Is Milling Your Own Lumber Worth It

The seasonal nature of farming means there are slack times as well as times of low income and there are always construction projects that range in scope from replacing a few boards on the front porch to building a barn.

Is milling your own lumber worth it. Making your own rough lumber without a sawmill probably isn t going to keep you supplied with wood for all your projects but it s still worth doing. The most common reason for buying a small sawmill is to mill lumber for your own projects. I ve always found that the more creativity you put into your projects the more you get out. On the other hand it can be a personally rewarding potentially profitable endeavor the logical link between a downed tree and your workshop.

These jobs range from a few boards to building a dog house to a house or a barn. Cause inspection fee and all we re still milling out our own lumber for about one tenth what it would cost us at the local retail lumberyard. Milling your own lumber video series. The saw chain needs to be kept sharp and it will be over seven feet long so chain sharpening is the most tedious part of lumber making.

The spirit might be willing but milling your own lumber is an expensive time consuming and often frustrating process. Some will want to buy the lumber from you while others want to hire you to. In part 4 of our milling your own lumber weekly video series dan and logan demonstrate how to quarter saw a log with a bandsaw mill as well as how to produce. The chain will need to be sharpened after every eight hours of milling and a new chain bought after every 5 000 board feet milled.

Milling one s own lumber really starts to pay dividends when the species is unusual for the locale for example a healthy american chestnut in manhattan or the cut is something other than plain sawn a white oak log that can be cut to deliver mostly quartersawn boards. The lumber maker frame itself requires no maintenance.