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Hi Bill, Quite a few years ago I watched Will Malloff slab a 42" d. 14' walnut log. It took 3 1/2 minutes per pass with a two headed mill that was perfectly sharpened. He used a winch to reel the mill toward him to avoid a lot of the noise and effort. I thought I'd do that when we got some land. When we did, I found it much more advantageous to bring in a portable mill, Woodmizer is common here, for the 2-3 times per year I want to saw. I figure it costs me at most a quarter/sq ft for the mill and sawyer. Didn't seem reasonable to spend that much money and have it sit when sawing is so cheap. I've sawn 300+ logs. Somebody else maintains the machinery. Malloff wrote a good book "Chainsaw Lumbermaking", Taunton Press 1982, that I understand is out of print. As I recall, he didn't recommend buying a mill. If you decide to give it a try, see if you can find a copy and check out the milling list on Yahoo. Some of them are having fun but it's not serious lumber-making unless you approach it like Malloff did. His reasoning was that he avoided having to move the huge trees that he was milling. With a helper all they had to pick up was one board at a time and throw it on the truck. No other machinery. If you have a tractor, a band mill makes a lot of sense. Good luck.
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