Pics of a real sawmill

[robertfsmith]

Here's one of our drivers bringing some logs in. (finally!)

[robertfsmith]

Here's where I spend 8hrs a day. In my little cage.;)

[robertfsmith]

Here's a view from inside my cage.

[robertfsmith]

Here's the edger. It uses two slider saws on one side and a set of ten saws for the bull edger side. It makes a lot of lumber real quick.

[robertfsmith]

Here is where the lumber gets sorted and piled. I spent 5yrs standing on that green chain, grading lumber.

[robertfsmith]

And here is the lumberyard with a week's worth of sawing piled up.

[Bob Lasley]

Rob,

Thanks for the pix. What species do you primarily saw there?

Bob

[robertfsmith]

Every hardwood that grows here in NY. But lately all of our loggers seem to be cutting jobs that mostly soft maple. Usually hard & soft maple, red & white oak, cherry, ash, beech, birch, hickory (yuck!), tulip, and basswood.

[Bob Lasley]

Rob,

Sounds like you have a ready supply of lumber. Do you have kilns at the mill?

Why "yuck" with the hickory?

Bob

[robertfsmith]

Yeah that's why I love working there, I can pull any boards that I want and get a great deal. Plus I can cut the lumber the way I want too. The other day I got a really curly red oak log, so I quarter sawed it for myself.

No we don't have any kilns at the mill. I've tryed talking the boss into buying some but he is set in his ways. I have a solarkiln at home that I built, so I can still dry my own lumber anyway.

Yuck!...I hate sawing hickory. 1. It don't debark very well, so I get the log with half the stringy bark left on it, along with the mud and rocks. 2. It don't saw well either. It likes to explode while being cut. It bows and twists while being cut. It likes to pull the saw all over while cutting. We usually saw 20k bft a day, but on hickory we're lucky to cut 12k. It's just plain miserable. But it looks nice.

[Todd Burch]

Pretty neat! I've been to a bunch of sawmills, but around here, they are all "wannabe" sawmills compared to the one you work at. Thanks!

Can I come visit if I ever get up that way? (In the summer...)

Todd. :)

[Dennis McDonaugh]

Can you give us a little narrative of how a tree becomes a board? Thanks

[Dan Bussiere]

Thanks for the tour. I wish there was a place close to me that had the same setup. I wll have to buy from the box places for now. I did find,through woodfinder, a couple of lumber yards but nothing like your setup. I have always looked at furniture and wondered how you guys make it cheap enough to be worth the effort. Deals like you got answer the question. My wife the other day said "Why do spend so much time working on that coffee table, you could buy one almost as nice for not much more". Well the "almost as nice" was the payment I wanted and heck, it's not the time and money anyway, is it? It's the satisfaction of doing it yourself.
Dan

[Paul Kunkel]

:D We've got a local logger/mill operator who's got one for a hood ornament on his Pete:D .:D .:D If they don't allow cutting in our forests, they're just going to burn from the drought anyway:(

[Von Bickley]

Robert,
Thanks for sharing the pictures. You mentioned that you quarter sawed some red oak for yourself. How much lumber to you actually quarter saw? Do you only quarter saw for yourself? Do you quarter saw for customers if they have their own lumber?
What's the policy on quarter sawing lumber?

[robertfsmith]

Von,

I ended up with about 50bft of that quarted red oak. We never quarter saw on purpose, but sometimes a board happens to come out quartered. Quarter sawing wastes a lot of wood and takes longer to cut up a log. So we just plain saw everything. But, seeing as how I'm the sawyer, if I come accross a log that catches my eye, I'll cut it how ever I want it.

We don't custom cut lumber for individuals. We buy standing timer and sometimes logs already cut, then we have our own loggers cut &skid, and then our truck drivers haul the logs in. When we get an order for a truck load of lumber we cut that species and ship it out. We sell furniture companies, consentration yards, and various other companies. If a person comes in and asks for a board or two, sometimes we will save out the board(s) for them.

[mark frasier]

its always interesting to see what other sawmills look like. I've worked at a sawmill since I was 12yrs old(family owned).we had a top saw at our mill. the mill i'm at right now uses bandsaws.this mills a pretty big outfit. they have 9 kilns running all the time. I agree with you on the hickory.they don't even buy the stuff where I work now. thanks for sharing the pictures.

[Scott Neblung]

I was wondering what size (dia.) of circy blades are running there?

What do they do with them when it's time to change them out?

Do they get sold at all?

As you can probably guess I am interested in getting a couple to hang over my shop door.

TIA

Scott

[Bill Murphy]

Robert,

Thanks for posting the pictures. Talk about the ultimate power tool!

[robertfsmith]

Scott,

You better have a big door! The headsaws are 56" with a 3/8" cutting kerf, and 52 teeth. I'm guessing around +/-150lbs. It's run by a 250hp electric motor, and turns at 650rpm. And boy can they take some abuse...I can feed a 12" cut in red oak at about 150ft/min.

I don't change them out very often, it depends on what happens to it. If I get a slab wedged against the saw and it heats up too much then I have to change it out and have it hammered to fix the tension. The teeth are inserted so I can just change the teeth when they get wore down. We don't sell them either. Because, we need to have back ups incase we hit something (like a horseshoe, wedge, or any other heavy steel). If we hit something like these the saws are toast, usually no chance fixing em. So they get cut up and used as steel patches or for other fabrications. Luckily we don't hit very many things that bad. Just a few nails and fence wire here and there.

[arthur whiteside]

i enjoyed that from what i,ve seen at mills you are one tough bird -arthur--also old red