A would be sawyer sorting his options..

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BlackWaterPark

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Hello there, new to forum and hoping to prevail upon the collective wisdom of the community here. Brief backstory: living offgrid in western Maine foothills on 51 acres with lots of trees, many of which are tall straight pines, but lots of ash, maple, oak, and birch as well. We've been striving to become self sufficient here for the 10 years we've been here, and i feel like the time has come to take that a step further with something I prolly should have done a long time ago...buy a sawmill . As I'm watching the purchasing power of what cash I've managed to accumulate over the years erode, I'm increasingly of the mind to turn the majority of it into tool assets. As I've still got a lot of structures I'd like to build, including a house addition, a mill seems like the first place to start. As for related assets that I've already purchased over the last couple years that can assist with a sawmill, I've got a Kioti CK2610 tractor with 42"forks, a Yanmar vio30 mini ex, and last year I built a 16x40 open pole barn with a interior working height of 12' (this is to say the collar ties are at 12'). Within a month, there should be a 6" slab poured underneath the whole thing. This is where I figure I'll place the mill, or the lumber, or both. On to the mills I've been looking at...

I started off looking at whatever was used in my area but became leery of buying older used equipment. I've been burnt in the past. I looked at the harbor freight mills but as I try to be a pay once, cry once kinda guy who places a high priority on post sale knowledgeable customer service, I just couldn't see myself going that route. Then I looked at Hud-son and Woodland Mills. The Woodlands Mills hm-30 max really caught my eye, and I am to understand, by all accounts, that they have a quite excellent and robust support system for owners of their equipment. It was right around what I saw myself spending, at $6100 delivered, with an extra set of blades and one track extension (to 17'5). Then I got thinking about a trailer as well, which would be another $1500 or so. A little more than i was hoping to spend, but whatever right? It's probably worth it because I've got friends around here that also have land with lots of wood and none of them have sawmills and most don't even burn wood like i do. But then I went and did something stupid, and saw a local (45 minutes away is pretty local for my area) Vallee dealer via a FB marketplace ad, so I had to go take a look. He showed me one of their models, Big Red, and it was clearly a fair bit superior to the WM- HM30, with an integrated 24' trailer, 13hp Honda engine (whereas the WM comes with a 14hp Kholer re-branded chonda), much sturdier construction, made entirely in Canada (whereas the WM are designed in Canada but made in China), a really innovative cut guage system, built in rollers, etc etc. And it's already assembled and ready to go, with support right down the road, more or less. Naturally, this comes in at a much more exaggerated price point than what I was looking at. With the 13hp engine, $14600. The XP version with a 20hp Honda is $2k more. Such a purchase would constitute over a third of my liquid assets, but i do need to saw up a good amount of lumber, and quite honestly, this mill looks like I would have little trouble reselling it down the line of I ever wanted to recoup my investment. So, a couple questions then;

1: Am I overthinking this by looking beyond what the Woodland Mills is capable of doing for me, and spending more money (by a factor of 2) than i really need to?

2: If I went the Vallee route, should I seriously consider upping the ante with the 20hp variant?

3: Can anyone directly speak to their experiences with either of these two brands?

4: Are there other options out there that I'm overlooking and would be a fool not to consider?
 
Cook units are cutting edge. Cook has been in the biz likely longer than any one else. Built State side. They have a Canadian office as well on the west side. and are very popular over there. There are a lot of little details on the cook units, lacking on most others, that make them worth the price Any of the mills with good heavy construction are going to be a bit pricy when compared to the imports. If you need to make beams and similar a lot of the mills only have about 6" cut depth. Building wise you may need 12x12 , 10x10, 8x8 for supports in various areas. as far as I know Woodland are all 6" depth of cut. something to be aware of. You can build with green lumber but there are tricks to that. air drying is the best bet as lot less loss to warpage and cracking. there are a few other saw builders making good heavy units ( these are all state side builders), at the moment I can't come up with the names. For the bit I do my chain saw stuff is ok ( slow as..... but gets the job done). Myself and a friend have been digging into this for the better part of 2 years. He has more background in construction,homes and such, me in the machining trades makes a good match between us. Also note that a lot of the mills that say 36" or what ever - the actual production width is less. A 4 post mill is far better than any 2 post unit as is welded construction of same. Bolt together units tend to rattle apart.
 
