Thought I'd share some pictures of our family's sawmill adventures... Just a bit of background on us guys: My brothers and I started sawing lumber in 1988 with a chainsaw mill running a Saches Dolmar 166, then in '90 we got our first Woodmizer.... an LT 30 with no hydraulics, then in '96 we bought our first hydraulic mill, an LT40, then in '98 we bought an LT40 super hydraulic with the 35hp Wisconsin engine. My older brother is still running that machine. (It's got around 10k hours on it now). All together we've cut around 4 million board feet of lumber..... so, we're starting to kinda get the hang of sawmill stuff now, I guess...... When I moved from Oregon to Missouri in January 2021 I bought an LT40 non-hydraulic from a friend, and towed it down here with me, so that's the mill my boys and I run currently. Today's log was a red oak 17' long, and 40" at the big end, and of course it weighed some tons... The customer loaded it onto the mill with his cat 955 track loader... Finally got it down to size....
Just too big to deal with I am guessing. I only have a small mill but putting the biggest log I can fit is not always an easy task.
Yes, anytime a log gets up around full capacity for the mill nothing works properly. Today's first victim.... 38" on the big end, and 17' long.. Eating lunch waiting for the man to load the next log...
Yeah, I'm just sliding the slabs onto the tractor forks and he's setting them aside, I'll bring extra help when we do the edging... This cut was 26" wide x 17' long.... from the log in the last pic.
Evening folks! We sawed up three more of the big buggers today... Around 36" on the butt. 12x16 cant 17' long... A nice clear face on this one....
Today's first log being loaded onto the mill. Another 36" x 17' monstrosity.... The turning process....
Yup. BTW, feel free to post milling pics here if that's your type of thing.... Same goes for anybody else makin' sawdust with a mill, or chainsaw, or hatchet, or whatever....
Think it was those 122” honey locust. That log was 15’ but I didn’t have a first cut guide that long. At all but two tanks of mix per cut, I’m glad they weren’t longer!
We csm'd a 65' long 36" diameter old growth Doug fir for a temporary foot bridge across my dad's creek when his suspension bridge washed out back in '96.....we just made one cut to get a flat side to walk on. No pics sorry..... that was way before I had a cell phone in my pocket all the time.
Maybe I should introduce him to the neighbor behind me ? If she likes me for the sawdust I give her I bet she would "LOVE" him.
