Hallo everyone, a newb here, thought I might introduce myself.

[Mountain Guardian]

I have wanted a mill for decades, they have fascinated me ever since we built one at my last foster home when I was 9.  I finally got brave enough to buy one after we bought our new farm here, it only made sense due the vast amount of wood work that needed to be done here.

I went into the mill just looking to be able to make the bat and board for the house, the hay barn, the horse barn and various other buildings here and to do fencing.  I figured if I spent 10k on everything I would still be money ahead and own a mill.

I bought a Hudson mill, mostly because I saw some ads 30 years ago and drooled over them, I have spent the last 30 years looking them and products up and drooling some more.  About ten years ago my sister in law went to work for them doing drafting and sent me all of their latest brochures.  I researched their mills and some other mills and decided to go with the HFE 21 with an electric motor.  After dealing with my best friends giant mobile dimensions saw, I just really did not want to have to be working on the carbs and all that junk a few years down the road.  He had been running down band mills the entire time I have known him, so I knew he would be rather impressed when I bought one..... lol...

I liked the bandmill idea because of the blade price, to replace a big blade on that mobile dimensions saw is 1500 bucks, and to replace half the teeth each time you hit a rock or nail, which happened frequently cost us around $50 to $75.  If I hit something major, I am out ohhhh about 18 bucks or so..... as yet I have not had problems with hitting anything but most of my wood has come forests rather than peoples yards .

I have become quite addicted to milling over the last year and a half, the more I do it the more fascinated I become.  It is almost like therapy, it is so peaceful out there milling wood at night after the kids have gone to bed.

Here is a pic of my mill...



After hauling a lot of logs by hand by winch, I decided I needed a better way of moving logs.  I cut a 6x10 beam and spanned it on the end of my barn and removed one of the upright posts.  I then made a 6x6 frame and mounted door track and rollers to the frame.  I used these to hold chain hoists and lift my logs from the deck at the end of my barn and run them into the mill. Not the heaviest duty system, but it works.




I was a little dissapointed in the diameter of logs I could work with so I did some mods on my mill and got it to where I can do some pretty good size stuff.  On the really big stuff I use my alaskan setup to cut it down to fit on my mill side to side, the height I modified so I can cut up to 28-29 inches in height.




After getting the hang of cutting I invested in a good planer and an electric hand planer as well as some other equipment and now I can build most anything I want.

Being here in North Idaho having a good supply of wood is not a great trick here,  I have wood coming out of my ears.

Well, I look forward to reading all of your posts and learning more, and maybe even being able to help someone myself...

Okay then.......  severe change in wording from what I have typed.........

[ely]

welcome to the FF .....yooper

[Magicman]

Welcome to the Forestry Forum and congratulations on the sawmill and for posting pictures on your first post.   

[clww]

Great pictures on your first post! Maybe some day I'll post some, too. :D
Welcome to the Forestry Forum!

[Shotgun]

Welcome Mountain Guardian - Can you be a little more specific about the "severe change in wording" that you mentioned?  Maybe someone can assist you with the problem.

[goose63]

Welcome to Forum what part of north Idaho I have some good friends in Rathdrum  :new_year:

[thecfarm]

Mountain Guardian,welcome to the forum. That electric motor must be nice. I brought mine with a Honda motor. I brought mine before I knew what I was doing. And I still don't know what I am doing.I use mine the way you use yours and really the same idea too. I just wanted to build a few buildings with logs off my land. Sounds like you are really enjoying the mill and your land. How are you getting the logs to the mill? Good size logs too.

[bandmiller2]

Welcome MG, wise choice going electric, their sure easy to start when it gets cold. If you have a lot of overhead you can hang the cord down from about center travel of the mill. Another method is called festooning where you stretch a cable parallel to travel and have cord loops and dog run pulleys. How do you sharpen your bands.?? Frank C.

[Mountain Guardian]

A number of different methods on moving the logs, I have a track setup attached to 6x6 beams that I have chain hoists attached to for hauling them out of the log deck at the end of the building.  I can also drive through beside the mill, as well as over the log deck to drag logs in.  I also have a small trailer that I modded a bit and I commonly set logs on there and strap them to the trailer and run them in by hand.  Often times I have to use the winch to get them up the ramp to the mill deck when using the trailer method but not real hard to do.

