Saw milling logs to lumber
We had 2-3/4 cords of softwood logs that had been sitting for a couple years. Past due really. Nothing nice about them, from the age to the dirt and limbs hanging off of them from being harvested with a processor.
Starting out was a bad sign. The first log has a nail in it and damaged the saw mill blade slightly. I had to take the blade off to repair it, reset and resharpen. Back on the mill, I got rid of that half sawed log, as I wasn’t interested in seeing how long that nail was. The next few logs were ok and then struck another nail. Repeat the steps, repair, reset and resharpened. Afterwards, it went pretty good until we got to about this time near the end.
The blade broke in half. It happens. So off the the storage area to get another blade and put the broken one in the shop, will repair that one this weekend. The remaining logs went ok.
We achieved a respectable 1,212 board feet of lumber. 205 pieces of 1×6 and 147 pieces of 1×4. Worked out to about 86 board feet per hour of labour. Blade had to be resharpened five times. One blade broken.
Oh, and we can’t forget about the leftovers, the slabs. I figure there’s about a cord for sure in that pile.
All that remains now is the clean up. Gina seems to be always cleaning up after me. 🙂 I figure there’s about 1-1/2 cubic yards of sawdust. So as you can see there’s quite a bit of by product to come from almost 3 cords of logs. I wonder what it costs to make a grinder mill to produce sawdust pellets 🙂
Is making your own lumber worthwhile? Well, let’s compare.
- 3 cords of softwood logs is $480.00.
- 14 hours x $50/hr sawmilling time is $700.00.
- Cost $1,180.00 for the lumber produced.
Based on pricing at Kent today:
- 1x6x8ft $9.21, 205 pcs is $1,888.05
- 1x4x8ft $4.51, 147 pcs is $662.97
- Total is $2,551.02, plus HST, new total is $2,933.67.
Support your local sawyer! 🙂