Hud-son HFE-21 Sawmill

[verticaltrx]

At the beginning of the year I purchased a Hud-son Homesteader HFE-21 sawmill and thought some might be interested in a review. I'll start by saying it is a small mill, about as small as you can get, but still a big step up from the 24" Alaksan/MS441 combo I have been using. That goes for both ease of use and productivity. It can saw logs up to 21" diameter, and 9' long with the provided 12' track. The motor is a 6.5hp Briggs and Stratton Vanguard with a centrifugal clutch for blade engagement.

Pros:
- A great value at $2800
-Starts easy, runs smooth, no vibration from either the motor or the saw head
-Cuts nice lumber (as long as the operator does)
-Well built, good fit and finish, made in the USA
-Track is simple making it easy to build your own extensions

Cons:
-Must be on a completely flat and level surface to work well
-Log dogs/squaring bars are not as well designed as on other mills
-Board scale stick seems to be a tiny bit off (my 4/4 boards are coming out slightly under an inch)
-The blade support does not slide in to accommodate for more accuracy when sawing narrow lumber
-6.5hp is not much power

So far it has been a great little mill, and doing exactly what I purchased it for: making lumber for use around the farm. I have a small barn, a shed addition, some fencing, raised bed garden boxes, etc to mill lumber for so over the next few months I'll have plenty of experience with it. It is kind of slow compared to bigger mills, and not as accurate as some, but for what I'm doing it fits the bill well. My back is also thanking me after using a chainsaw mill so much. Pics of the initial setup below, more to follow :

 

[mad murdock]

nice looking little mill. I think I like it better than an HM126, or the HF mill. Hud-Son has a lot of products in their line. Pretty neat company.

 

[verticaltrx]

nice looking little mill. I think I like it better than an HM126, or the HF mill. Hud-Son has a lot of products in their line. Pretty neat company.

Thanks, I looked at the HF sawmill and HM126 (which I think are the same mill actually) and they had some good features/capability, but I'd prefer buying a USA made product from a company with a long track record.

Few more pics of how it's setup now with a track extension I made, and a more solid timber foundation:

 

[discounthunter]

nice mill,nice write up. thanks for giving a real world testament. glad you like it. thats my next step.i agree, a csm has its purpose but nothing beats a band saw mill for making lumber.

 

[verticaltrx]

nice mill,nice write up. thanks for giving a real world testament. glad you like it. thats my next step.i agree, a csm has its purpose but nothing beats a band saw mill for making lumber.

Thanks, I don't plan on getting rid of my CSM anytime soon, in fact I've thought about upgrading to a 36" mill with a MS660. Thought being, it'd be great for making big logs into cants to fit on my mill. I don't have much interest in handling logs over about 24" diameter on an all manual mill, regardless of the mills capacity.

 

[ChasinSmoke]

Glad I ran into this post, did a little research and I was leaning hard towards this mill, the cheap side of me has me on hold because of the Harbor Freight mill, but after talking to my local-ish sales man, I'm pretty close to pulling the trigger.