I wound up with 7 log truck loads of logs before I really knew what I was doing and so I have log decks everywhere and many are a bit tricky for getting logs to the mill, so I have had to be somewhat creative on my methods.

The trailer method...... gotta eat your wheaties before this one.....


In the back ground you can see the big wood frame extended out from the end of the building, that is my main log deck and I have tracks mounted to that frame that go all the way inside to just over my mill.  I did that so that I can have the log trucks unload right onto the deck and then just run the logs straight in to the mill.

[thecfarm]

I thought you was cutting your own trees down. Sounds like it works for you.

[redbeard]

Welcome MG you have a nice set up, thanks for the wonderful introduction. Look forward to following your projects.

[Sawdust Lover]

Welcome and great job!

[samandothers]

Mountain Guardian
Welcome!  You have a neat set up.  Good idea going electric and able to saw during quiet hours.  Be hard for me to get the 25 hp engine started and saw at night near the neighbors!

By the way congrats on reaching a very premature age of -56!

[Mountain Guardian]

As for sharpening my blades, I just bought a new grinder and used a dresser to shape the stone to the gullet on my blades.




I just set the blade on line it up and tick it the right just slightly and voilla....  I have noticed that they actually cut better after I sharpen them than they did new, so while it may not be the perfect setup it does work.  I cannot say for sure how many times I will be able to sharpen them, with 16 blades to start out with the most any one of them has been sharpened is about 3 or 4 times.  I am hoping to be able to get 20 sharpenings per blade.

[MIsawyer]

Welcome Mountain Guardian.  Great group of guys here

[Mountain Guardian]

I thought you was cutting your own trees down. Sounds like it works for you.

I also cut a lot of my own trees as well, but all my trees are pine or blue spruce, a few tammys.  I have a friend that owns a tree trimming service and I managed to pick up three log truck loads of big poplar from that.  I had a neighbor logging a mile down the road and he let me cherry pick the log deck for white fir and red fir for the price the mill was paying, that picked me up another 3k board feet.  I managed to get a couple log truck loads of spruce and red fir a neighbor who works for U of I experimental forests.  I also managed to get a couple more loads from my brother in law, he needed a bunch of quaking aspen removed from his horse pasture.... still have another 4 or 5 log truck loads to go on that one.

I have another guy that has about forty acres of large pine he wants to log and he wants me to mill for him and he will do a 50/50 split on the wood in trade for milling.

Wood is not too hard to get here, in fact I have more of a problem of getting too much too fast and I run out of good places to put it.

[justallan1]

Welcome Mountain. How have you been. I'd checked a few times elsewhere to see what you've been up to and figured you'd given up on computers. It was all of the stuff your doing and your pictures that made up my mind on my mill, thanks.
There's a great bunch of people here and more knowledge than I've ever run across.

Allan

[POSTON WIDEHEAD]

Welcome Mountain. Looks like you have 2 fine kids there that love their Pop! 
You'll fit right in here! 

[Possum Creek]

That is a nice looking mill, welcome MG.

[mudhog]

Welcome Mountain Guardian,

I like your engineering, looks like something I would build. I always try to do the best I can with what I have to do with,
                                                                    Welcome,
                                                                    Jimmy

[giant splinter]

MG,
Welcome to the Forestry Forum from a neighbor just over the border to your west  Newport Wa. Nice photos and intro. hope to get a chance to meet you at some point ...... keep up the nice work
                                                                    GS

[hardtailjohn]

Welcome Mountain Guardian! I'm not too far from you, in MT.  Great looking setup you have there!!  You know Allan??  Well, most of us wont hold that against ya! hahhaha
Again, welcome and thanks for that first post!
John

[Sixacresand]

Hi Mountain Guardian.  Welcome to the Forum.

[bandmiller2]

MG,I used to sharpen my bands that way before I bought the Cooks cats claw, its tiring to the wrists and best done before miller time. You will find after two or three sharpenings you will need to set. Setters are quite easy to build just look at some pictures. You are in dire need of a ground gripper (tractor) humping logs by hand gets old quick. Frank C.

[Chuck White]

Welcome to the Forestry Forum, Mountain Guardian!