# Thinking about a new mill suggestions?



## sprucegum

I have my Hudson mill listed for sale locally and if it sells I will be replacing it. Now that I have learned all of it's quirks I am pretty happy with my Hudson 236 but have never been happy with the Vanguard v twin engine. Rite now it is running like a top but my confidence level has been scarred and I just want something different. My thinking is to sell for a couple of grand less than the cost of a new Hudson and simply replace it with a new one and request a different brand engine or no engine at all and supply my own. I have only had it advertised for a day and already have quite a bit of interest so maybe the stars and planets will align and a deal will happen.
So anyway I have been surfing the net looking at various mills and have yet to find one other than the Hudson that meets my requirements for what I am willing to pay. My requirements are under $9,000 , 34-36" log diameter capacity, ability to add additional track for length, 20+ hp. and a decent log dogging system . I don't saw enough to justify power feed and I am a pretty good fabricator so power turners and such I can take care of on my own. Of the ones I have found none have jumped out at me as being much if any improvement over the Hudson. I have seen all of the popular ones WM, Cook, Norwood, & Timberking just wondering if I am overlooking some.


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## JR Custom Calls

Did you look at ez Boardwalk? I don't remember the specs off the top of my head, but I know it cuts 36 at least and I seem to remember a 20hp option

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## sprucegum

JR Custom Calls said:


> Did you look at ez Boardwalk? I don't remember the specs off the top of my head, but I know it cuts 36 at least and I seem to remember a 20hp option


I had not but I found the website just now looks like a good unit with one of my favorite engines the Robin. Web site has very little information but I found a Utube video and the only thing that jumped out at me as being wrong is that the operators side is also the sawdust side, a very poor feature in my opinion. I think timberking also makes their small mills that way.


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## JR Custom Calls

sprucegum said:


> I had not but I found the website just now looks like a good unit with one of my favorite engines the Robin. Web site has very little information but I found a Utube video and the only thing that jumped out at me as being wrong is that the operators side is also the sawdust side, a very poor feature in my opinion. I think timberking also makes their small mills that way.


@justallan has one (maybe the jr model?), and @DavidDobbs had one, I think he sold his. Seems like someone else here has one. Everyone that I've ever seen anywhere talk about them loves them. Apparently the slated blade design helps pull the carriage through the log.


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## sprucegum

JR Custom Calls said:


> @justallan has one (maybe the jr model?), and @DavidDobbs had one, I think he sold his. Seems like someone else here has one. Everyone that I've ever seen anywhere talk about them loves them. Apparently the slated blade design helps pull the carriage through the log.


Maybe I could get used to eating sawdust if I did not have to push as hard. Although I find mine pushes plenty easy if the blade is sharp. When it starts to go a little harder I am usually sawing with a dull blade and making poor lumber.


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## justallan

I had a Hudson HFE-21 and my biggest gripe on it was the tracks and the engine was underpowered, other than that it was a great little mill.
I now have the EZ Boardwalk Jr. and love it. Unless you are blowing sawdust straight into the wind it's not a problem and I feel that whatever you get you'll be packing some sawdust home in your pockets. The carriage frame and tracks on these things are simply bulletproof. With them using channel iron for tracks the setup time is just simply worlds apart from the short pieces of angle iron used by others. Since you can fabricate stuff, you might also look into how much Stanton from EZ Boardwalk will discount you by not buying tracks with it. I know for fact he will do this and it's how I ordered mine. We had a mix-up in the shipping, but I ended up saving buckets of money by the time it was all said and done.
As for the blade pulling itself into a log, it does indeed do it and if by chance you accidently use a 10 degree blade in hardwood it will without a doubt pull so hard that you have to hold it back to keep it from diving! I found that out the hard way.
If you have any more questions about them, please feel free to ask.

