I've seen and experienced in the past, a honey locust will just about rot completely in a year laying on the ground. The lumber may be very good to work with. If I can find one big enough, I may give it a shot.

Understandable .... but I promise that reading about it won't hurt .... :thumbsup:

Absolutely, one can never have too much information.

 

[economy]

Twisted boards can be made to behave with SCREWS!!

 

[koamfps]

My two cents, I had 3500 board feet portable saw milled! After it was all said and done it would have been cheaper to have someone pay me for the wood to be cut and go to the Amish saw mill and pick up what I needed!
The time and energy it took to move the wood, put slats between boards so it can dry proper, then stack the wood. After drying go through the wood for select pieces you want to use not to medntion the wood that splits as it dried and is unuseable. What a Pain in the A**
FYI ----White and Red Pine, Poplar and Maple where the types I had milled!
I will never do it again

 

[economy]

1. Stop splitting by painting the ends of the logs before milling.
2. I have a grapple loader to load and move logs and to load on a manual sawmill.
3. I square the cant, then saw boards or dimension lumber from the cant without removing, then pick up the stack and put it on the trailer.
4. I trim the slabs by stacking them against the squaring posts, lowering the post, and then sawing down 1 inch at a time to get stickers.
5. I flip the slabs over and square the other edge until I get some clean boards of an acceptable width.
6. Once everything is sawed and loaded, I move the trailer to the area I am going to stack and sticker the lumber on treated base.
I can saw and stack well over 1000 board feet per day. I usually saw pine and poplar with little warping.

 

[boggen]

i was just a knee high chap the few times it was done here on the farm. having someone come in and cut down trees, and cut lumber with a portable mil.

what i do remember is a lot of the lumber was "rough" cut. and if you wanted a nice flat smooth surface, you needed to use a planer. to get thickness you wanted. or a good amount of sanding with a belt sander.

going through all the lumber was a chore, and to pick through to get away from warped boards, after drying.

a lot of the boards you had to pass through a table saw, or use a skill saw, in order to get nice clean straight edges. (bark still left on the edges)

it is a lot of cutting taking down tree, loading onto mill, moving lumber a few times (more so when you do not have a plan down or do have a plan and it goes belly up)

myself, i would most likely sale the trees as in having someone come in and pick what they wanted and let them cut them down and load them, removing the stumps, deal with the twigs, etc.. , and after i was paid, go to a local hardware store to buy the lumber. granted i still go through the lumber at local hardware stores before loading to pick good lumber. but that is just me.

 

[economy]

I use a Hud-Son band sawmill and can use the lumber right off the mill. As to accuracy, I can saw a 1/16 inch slab that is very uniform.
The saw blade marks on the boards are minimal (if you have a good blade with uniform tooth set).
After sawing for a while, I have learned a few things about getting uniform lumber, and can get quarter sawn lumber from the entire cant.

 

[koamfps]

Crowbar032. I still say you are better off buying the rough cut lumber. that way you know what your getting.:2cents:

 

[crowbar032]

Thanks for the input everyone. However it's looking like I may not have a choice but to buy. It's been so unbelievably hot, I haven't gotten a chance to cut any trees. Maybe working a desk job in air conditioning has made me soft. I'm also wanting to build some stalls but they need to be Finished before October. I have six bred goats that I will need to be able to pen up by then and I'm rapidly running out of time. So the trees will get to grow a bit bigger and hopefully in a few years there will be enough to make a semi trailer load and the market for them will come back up some.