Frontier OS27 sawmill

I recently bought the Frontier sawmill, with trailer and bed extension. The machine arrived in two palletized packages, each close to 1,000 pounds. One should be prepared for moving them, I wasn’t really.
The instructions are extensive, somewhat confused/confusing, incomplete - but if you can build IKEA furniture ;)

I have it assembled, got it running and found some things that literally shook out and addressed them.
I’ve started milling lumber and it’s kind of fun.

Having twenty acres of mature woodlands, this opens doors. Very low cost lumber for all the things one needs lumber for. Possible lumber sales. Custom milling. Value added items for sale.

Having your own sawmill is not appropriate for every situation, but in ours I think it’s a very good fit.

Peter Ellis wrote:Having your own sawmill is not appropriate for every situation, but in ours I think it’s a very good fit.

You are certainly right, although I will add another point... its nice to have things in your home that you can say came from your homestead. From my double vanity sink in my bathroom, to my headboard and twin matching night stands, to almost 90% of the lumber used to build my house, its nice to say it all came from my farm. That adds a lot of charm and character to a home.

Enjoy it!  Just take your time until it becomes comfortable, and you will have years of service from the mill.  I have had a Luca swing blade for more years than I care to recall, and it has served me well.

They are sort of like an aircraft-check it over before firing it up!

One great thing you can do with a sawmill too is, make your own siding. I never was able to really make cedar shingles but a sawmill makes clapboards really well.

Just cut a can’t 6 inches wide and as high as possible, then shove a cedar shingle between the sawrig and the can’t, bring down your blade to make a cut half inch high or so, and cut. This will produce a clapboard that is tapered. Then take out your shingle shims

By alternating between an angle cut and flat cut every other time, you can get a lot of siding from a log. 10 logs sided a 1100 square foot home by doing this.

Peter Ellis wrote:I recently bought the Frontier sawmill, with trailer and bed extension. The machine arrived in two palletized packages, each close to 1,000 pounds. One should be prepared for moving them, I wasn’t really.

How did you overcome your challenge; and what would you have done differently?  Thank you for sharing!

George Yacus wrote:

Peter Ellis wrote:I recently bought the Frontier sawmill, with trailer and bed extension. The machine arrived in two palletized packages, each close to 1,000 pounds. One should be prepared for moving them, I wasn’t really.

How did you overcome your challenge; and what would you have done differently?  Thank you for sharing!

At the time of delivery, I had an F150 and hundreds of feet of good quality logging/arborist rope and a couple of similar grade slings. I ran slings through the pallets, clipped onto the rope, wrapped that on my trailer hitch and dragged them up the driveway one at a time. Tore up the gravel driveway pretty badly, but got my stuff out of the road.

My tractor was delivered about a week later ;) I recommend having a tractor, with a front end loader and pallet forks, to move the palletized saw. There's an attachment for the three point hitch called a carry all that would also work pretty well. Essentially shorter pallet forks mounted on the three point hitch.