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## Kevin

EZ Boardwalks have an almost cult following -- never have heard of a single dissatisfied owner. If I ever sold mine and downsized I'd probably buy a EZ Board and build the tracks myself. If I had plenty of time on my hands I would just build it all from scratch but with the way guys like Stanton can whip them out why reinvent the wheel, buy the powerhead and carriage and while you'r waiting on your mill build the tracks. Stanton will tell you the exact specs you need. 

I guess I got lucky with my LM2000 it had a Vanguard 23HP that never missed a lick.

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## woodtickgreg

Very surprised to hear about your dislike for the vangaurd engine, it is usually a very good running engine, one of the better ones put out by briggs. I have had machinery with v-twin vanguards and they are great engines, not to crazy about the single cylinder ones though. My favorite engines are Honda's, pricey but bullet proof. Whenever I have the option of engine choice I almost always choose the Honda. The big Kawasaki's and Kohlers are also decent for the money if made in Japan. If your mill is ok why not just upgrade the motor? You could do that for a lot less than a new mill unless your looking to upgrade the size of the mill.


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## sprucegum

woodtickgreg said:


> Very surprised to hear about your dislike for the vangaurd engine, it is usually a very good running engine, one of the better ones put out by briggs. I have had machinery with v-twin vanguards and they are great engines, not to crazy about the single cylinder ones though. My favorite engines are Honda's, pricey but bullet proof. Whenever I have the option of engine choice I almost always choose the Honda. The big Kawasaki's and Kohlers are also decent for the money if made in Japan. If your mill is ok why not just upgrade the motor? You could do that for a lot less than a new mill unless your looking to upgrade the size of the mill.



I had thought about repowering but my vanguard is running like a top and uses no oil. The problems stem mostly from the valves. Sometimes they carbon up and stick and you can tell that at full throttle under no load they a floating and sometimes this will cause it to drop a pushrod. Young guy at the engine shop said he had similar problems using that engine to race go carts. I don't think it would bother as much on other applications but sawing requires a full throttle and running occasionally under no load is unavoidable. Repower would cost almost as much as what it will cost me to trade. Nothing wrong with the mill and the way I have it set up on a trailer with plenty of jacks it is a snap to set up. One engine shop I deal with is Briggs hater and the other loves them. From personal experience with a couple of Robin engines I consider them bomb proof, one of them was on a generator that I bought in preparation for Y2K. It ran the generator for many hours and now powers my log splitter and still has the original spark plug, good gas bad gas old gas it always starts rite up and runs perfect.


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## woodtickgreg

The robin engines are honda clones, good design. As far as the valves carboning up on the briggs, that's due to bad gas. I would switch fuels and use a high detergent fuel or add a detergent additive. I work in a power equipment shop and we have not had much trouble with the vanguards. It may just be due to poor fuel in your area? Maybe try running some lucas fuel additive to your fuel and see if that improves things?


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## sprucegum

woodtickgreg said:


> The robin engines are honda clones, good design. As far as the valves carboning up on the briggs, that's due to bad gas. I would switch fuels and use a high detergent fuel or add a detergent additive. I work in a power equipment shop and we have not had much trouble with the vanguards. It may just be due to poor fuel in your area? Maybe try running some lucas fuel additive to your fuel and see if that improves things?


Problems may have started with ethanol fuel but for the past year I have been able to purchase 91 octane ethanol free, since the last episode a month ago I have been giving every 5 gallon can a shot of sea foam additive. At least now the spark plugs are lasting longer.

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## Kevin

Greg, never try to dissuade a man from buying a new sawmill; it causes ungovernable bad karmic chain reactions that can induce universal chaos in perpetuity.

Reactions: Funny 4


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## rocky1

You know if any of you guys ever need a little more power out of your sawmills, I know a guy up in North Dakota that can make that kind of thing happen!

http://www.g-team.us/


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## justallan

rocky1 said:


> You know if any of you guys ever need a little more power out of your sawmills, I know a guy up in North Dakota that can make that kind of thing happen!
> 
> http://www.g-team.us/


Rocky, that's nearly as bad as me wanting to put the body off my Grand Prix on a '77 4WD chasis. That would be a darned fine hunting rig though.


