Jim, my next-door neighbor, recently built a major addition to his house, using the kinds of timber-framing methods described in this book. He hired a local fellow with a portable bandsaw mill to come up and cut all of the timbers from logs that Jim had hauled out of his own woods. The timbers were cut straight and were of good regular dimensions.
Some of these portable mill operators charge by the hour, some by the board foot, some will do it either way. With heavy timbers, you are probably better off paying by the hour. This is what Jim did, and what he advises. He paid $35 an hour and all the heavy timbers and boards for his addition were cut in about six hours; his addition is fourteen by twenty-four feet, two stories. A lot of the wood was ash, a genuine hardwood, but this did not present a problem for the sawyer. Jim and a friend helped by rolling the logs onto the machine. He reckons that all of the timbers and lumber for a house could be done in a couple of days for about $500, once the logs have been dragged out of the woods and gathered together where the sawmill is set up.
With lots of small boards and two-by-eights, paying by the board foot might work out just as well or better. Look sawyers up in the Yellow Pages under “Sawmills.” Call and ask their rates (by the hour and by the board foot), and whether or not there is a travel or set-up charge.
If you are blessed with having straight timbers of sufficient size on your property, hiring a portable sawmill is one of the most economical ways to obtain quality timbers. These portable bandsaws, such as Wood-Mizer and others, can make high quality timbers providing, of course, that the operator is experienced.
