School me on sawmills, please.

[Sawyer Rob]

If you have 3 phase power, I think an electric version would be great. I've seen a Wood Mizer demo, and the engine looked to be about a 30 hp diesel. A 1 phase electric motor will never get you anywhere near the HP required to run a mill.

Quite a few guys are running small BSM's with 7-1/2hp single phase electric motors... and you can get 10hp single phase too. I use to know a guy that has two 5hp pulleyed together and it worked very good.

BSM's actually do quite well with lower hp electric motors...

SR

 

[Sawyer Rob]

I'd like to be $12k or less and have something that can cut 20'+ boards. I don't really need the hydraulic loaders, I've got a skid steer, tractor, forklift and a mini-ex to handle loading logs, it would be nice to have automatic feed and dogging.

20' of track to saw longer logs is easy to come by, even of lower priced mills. You are going to find that 12K is more than enough to get a good manual mill, but you will only find the diesel option on the much more expensive hydraulic mills.

Once you nail down your "gotta haves", it's much easier to pick a few brands/models to look at.

I get by just fine without hydraulics on my lower priced BSM, and it's sawn huge amounts of lumber for me, so you will find out that an 8K mill will saw just at accurate as a 30k or 40k mill. It's really about proper set up and keeping it in tune and most of all, proper blade maintenance.

SR

 

[caver]

I have a Baker HD18 I picked up used on ebay. Before I found that I was seriously considering an EZ Boardwalk both made in Missouri with the later by an Amish family.