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## rocky1

Spent a lot of time in Don's shop, when it comes to anything mechanical the guy thinks on about 3 - 4 planes at one time, he's a walking encyclopedia on Briggs Engines, can do just about anything with them. Crankin 40 -45 hp out of the 25 hp Intek twin, running pump gas. Your standard single cylinder Briggs, 28 c.i. engine commonly rated for anything from 8 to 15 hp; he's getting somewhere around 22 - 23 hp out of them. Alters the carburetors, bores the cylinders, strokes them, builds up and custom grinds cams for all of them. He's built several key type duplication, cam grinding machines out of treadmills, from scratch. He's pretty amazing! Several other guys out there in the mower racing world that can get you more power out of most any of the small engines used on mills, guaranteed. If on the other hand you want more torque, then look to the lawn mower tractor pull builders. Different monkey there altogether. 

Oh, and believe me... There is nothing like watching a lawn mower come out of corner and pull the front wheels off the ground for 20 feet or more on a dirt track. Or, throwing one into a slide and powering it through 3/4 of a turn, kicking rooster tails 10 or more feet in the air. It's a blast!

Reactions: Like 2 | Way Cool 1


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## sprucegum

Kevin said:


> Greg, never try to dissuade a man from buying a new sawmill; it causes ungovernable bad karmic chain reactions that can induce universal chaos in perpetuity.


It may never happen, I don't hate the old one so if no one pays pretty close to my price I will just keep it. I have it on a trailer that works great for my purposes, I have a homemade winch operated log turner on it, a extra track section that allows me to saw up to 24', and the plans all in my head for a really simple power feed. The only annoying part is the engine which at the moment is running the best it ever has.

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## justallan

I do understand the new toy syndrome and it plagues me badly at times.
I think something to look at is how much time and effort it would take to get a new mill set up how you want it, versus what it would cost (time and money) to bring the mill you have back to new condition.
The way all these mills are holding their re-sale value it could realistically be cheaper to buy a new one.

Reactions: Agree 1


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## sprucegum

I keep going back and watching EZ videos and I like everything about the mill except the sawdust discharge. My usual MO is to assemble my logs on skids on a gentile slope with a head log under the mill end of the skids. I then locate the mill 4-5 feet from the head log and use a pair of ash 4x4's as loading ramps to hand roll the logs onto the mill. I find this to be quite efficient as I don't need to continually climbing off and on the tractor and also enables me to handle logs that my little tractor cannot lift. I and a helper just finished processing around 150 logs in this manner and some of them were 18' long and 24" top end. With the sawdust coming out the off side of the mill we could push it out of the way with the tractor once every day and be done with it. If it had been discharging on the operator side we would have been shoveling sawdust all day long.

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## justallan

If you set the EZ 40 on the ground situated like you have yours in the pic it would work the same, BUT..... if you have to keep it on the trailer you wouldn't be able to reach the raise/lower controls and seeing the scale straight would be near impossible.
On mine it takes about 5 minutes to drop the wheels off. Right now I have it set up on the wheels and use jackstands to level it. The top of the tracks are probably 20" off the ground and I can easily raise it up all the way, but like I said, the scale is hard to read that high up, granted that would take 2 minutes to fix if I wanted to.
I should add that unless the EZ 40 has a better trailer package, I wouldn't take it on very rough terrain and not very far down the road. If I put my mill on top of the mountain this year I will surely take the wheels off and put the mill on my bumper hitch trailer. It could make it just fine, I'm just not rich enough to find out.


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## sprucegum

My winch powered log turner is attached to the trailer and the more ground clearance it has the better it works. The turner is simply a hinged arm that is raised by the winch, it has some anchor points on it that I place another piece of steel with some wicked looking teeth. The teeth bite into the log and raise it and help it turn. As it is set in the picture is a very comfortable working height for me.

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## ClintW

Maybe if you make a comment to builder of the EZ about the sawdust/operator side he will consider a modification to his design? Just a thought.