Have a look at this in case it gives you any ideas. Something like this augmented with a cheaper than $14k bandsaw mill might do the trick.

A friend has a small home-made (but well made) bandsaw mill that I use to make lumber with, I make the cants. As long as I put out cants that fit into his mill between us we can do it all.

https://www.arboristsite.com/threads/built-a-sawmill-this-year.355302/
 
. If you need to make beams and similar a lot of the mills only have about 6" cut depth. Building wise you may need 12x12 , 10x10, 8x8 for supports in various areas. as far as I know Woodland are all 6" depth of cut. something to be aware of.
Ah, now see this is something I overlooked which would be a critical component of mill selection. This would absolutely rule out a Woodland Mills. I want at least 8x8...10x would be really nice, but perhaps not absolutely necessary. So far as i know, the big red xp can do 8" cuts. The cooks 336 states 11". It's a bit pricier than the cooks, has 2x4" steel as opposed to 2x6", but also has an electric blade positioning standard and a 20hp Honda as opposed to manual positioning and a 23hp "Kohler"(which I'm fairly positive is a rebranded chonda, though one if good quality). So there's some obvious trade-offs here to think about. Dealer support right down the road is nice, though he's only been doing it for less than 2 years, so there's that I guess. He did take a good hour and a half to meet with me and explain everything though, so also... There's that.
 
well maybe go with red and have them incorrporate some of cooks little details. In the case of log stops, tracks, log support bigger/ thicker is better. power up on mill head is nice. the more robust and rigid the construction is the better. Look up what cook's has to say about blade tension- They are correct. rubber bands on wheels are a problem- I have run into wierd things from that on my 17" vertical unit particularly the types that are urethane with out being glued down. Cook's also has some insights in bearings- and again they are correct.
 
Cook units are cutting edge. Cook has been in the biz likely longer than any one else. Built State side. They have a Canadian office as well on the west side. and are very popular over there. There are a lot of little details on the cook units, lacking on most others, that make them worth the price Any of the mills with good heavy construction are going to be a bit pricy when compared to the imports. If you need to make beams and similar a lot of the mills only have about 6" cut depth. Building wise you may need 12x12 , 10x10, 8x8 for supports in various areas. as far as I know Woodland are all 6" depth of cut. something to be aware of. You can build with green lumber but there are tricks to that. air drying is the best bet as lot less loss to warpage and cracking. there are a few other saw builders making good heavy units ( these are all state side builders), at the moment I can't come up with the names. For the bit I do my chain saw stuff is ok ( slow as..... but gets the job done). Myself and a friend have been digging into this for the better part of 2 years. He has more background in construction,homes and such, me in the machining trades makes a good match between us. Also note that a lot of the mills that say 36" or what ever - the actual production width is less. A 4 post mill is far better than any 2 post unit as is welded construction of same. Bolt together units tend to rattle apart.
Couldn't you just take x amount of wood off of each side of a log that's a bit bigger that what you're looking for so you'll end up with a 12x12 or 10x10 or whatever? (ie: Take 4" off of each side of a 20" log and end up with a 12" x 12" beam)
 
Last spring, I bought a HUD-SON Warrior mill , cost then was $6500 now I think they are up to $7100. This mill comes with about 16 ft of track that you can cut wood to about 12’. I made a track and added 20 ft so total I can cut up to 32’. My mill has the 23 hp Briggs Vanguard and can cut about 30” wide . This mill is made in the USA , Barneveld NY, just like anything else , it will take about 3-6 months to get due the supply chain issues. The welds on the mill and track are top notch , no skimping on quality here . I’m very happy with the mill and customer support is excellent. My HUD-son rep , demonstrated the mill and was very helpful in answering any questions.
Along with the mill you are going to need a tractor that can move the logs on to the mill. Bigger mill = bigger wood = bigger tractor. I just cut a 30” diameter black walnut at 12’ the weight was about 5000 lbs. , blade sharpening, tooth set , cant hook , a way to take care of the saw dust , slab wood etc. You may want to rethink cutting inside your barn , you will realize that you need a ton of room and ease of moving things around. Just my 2 cents .
 
