This is a great service. I hired Capital Sawmill to mill some lumber after the derecho that hit…read moreour area downed a cherry tree on my property. The wood was too beautiful to just cut up for firewood. The service is pricey so do your math beforehand to determine whether the value of the resulting lumber is worth your investment. For me, the cost was worth it because cherry is a premium wood and I plan to use it inside my home for trim, flooring, etc.
Stephen is the owner and came to my site initially to assess my job. Then a few days later, two employees, Alex and Allen showed up with the sawmill on a trailer towed by a truck. Allen is the sawmill operator and I was impressed by his efficiency and skill with the machine. He surpassed my expectations of getting much usable lumber from the logs while minimizing waste. Alex is more of the go-to guy, stacking the lumber in my barn, keeping the site cleaned up, etc. They removed all the waste and were very good about stacking the lumber where I wanted in my barn.
Remember that most wood takes at least a year to slowly air dry before working with it. Alex stacked the boards with little sticks between the layers. The sticks are called "stickers" and the process of stacking is called "stickering." After it was all stickered, I brushed polyurethane on the edges to seal them to prevent splits during the drying process.
The cost of their portable sawmill service is $200 per hour, with a minimum of four hours. Beware that this includes their travel time, set up on your property, packing up and returning back to their place of business in Nassau. I live relatively close and got about three hours of actual sawmill time for $800 plus tax. If you have the ability to deliver logs and pick up the milled lumber from their business, the economics would work a little bit better in your favor.
Another point to remember is that rough cut lumber is not finished lumber. The band saw in the portable sawmill cuts to approximately one-inch thickness (or greater). There are slight ridges in the wood. After drying, my milled cherry boards will need to be planed and then sanded in whatever project I decided to use them.
These days, "live edge" tables, mantels and other furniture is popular. Capital Sawmill can cut slabs from your wood for these kinds of projects. Initially I told them I only wanted boards. But when I saw some of the beautiful knot patterns and bark in the outer pieces that were cut from my logs, I decided to keep these also. Alex stacked them along with my straight-cut lumber. Possibly I'll used them in other projects.
In summary, these guys like wood and know what they are doing. Allen is very skilled with the sawmill. Alex is also an interesting guy. What does a sawmill employee do in his spare time? He carves wood, of course, lol. At one point, he took out his cell phone and showed me some beautiful wood carvings, including one of an intricate owl that he created for his mom.