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## Kevin

ClintW said:


> Maybe if you make a comment to builder of the EZ about the sawdust/operator side he will consider a modification to his design? Just a thought.



You can't put the dust chute on the opposing side of where the blade exits the log - it would be the same as not having a dust chute at all.

Reactions: Agree 2


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## sprucegum

Kevin said:


> You can't put the dust chute on the opposing side of where the blade exits the log - it would be the same as not having a dust chute at all.


Turner mills are a similar setup but they turn the mill in the opposite direction and turning the blade inside out so the teeth go in the rite direction. That way the sawdust exits away from the operator and all operations can be done from the same side of the mill. I really prefer not to walk through the sawdust pile and then walk around the mill to turn the logs.
Probably have to stay with the old one my hot buyers seem to have cooled considerably , bet their wives found out. I know mine was pretty sour for a few days after I bought the Hudson, now she is starting to view it as a steady source of supplemental retirement income and a way to get me to go away for a whole day. Brought it home yesterday from the big pine sawing job and did a couple little tinkers today, guess I will pressure wash it tomorrow so it will look pretty if a buyer comes my way.


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## Kevin

sprucegum said:


> Turner mills are a similar setup but they turn the mill in the opposite direction and turning the blade inside out so the teeth go in the rite direction. That way the sawdust exits away from the operator and all operations can be done from the same side of the mill. I really prefer not to walk through the sawdust pile and then walk around the mill to turn the logs.



I asked a WM tech on the phone years ago why they didn't design theirs that way and he told me that because WM are mostly used for production mills, operators don't want piles od sawdust building up on the log loading side of the mill, and because the board takeoff need to be on the operator side for when no help is available, the log loading cannot be on the operator side. I can understand the sawduls not being near as big a problem on a manual mill. When I am rocking and rolling even by myself, I can make a mound of sawdust in a hurry. I wish I could have the best of both worlds but I can't think of how that could be unless you just hook up a dust collector that can handle it. Plenty of mills are set up like that and they work.


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## Kevin

It's for stationary mills but it's handy for that.


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## sprucegum

Kevin said:


> I asked a WM tech on the phone years ago why they didn't design theirs that way and he told me that because WM are mostly used for production mills, operators don't want piles od sawdust building up on the log loading side of the mill, and because the board takeoff need to be on the operator side for when no help is available, the log loading cannot be on the operator side. I can understand the sawduls not being near as big a problem on a manual mill. When I am rocking and rolling even by myself, I can make a mound of sawdust in a hurry. I wish I could have the best of both worlds but I can't think of how that could be unless you just hook up a dust collector that can handle it. Plenty of mills are set up like that and they work.


Guess I am missing something here. On my mill I load the logs, operate the mill, and remove the slabs and boards all from the same side and the sawdust goes to the other side. When working alone I raise the head at the end of the cut, then give the mill a good shove back to the starting end. The leaves me in the ideal spot to remove the board. When a log is finished I pull my short loading ramps onto the edge of the mill and hand roll another log onto the bunks. If by chance I have a helper I just raise the head and back up and start the next cut while the helper deals with the board. Of course this only works on a site with a little slope, usually not a problem Vermont ain't flat.


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## Kevin

sprucegum said:


> Guess I am missing something here. On my mill I load the logs, operate the mill, and remove the slabs and boards all from the same side and the sawdust goes to the other side. When working alone I raise the head at the end of the cut, then give the mill a good shove back to the starting end. The leaves me in the ideal spot to remove the board. When a log is finished I pull my short loading ramps onto the edge of the mill and hand roll another log onto the bunks. If by chance I have a helper I just raise the head and back up and start the next cut while the helper deals with the board. Of course this only works on a site with a little slope, usually not a problem Vermont ain't flat.



That's not how a production mill operates. Raising and lowering the head wastes a lot of time over the course of a day. And for self-loading mills with hydrailic arms or a live deck with 50 logs piled and waiting your tailer can't work from that side, and if you're alone you don't want to walk around the mill to pull the board every time. I was merely explaining why the Woodmizer design is the way it is - because they are designed for production. Manual mills are not.

