I placed a phone order with Woodland Mills this past Monday and on Tuesday I picked up my HM-130 mill and trailer crates from the Buffalo, NY distribution center. Picking it up saved me the shipping charges and since it's only 20 miles from my house it was an easy choice. The only way to pick it up at the distribution center is by placing your order by phone. Online purchases don't have that option. The sales folks I talked with at Woodland Mills were very helpful and knowledgeable.
The two crates just fit on my trailer.
After unpacking everything else from the sawmill package, the preassembled sawhead is left in the crate.
Following Woodland Mills very well written assembly directions I lowered the sawhead down onto some 6 x8" high wood beams covered with cardboard. It wasn't hard to do alone.
After removing the pallet and crate, I continued on with the directions. Let me stop here just a moment to say there are a lot of nuts and bolts that have to be installed to assemble the sawheard and carriage. To make it a little easier Woodland packs the nuts/bolts in clearly labelled bags. Also, each step of the assembly process starts with a chart of exactly how many of each type of fastener is required for that step and includes drawings of where they go, supplemented with a written description to clarify critical steps.
If you think this is a lot of fasteners, wait until you see the trailer package!
With the pallet removed you slide in the front posts, bolt on the lower carriage assemblies, and then stand up the sawhead. I did this alone, too, and it did not require superhuman strength. Had it, I wouldn't have been able to do it.
Next you add the rear posts, top crosshead, dashboard, left mechanism, etc., just following the directions one chapter at a time.
It took maybe 6 hours to put it all together. Since I bought the trailer package you assemble the track components as part of that build. Here are most of the fasteners needed to assemble the trailer:
Literally hundreds of parts, but again very clearly labelled in separate bags which helps a lot. There are a lot more parts in the trailer package, and some of them are pretty heavy. It's by far the more difficult and time consuming build, but still not hard if you are patient, and have no trouble stooping down or working on your knees. If you do, get someone else to assemble it for you, or buy another brand that sells a preassembled trailer.
To build the trailer you start by assembling the basic track components included with the sawmill except you use different fasteners.
With that done you set this assembly on top of the shipping crate it came in, and then start bolting on the trailer side rails and reinforcing gussets.
Every bolt size has a specified torque in the Woodland manual. I followed them exactly using a torqued wrench. This was the most time consuming part of the build. With the side rails completed you use the jacks that came with the trailer to jack up the assembly so that some of the lower crossrails and jack mounts can be installed.
Then you lower the whole thing back down onto the shipping crate, install the jacks on their mounts, and raise the trailer up enough to pull out the packing crate.
Then the axles, tongue, log clamps. and wiring harness and lights are installed.
The tongue and axels are fairly heavy. Two people would make installing them much easier, but I made due by using a couple of hand clamps to hold those parts in place while I installed the nuts/bolts.
Finally, the wheels and fenders are installed and it's done.
I didn't track exactly how much time it took to put together, but I think it was around 12 hours, over 3 days.
With only a couple of minor exceptions, Woodland Mill's directions are very well written, and by people who have probably assembled the product.
Now I have to build a gantry crane to lift the sawhead and carriage up high enough to back the trailer under it. Hopefully, the marriage will be complete in the next couple of days so stay tuned.
John