Portable sawmills

[Davey Crockett]

Does anyone have a sawmill or ever worked around them ? I have a hankering to build a swing blade mill just because I think they are neat and I have pretty much everything to build it but I've never been around milling at all. The biggest question I have is is these big ol cotton woods we have in ND make decent lumber ? I'd probably go with something like this guy built if I decided to build one OR I'd probably be ok with a band saw mill but they look like a lot more work.

 

[riverview]

i have a alaskan sawmill that i use a stihl ms462 on it, be neat to have a band saw mill

 

[Davey Crockett]

What type of chain do you use ? I tried ripping a log with a regular chainsaw blade and didn't have much for good luck . I like the blade design and ease of the new circle mills, they have only have 4 cutters to sharpen and they are replaceable.

One video I watched the owner said he usually sharpens his circle blade after 2 full days of cutting or so. I can imagine a chainsaw would need more sharpenings than that even if you don't hit any iron or dirt. Iv'e never tried a carbide tipped chain , maybe thats the trick . There are some shop built electric Alaskan type mills on youtube that look neat. They seem decent too but still the burdon of rolling the log by hand .

 

[riverview]

i have used a regular chain ripping semi dry ash and oak a skip tooth chain makes a big difference, helps get rid of the sawdust better.

 

[Browneye]

Does anyone have a sawmill or ever worked around them ? I have a hankering to build a swing blade mill just because I think they are neat and I have pretty much everything to build it but I've never been around milling at all. The biggest question I have is is these big ol cotton woods we have in ND make decent lumber ? I'd probably go with something like this guy built if I decided to build one OR I'd probably be ok with a band saw mill but they look like a lot more work.

Many years ago I met an old timer along the heart river that had a saw mill. He cut cottonwoods to make mainly 1' windbreak boards for corral. If I remember right they had to be stacked to dry for a time so they wouldn't twist and even dry some boards had some pretty wild twists to them. I would think for windbreak boards or maybe even 2x6s for building corral they would be alright but it strikes me as a pretty soft wood. Not sure how good it would be for actually building a building.

 

[lunkerslayer]

There are sites online where you can lease a bandsaw. With many different sizes to choose from.

 

[ORCUS DEMENS]

riverview, what angle do you sharpen your chain? I read 10 degree vs the normal crosscut 15 degree. Have an ash that is coming out soon and want to rough cut some boards I can finish on the table saw later on.

 

[riverview]

riverview, what angle do you sharpen your chain? I read 10 degree vs the normal crosscut 15 degree. Have an ash that is coming out soon and want to rough cut some boards I can finish on the table saw later on.

10 15 degrees? A stock stihl chain is 30 degrees i sharpen at 32.5 degrees. I have a oregon chain sharpening jig and wheel.

 

[Petras]

My brother owns a sawmill that is set up at our place here in the Stanley area. We mill a lot of cottonwood, boxelder, ash, and elm. As long as it isn't in contact with the ground, cottonwood makes good lumber. It is actually supposed to be a very good choice for horse stalls as horses won't chew on it. We mill a lot of winbreak/fence planks and some stuff for craft projects. Once we get out of this never ending winter I will be cranking it up to mill all the boards to do board and batten siding on my woodshed.

Back in january I milled up some boxelder and cedar planks. The Boxelder will be used for charcuterie boards and I'm contemplating making up a bunch of plaques with the cedar for skull mounts or fish mounts etc...

Those swing blade mills are slick for milling lumber, but I don't believe they will make boards much bigger than about 10" wide right? The mill we run is one of the Harbor Freight bandsaw mills and while it's about the cheapest unit a guy can get, it works great. I've upgraded ours to a homemade track that will allow us to cut a 16' log. It's about 20" between the guides, so we can make 20" wide boards. I'm uploading a few pics of the stuff that has come off our mill. Just know that once you start milling, it's addictive... Much like chasing the next big walleye, seeing what kinda cool grain is in the next board will consume you.

This wall in our new house is Shiplap that came off our mill.

This is a couple pairs of book matched slabs that came from an American Elm tree that was taken down in Burlington.

 

[Vollmer]

Dang @Petras, that is friggin epic!

 

[Davey Crockett]

Great work Petras , That Elm looks nice. Was it that dark when cut or was it reddish and darkened when dry ? We have a bunch that is dead and dying but it's red when freshly cut. The widest swing blade cut I watched was 12''. That's a drawback that I'll have to live with because I mostly want it to cut dimensional lumber. Swing blades makes that look easy .

 

[Petras]

Those pics were taken about 10 minutes after the boards came off the mill. The only woods we see the red in are boxelder and sometime limbs of cottonwood will have a little. The boxelder are usually pretty streaky with vivid red colors.

If all you are lookin for is dimensional lumber then I would definitely go with a swingblade. If you get cool logs that would make nice slabs, there are a few people spread out around the state that will slab stuff up for ya for pretty cheap

 

[Petras]

Here is what the boxelder looks like. Typically the only parts of it we are able to use are the limbs.. most of the time the trunks are rotted out. That's usually the reason people take them down...
View attachment 20221210_124908.jpg

 

[Davey Crockett]

Yea I got mixed up between Boxelder and Elm. That's what we have and there are some pretty cool looking burls amongst them. This is a grove my Grandpa planted in the early 1900s so they are are almost all dead.

 

[Sum1]

There is a builder in south Bismarck that sided his house with cottonwood. A huge storm went through, a ton of cotton wood trees fell and he had a guy bring in a portable sawmill and sides his house with the wood.

 

[Davey Crockett]

Be interesting to know how they did that.

 

[Sum1]

I worked for the guy many years ago. What I recall is they were milled to about ten inch wide, 1/2 inch thick and in variable lengths. These are just estimates from what I recall it looked like. He stained them a dark almost charcoal color but maybe not that dark and I know he sprayed his house with a thick layer of some kind of sealer every two years.

 

[Sum1]

The pieces were just milled to what regular siding dimensions would be. It looked nice!

 

[NDbowman]

Siberian elm seem to also have some red and interesting colors in them. I took a log to a guy with a mill to have him cut it just to see what it would look like but so far he hasn't touched it yet.

 

[riverview]

i have cut allot of elm in the red river valley and it was almost 100 percent white,