Timber Frame Cabin

n8sr

im building a cabin at our property this year and thinking of timber frame construction.with all the wooded area needed to be cleaned out thre is plenty of lumber.has anyone ever used a portable chainsaw mill
to mill there own lumber or am i better off trying to find a used portable mill

reveivl

Yeah I have. I don't recommend it unless you have no other way to get the trees square. It's noisy, slow and hard work, and difficult to make it accurate in terms of size and square. That being said, it certainly can be done and you'll wind up with a building that you are intimately connected with every surface in it. Keep us posted on your project

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Big Dave

I would advise that once cut and sized to store them in a barn for at least 6 months. A year would be better. This will allow the moisture content to stabilize and the timbers will be preshrunk before you use them. Stack them flat with stickers between every board for good airflow.

Dave.

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joasis

There is a sub forum in forestryforum that deals with timber framing, also on the woodweb. I would not use a chainsaw mill, period. A bandmill is a better investment and will hold it's resale value. You can get a mill to do what you want for $3000 new and less used.

A+Carpenter

yes both work just as good. depends on how hard you want to work

I built houses on the borders of Wyoming and Colorado and we even scaled our own logs. AWESOME STUFF

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JAL

check in the phone book. I have seen portable mills that will cut your wood for about $150 to $200 a thousand board foot.
Look at Baileys-online.com for a saw mill if that is what you are looking for instead.

n8sr

the hard work im really not worried about,the biggest thing was my worry of accuracy of the board cut. time is also not an issue this is a weekend/while im camping kind of a project.would like to have it dried and ready for build by spring 07.biggest reason i was looking at these is for the price difference. any other suggecstions