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## sprucegum

Figured out one thing for sure there are a butt load of mills on the market. Starting to hope mine does not sell then I won't have to make the decision, head hurts already.

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## David Van Asperen

I am part owner in an E Z BoardwLk 40. If memory serves me correctly it measures 34 inches between guides and can cut a log 40 inches in height 16.5 foot length without and ding any track great people to deal with . I found an article I believe it it was post in Sawmill and wood lot magazine that featured the boardwalk . I have not gotten to use it too much yet but all is good so far . I could look up the specs if you want them 
Dave

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## DavidDobbs

I liked my EZ Boardwalk Jr alot! It is a well thought out tough build mill.
I am going to be getting a EZ Boardwalk 40 in a few weeks. I am just buying the carriage. Going to build my own full hydraulic deck.
The sawdust coming out on the control side has never been a problem for me.
On my Jr I had a hook for a bucket.
Which would catch a lot of the sawdust. I am thinking on the 40 to build a chute something like the Wood-Mizer's use.
Dave

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## sprucegum

DavidDobbs said:


> I liked my EZ Boardwalk Jr alot! It is a well thought out tough build mill.
> I am going to be getting a EZ Boardwalk 40 in a few weeks. I am just buying the carriage. Going to build my own full hydraulic deck.
> The sawdust coming out on the control side has never been a problem for me.
> On my Jr I had a hook for a bucket.
> Which would catch a lot of the sawdust. I am thinking on the 40 to build a chute something like the Wood-Mizer's use.
> Dave


I don't think I will be getting a new mill this spring because unless I get another mass produced mill the lead time will cut into the time that I will need a mill. Had a little interest but I honestly don't think any of them can come up with any money. I just got done sawing a bunch of pine for a large post & Beam building that we will be starting on in a few weeks. I am sure that I cut more heavy beams than we need and probably not enough of something so I will l likely need a mill to do some resaw work. If it does not go in the next week I will take down my ads and wait until I am done with it later this summer or early fall. I really don't saw much in cold weather so I will have all winter to get one. I am coming around to the Boardwalk way of thinking and I have found one other mill very similar to the Boardwalk.


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## Kevin

sprucegum said:


> ...and I have found one other mill very similar to the Boardwalk.


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## sprucegum

Kevin said:


>


http://www.sawmilltrader.com/viewad.asp?s=cut-portable-band-sawmills-750&id=50272501697100255

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## Kevin

That debarker is so big for a minute I thought it was a hybrid band mill/swing mill!

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## sprucegum

Kevin said:


> That debarker is so big for a minute I thought it was a hybrid band mill/swing mill!


Having owned lawn tractors that run belts around corners I suspect it may not be a strong point on that mill. Appears to be just a plain old circular saw blade which would have the advantage of being inexpensive to replace but it would need to be adjusted dead on to work.

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## Kevin

sprucegum said:


> Having owned lawn tractors that run belts around corners I suspect it may not be a strong point on that mill. Appears to be just a plain old circular saw blade which would have the advantage of being inexpensive to replace but it would need to be adjusted dead on to work.


That was my thought exactly. You can buy a nice car by debarker blade and just adapt it for that shaft if you end up getting it.


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## sprucegum

So now as if I were not confused enough the local Hudson dealer is interested in taking my mill in trade and thinks he may be able to get me one with a Subaru engine. As the engine has been my only real issue I guess I will see what he has to offer. Now that the big sawing job is done I will probably go back to milling a few logs for my own use. Had I known 20 years ago how much I like operating a mill I would have purchased a top of the line automated band mill then and gone into the custom sawing business. We have quite a few custom operators in the area but the best one is getting pretty old and is really slowing down, another guy has another business that keeps him really busy from Jan.-June and he won't saw after the weather turns cold in the fall. The rest of them are not really that good, or are unreliable.


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