# Homemade Bandsaw mill



## don716 (Mar 1, 2008)

I was wanting to know if anyone has built or is using a homemade saw mill? I'm looking for one for small firewood size logs.Probally one with a 5hp motor or so.There has to be one out there somewhere.Let me know where I can come up with some plans or designs.
Donny


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## joasis (Sep 15, 2006)

Check eBay under a search "sawmill" or "bandmill". There are people that sell plans there. If you are thinking about building a nice mill, it would be a good idea to see if you can find one in your area...watch it cut, see how it is built.

Edit: Here is one from eBay:http://cgi.ebay.com/PORTABLE-SAWMIL...ryZ61788QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Here is a set of plans:http://cgi.ebay.com/Bandsaw-Mill-Pl...ryZ61788QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem


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## Puumies (Dec 17, 2007)

You might find some ideas from this site:

http://www.diybandmill.com/

Pauli


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## Davo Willoughby (Jul 12, 2013)

Donny, Go to a site in Canada. It is called Woodgears. His 18" wooden bandsaw is totally timber and can be used upright or horizontal. Go to http://woodgears.ca/d102/ptpo/plans. Cheers Davo in North Queensland Australia.


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## Steve Neul (Sep 2, 2011)

For that size I use a log splitter. I end up having to make the boards about 1 1/2" thick and it takes a lot more surfacing but it gets the job done.


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## Mountain (Aug 1, 2013)

I spent years milling my own wood with an alaskan mill I designed, it worked well, but rather tough on the back.

I finally decided to buy a mill just over a year ago, and man I do not regret it one bit. I was really quite amazed at how little it wound up costing me.

I bought a Hudson HFE 21E, they have gone up about $300 in price since I bought mine. My total price for the mill, 16 ft of track, a case of 15 extra blades delivered was $3,250. The electric like mine is about $250 to $300 more than the gas, mine has a ten horse single phase. After setting my mill up I went out and bought full length angle metal for tracks and poured a concrete pad for the mill. I cut a bunch of 6x6 and 6x10 and built a frame just outside my shop and mounted garage door track to it and mounted chain hoists from those so that I can get logs from the deck to the mill more easily. My total cost after all that was about $3,400. I spent $750 on my first three log truck loads of wood, a mixture of poplar/aspen hybrid and elm. I bought another 3,000 board feet of white fir and red fir from a logging job down the road where they let me cherry pick through the log deck for just under $1,000.

The entire mill and setup and the first 4 log truck loads of wood ran me right at $5,500.

After all those years trying to make my own mill setup, I wish I had just gone this route to start with.

Not to discourage you or anything, just speaking from experience, by the time you mess around and eventually get something built, I am willing to bet it will take quite some time and probably not much less money than just buying a simple small bandmill.

Almost forgot, it would be much better to be in the 10 horse range on your electric mill if you can pull it off, it will be fairly under powered on any type of hardwood at 5 horse. 5 horse would do reasonably well on the softer woods though.

You might look up Hudson forest equipment and take a look at what they have, they are about the cheapest around, but they work.










This is a thread I started when I got my mill, it goes from start until now, there are a lot of good mods detailed in there and a lot of good info on milling and mills.

http://www.survivalistboards.com/showthread.php?t=232553&page=19

Good luck with your mill adventure.


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## Mountain (Aug 1, 2013)

Woops, I didn't catch the firewood size logs part at first. On that note I would simply set up a small electric chain saw in alaskan mill type setup, should be able to do that for about $50 or so.


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## MissionIsMyMission (Apr 3, 2012)

As far as I'm concerned this is the Ultimate Shop built Saw Mill.


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