Harold's Sawmill - Part 2

Last June I wrote a post about the sawmill that my husband Harold designed and built.   Since then he has tweaked it a bit and added some things to it, and it really cuts well now!  He has been busy lately sawing up logs for lumber to build a chicken house this spring.   We hope to have chickens again, and since we have 100 acres of woodland it only makes sense to use what we have for lumber!  After all, why buy lumber when you have it right in your own backyard.   Several weeks ago Harold brought in a huge red oak saw log.   It was about 30 inches in diameter and over 10 feet long.   Red oak may seem like 'overkill' for a chicken house, but this is a log that has been down for quite some time and is not the best wood for furniture or hardwood flooring.   I took some photos yesterday of Harold cutting up wood.  He sure enjoys his sawmill!  If a person was going to buy a sawmill such as this from Cook's Sawmill Co. it would be over $6,000.  Harold built this from new and used pieces for about $600.  That's a big savings!  Of course he isn't going to just use the sawmill for chicken house wood - he hopes to saw logs into usable lumber for others, too.  And someday we would like to make our own hardwood flooring. 

Harold gets things lined up before the cut.  He has already cut some pieces off of the huge 30 inch diameter log.

He begins to push the blade through the log.

A close up of the blade cutting through the log.

An even better photo of the blade cutting through the log.

A beautifully cut red oak piece about 1 inch by 24 inches.  (still has a bit of saw dust on it)

Harold adds this piece of lumber to the pile already cut.  After everything was cut for the day, he stacked the wood inside his shop.

Harold gets the log lined up to flip over to another side for cutting.

The log is still too heavy to flip easily, so he used his tractor and a chain to turn the log over.

The rest of the log is in position for cutting.  Harold will slice off the top bark piece, then saw up the rest of the log into lumber.

A lot of saw dust is generated cutting logs into lumber!!

Harold has a ways to go yet before we have enough lumber to build that chicken house.    Most of the trees he will use are poplar, ash, and oak .   Perhaps this summer I can show you a picture of that chicken house, truly "built from scratch".