Thread: How does a portable saw miller work compared to permanent sawmills?

At least you're on the right track with buying direct ex mill not through a hardware store.

Fixed mills will always have access to logs, however most will happily mill logs you supply on a flat m3 rate. You need to deliver sawlogs though: a "good" tree may not be a good sawlog.
Some portable guys will have access to logs. Some won't and will only saw logs you arrange. There's a fair bit of variation in what different portable guys will cut, and a fair bit of variation in the quality of work they do too. Not to put you off, more a heads up to be aware that owning a portable mill and being a good sawmiller are not the same thing. Generally speaking as with any other industry if someones been around a while you can generally assume they know their business though.

Mostly the m3 rate will not vary much between fixed and portable mills if you're supplying the logs, however you wont have to transport logs to a portable mill as it comes to you so that can be a pretty fair saving, and if you mill where you're building you wont have to transport sawn timber back either. A lot will depend on just how big your timbers need to be, and how long. Long lengths will mostly incur a surcharge... it gets harder to keep timber straight the longer it gets. Big sizes will usually incur a surcharge too... everything gets heavy, and you can sometimes cut quite a few before you get one that doesnt have some strength limiting characteristic. That's okay.... you cut the big ones first so you can then resaw smaller stuff out of the ones that dont make grade. Or you could look at making flitch beams, which also tends to be cheaper then buying outsize timbers. Most engineers and architects will give you a silly look when you say "flitch beam" though - very few of them really know heavy timber construction and mortice and tenon/ post and beam joinery techniques anymore.

Stress grading is either a machine or visual rating of your timber against a set of established grading parameters to determine it's suitability for usage in a given application. Large sizes wont be machine graded anywhere, so it'll be visually stress graded to the relevant standard (hardwood or softwood). It would be fairly safe to assume that any sawmiller who can stress grade is an industry professional. However that doesn't automatically mean that someone who cant isn't professional or competent, and if you find a good portable guy who doesnt grade he may have someone who grades for him, or you might find a grader in a local mill who'll come grade a package of timber for you.

E. Bennett - first and foremost, welcome to the forum

I've spent the last decade mobile sawmilling, milled my own house and supplied timber too, my experience in answer to your question;

Price wise a mobile miller supplying you timber will be equivalent pricing as compared to a 'permanent' mill, maybe a little less.
If you have logs for the mobile fella to slice up, then the saving will be massive and even bigger still as you will have large section timbers. Mobile guys typically charge by the volume of the logs they slice up, this rate equates to very large savings on the timber produced. Permanent mills charge you higher rates for bigger timber (not just a flat rate across the board) as an example a mobile sawmiller will charge you the same equivalent amount (my typical mobile milling price, from your logs) to cut 8x2's $6.25 as compared to 8x8's $25.00, but a permanent sawmill would charge (prices taken from actual supplier in SEQld) $18.35 for 8x2 and $119.10 for 8x8. As you can see the 8x8 is a lot more than 4 times the price of the 8x2, in fact almost 6.5 times more, this means if you have logs the mobile option will give you massive savings.

As mentioned - owning a mill (permanent or mobile) doesn't mean good timber gets produced...I've had heated conversations 'defending' timber produced on a Lucas Mill (many times) its always the same thing "you can't cut good timber on a Lucas Mill" If I'm able to have a chat with them and ask some questions it always turns out the "lucas Mill" wasn't the problem - the chap using it was!

Timber grading - a permanent mill 'should' be supplying graded timber ( I say should as, I have first hand experience of a very large sawmill supplying timber in the Gympie area who don't have anyone on staff with any grading "qualifications" - which begs the question, how can they supply graded timber...) a mobile sawmiller, if serious about supplying timber, should in my books get qualified to grade timber - but again this isn't the case. I know of very few mobile millers that have any 'actual' grading qualifications - myself excluded of course

If you where able to source some logs, either by scoring them from an urban development site being cleared or even if you had a friend that was willing to let you buy some logs off their bush property, this would be the cheapest option by far, next thing would be to get on the phone to Lucas Mill HQ, ask them for contact details a known 'good' operator in your area - they will know who is using their mill frequently, who is servicing/looking after their mill properly, who understand how to use their mill and then go from there.

Good luck mate, feel free to ask more questions, you'll get heaps of help round here - nothing better than making your own home

Hi,
You could try Sweetman's Timber at Millfield (not far from Cessnock).
They may be able to help you with your needs as they specialise in hardwood.
Very nice to deal with too (personal experience).
You can specify mixed hardwood or a specific species (extra cost involved).
When rebuilding my deck I saved over $1000 by buying direct from them instead of my local hardware outlet. Same timber, same supplier but no middle man.

Disclaimer: I have no affiliation with Sweetman's, am just a satisfied customer.

Regards, Peter.