5ooo lbs on a fel is going to take one very big tractor. even on the 3 point with forks its going to be big to get to that weight. Tractor with forklift assembly on front best option price wise, just that it is all it can be used for.
 
My tractor only has a lifting capacity at the FEL of ~2,000lb, but I'm guessing that's probably good enough for the majority of what I'd be putting in the mill? I also have a 30hp mini excavator which can move much heavier things around.

I think your right about doing it inside the barn though, Mark. I had actually been re-thinking that for numerous reasons over the last week, not the least of which was that i think I'll likely need that covered space to actually store the wood while it dries, plus manipulating logs inside it could be dicey, as the 8x8 posts are positioned every 8 foot alone both sides of it's 40' length, though the 16'wide ends are both completely open. Regardless, the very first thing I plan on doing with the first lumber coming off the mill is to build out a shed roof wing along one side to extend the covered barn area at least another 12' (x 40').

Blades, so you saying if i wanted to make 8x8s, I should avoid the heartwood entirely?
 
Thanks for that input Professor, I'm going to put it on my short list of things to read. One of my intended purposes is to timber frame, as I'd like to do a timber framed strawbale house or addition to my existing house. I like to build with 6x and 8x posts anyway.

So it looks like I'm picking up the big red xp today. It's in stock 45 minutes down the road. I reached out to Cook's just to further vet my options, and their lead time was a whooping 75 weeks (and the ~$4k delivery charge wasn't exactly an incentive either, no fault of their own), the Woodland Mills was up to 6 weeks and only $400 to deliver, but I just wanted something beefier and already set up and ready to go. I wasnt able to check out any Hudsons locally, otherwise I would have. And the used market in my area (prolly like most other areas these days) is out of control, with seemingly everyone taking big time advantage of the shortages by selling their used mills for often well above MSRP of new machines (the must brazen of which were a harbor freight one for $5k, and a Logosol 751 pro for ...$25k).

The big red xp can go 9" depth, and 10 or 11 would have been an appreciated upgrade for sure, but I know I can do a lot with 8x8s, so I'm not complaining too much. And I'll hand it to their sales support..i sent an email asking how the blade tensioning system works, and the lady handling my emails called me within an hour to explain it over the phone, which was a nice proactive touch, to my mind, even if her rather thick Quebec accent made it a little hard to follow.
Here's to hoping I made a good choice anyway.
 
I've only been sawing lumber full time on a band sawmill for for about 30 years, so what do I know about such things.......

But..... unless you have a log big enough to make two or more of whatever beams you're after, 8x8, 10x10 ,12x12 etc you very rarely cut them in such a way as to need the depth of cut to match the thickness of the timber, because you just start taking slabs off the outside of the log and rotating 90 degrees and repeat until you end up with the desired dimensions.

In my experience, cut depth IS a big deal when you first get a big log on the mill and your overall blade height from the deck is not enough to take a normal opening slab, you can take a very thick slab to get started.... for example, my Woodmizer has a 36" max blade height from the deck plus about 14" of throat capacity for a total of 50" from the deck to the top of the throat opening, we have cut logs up to 50" by free hand ripping them with a chainsaw, then stand each half up on the mill and take a 14" slab off, then just start makin' lumber, after we're done with the lower part of the log, we put the big slab back on the mill and make into lumber.
Also, the stated max log capacity for my mill is 36" but with the additional 14" of height I can actually cut a log up to about 44" dia. without modifying it with a chainsaw... not quite as easy as a 36" log but it can be done, (my Woodmizer has a 2 post head, so maybe this part does not apply to 4-post mills).

Have fun makin' sawdust!
 
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