Forestry Forum Sawmilling (2024)

FAQs

What is the most efficient way to mill lumber? ›

Efficient Sawmilling When Cutting

Try cutting the back-cut first. This allows you to visually line up the second cut with your standard cut. You can easily adjust the winch up or down to line up the cuts, without having to walk around to the other side of the mill.

Species, Size, and Other Considerations

At this time, cherry, oak, sugar maple, and walnut are some of the most valuable and desirable hardwoods. Ash, basswood, silver maple, and red maple have intermediate desirability.

Common lengths at sawmills are 12' (12'6”) and 16' (16'6”). How small is too small for your mill? I can mill most logs down to toothpicks if you want; the real question is whether or not it's cost effective for you. In most cases, 8” is as small as I like to go because I can get a 6x6 out of the logs.

The Department of Agriculture defines a cant as a log that is squared on two or more sides. Others use the term “cant” to refer to a squared-off log.

In general there are 2 ways: air drying and kiln drying. If you have the space & time air drying works well. For 1" thick boards it will take 6 or 9 months to air dry the wood before it is usable. If you need the wood sooner than that or are thinking about thicker pieces, kiln drying the wood is something to consider.

Good lumber trees include hardwood trees, such as oaks, hickories, pixamaples, birch and cherry, among others. These trees can be harvested when they are 14 to 20 inches in diameter, but letting them grow larger will make them worth more.

African blackwood (dalbergia melanoxylon) is the most expensive woods in the world because it comes from a slow-growing near-threatened tree. It grows in dry savanna regions in southern and central Africa. This multi-stemmed tree grows to about 25 feet tall on average.

Pick the Right Wood Mill

Any will do the job and some depend on the size of the log you plan to cut. They are reasonably priced to fairly expensive depending on just how sophisticated you plan to go. After I mill out the lumber there are the culls remaining which are very popular for those looking for firewood.

When your inventory is full, run north-east onto the docks and bank the logs. This should take about three minutes per load of 28 logs with a decent Woodcutting level, so you may be able to cut more than 500 logs per hour.

12" and up is what they mill around here, and at 12" you'll end up with a lot of narrow boards and a lot of heartwood. Anything less goes for firewood or bowl turning stock.

How to get the most lumber out of a log? ›

Similar to cant sawing, plain sawing begins with rotating and sawing the outer sides of a log into boards until the center is squared into a four-sided cant. Instead of leaving the cant as is, it is rotated and sawn to produce the maximum amount of lumber.

Sawyer is an occupational term referring to someone who saws wood, particularly using a pitsaw either in a saw pit or with the log on trestles above ground or operates a sawmill.

peavey is at the end of the logging tool. A peavey includes a pointed tip at the end which is designed for separating logs, sticking in the ground for sliding or leveraging logs, and easy storage access.

#10 Offcut. The waste piece after milling lumber is called an offcut. You've got the part you want to keep and then the rest is the offcut.

In down milling (climb milling), the cutting tool is fed with the direction of rotation. Down milling is always the preferred method wherever the machine tool, fixture and workpiece will allow.

Live sawing is one of the most efficient ways to saw logs into lumber, and it can also be referred to as slaw sawing or through and through sawing. Each plank is cut straight off the log in one direction without changing the orientation of the log.

In the end, only you can decide if milling lumber from your own property is worth it. Because every job is different, we can not tell you the actual amount of money you would save or not save. Generally, it costs 5-10% more to have your lumber milled on-site.

Plain-Sawn (or Flat-Sawn)

The most efficient and cost-effective way to slice a log into lumber, Plain-Sawing is also the most common lumber you will find. In most boards, you will find cathedral grain patterns, the result of the growth rings running a shallow 30 degrees to the face of the board (“tangential grain”).