From Logs to Flooring

So how much wood would a sawmill cut if a sawmill could cut wood? Well, we're gonna see. This clip is all about turning these pine logs into planks later to become tongue and groove flooring for a house. So first step, gotta get them on the sawmill and let the cutting get going. I used a skid steer to get the log close.

We just had to get it onto those hydraulic lift arms. Once it was on the arms, we can take advantage of some physics here and some strong high school boys, get the log onto the bandsaw mill itself. Once the log is locked on onto the mill, the first step is to do a slabbing cut off the top of the log. This piece is gonna be rounded, it's got bark on that round outside piece, so it's not good for anything as far as planks go, it's good for firewood. And what we wanna do is stay ahead of the sawmill operator, take these planks off the back end so that as we slide them off, he can reverse as quickly as possible and setup for the next cut.

On this sawmill, it's fairly automated. The head of the machine is indexed so it drops down the right amount to result in planks that are slightly over an inch thick. Slightly over because as the planks dry they're gonna shrink. That's gonna result in one inch material from which I can make 3/4 inch flooring. Notice that there's a small blade, a little scoring blade leading the cut.

What that's doing is working it's way through the bark, hopefully knocking out any junk that's in the bark, rocks, dirt, sand, 'cause that material is very hard on the bandsaw blade. With one face cut, the next step is to roll the log. It's mostly automated. Every once in a while it takes a little bit of help from Armstrong here to finish it up. What that'll do is roll the log, lock it against the dogs, so that basically the same cuts can made now off the adjacent faces.

First the slabbing cut followed by a one inch thick plank. Well you're probably understanding the rhythm of this operation. What we did was roll the log again, did two cuts on that edge, rolled it one more time, two cuts on that face. That results in what's basically a big square beam laying on the saw. Now, this is where a good operator's gonna get everything calibrated so that he cuts, cuts, cuts, cuts leaving a one inch thick plank on the bed of the sawmill when he's done.

The other thing that we're doing here is I don't want the center cut. I don't want the pith of the log. It's pretty unstable, it's not gonna make good flooring. So when we get to that point, instead of a one inch thick cut, we're doing a two inch cut there. I'll air dry that material, we'll set it aside, and I'll use it as dimensional lumber someplace else.

You'll see when the boys grab that one, it's just a little bit heavier. The net result of our slightly less than eight hour day is a pile of pine, about 4500 board feet. It's dripping wet, it's about 30% moisture, so it's got to go off to a kiln next to get down to 6% for flooring. Between paying the boys who helped and paying the sawyer, I'm in at about 20 cents a board foot right now. Tim, who ran the mill, did a great job, and I would do this again in a heartbeat.