I know we're on the firewood forum, but I'm crying alligator tears already 'cause you're gonna cut and split those 3+' diameter oaks up. Maybe you can tell me they're worthless as logs and save me from going through a couple boxes of tissues. I had a 23" red oak come down in a storm a few years back, took a nice hemlock with it, had a guy with a portable mill come over to look and he said if I could get the logs out of the woods without any dirt on them that he would come back and cut them for me; so I took the bucket off the tractor, put on a spreader bar, cut what logs I could get out of the trees and hauled them out to the driveway and set them on some blocking; got 200+ board feet of quartersawn oak and enough hemlock boards to redo the sideboards on my 1968 M101A1 wood hauler; after the first slice through the first oak log, the guy looked at me and asked if I'd sell it all to him, said no, just keep cuttin'. Wife could not figure why I spent so much effort to get a few logs out of the woods until one day I showed her an oak board in one of the big box stores with a price of $35 and told her I have a truckload of them and only cost me $80 for the guy to mill 'em. I have four ash logs 20" to 27" dia that also will get touched by the Woodmizer instead of the Husky. Then there was the time my wife-to-be and I were up north for a friend's wedding , very bad storm that day, and on the drive home the next day I turned off the highway to see if any damage at deer camp, could not get through so back to town to grab dad's saw, made our way to camp, and luckily no building damage, but a lot of trees down, and some darn nice cherry in one area, I cut as many logs as we could fit in a 1/2 ton short bed, no cables or chain on hand that day, but I did have my deer dragging rope under the front seat (never know when you're gonna hit a deer around here) so gave the future wife a quick lesson on pulling logs with the truck and proceeded to harness the best trees within reach, and then got the heck outta there before dad showed up so I wouldn't get caught takin' his firewood (I knew he wouldn't mind). As I type this, I look in the living room at the Heritage wood stove and rock wall behind it and admire the 4"x10"x10' cherry mantle made from one of those very trees.
the important point is, you need a sawmill of some sort and/or a way to physically move hugemongous logs to some mill, then pay them to mill it.
I have had several what I knew where primo logs, but no mill, no way to move them except as firewood rounds (quartered or more just to budge them).
trying to sell, any outfit equipped, around here will offer you less than dimes on the dollar, and you need a lot of them for those guys to even want to come over, so what's the point.
I worked for a real old guy once who had bought a nice woodmiser, he never made a cent on the thing. he milled up bunches of wood, hardly sold any though, was always complaining about it. he had stickered stacks all over, just hanging out. always had ads out here and there..crickets....
I know there is a market some place for custom lumber, and if you are personally into woodworking it is nice, but....
I have thought about it, a cheap chainsaw mill, after looking at several vids of those in use I'll pass. If I lived well out in the boonies and needed the lumber bad for building, sure, but for a business I can't see it making much as you destroy equipment/wear it out. Hobby sure, but if it was really something in demand there would be a lot more guys doing it.
those $35 boards in the store are most likely kiln dried and sized/planed very well, rough stuff is a different story. Trailer beds (oak) is about it around here. chicken houses and barns use some raw lumber too, cheap stuff.
I have built quite literally thousands of pieces of wood furniture, every single one was with kiln dried lumber, even in shops where we started with raw logs. It takes a lot of expensive equipment to get from raw logs to nice lumber to furniture and cabinets, etc, most guys don't have all that stuff (even smallest scale), so..big trees get turned into firewood as the most useful handy product.
wood .
