Cooks Helpful Sawmill Articles

Quick Links to Cooks Sawmill Articles

We not only want to encourage you to delve into our sawing information, we want you to gain understanding of the sawmill concepts we put forth. If you have questions concerning our suggestion and sawmill equipment feel free to contact us. Our staff is well equipped to assist you.

How to Start Sawing Logs to Lumber

• Make Money Sawing Logs to Lumber - There are many things that you will want to consider when you look at purchasing a sawmill to produce lumber. We will begin discussing one of the most common question that people ask concerning portable band sawmills. "How Much Money Can I Make Sawing Logs?"
  
  
• Benefits of Having a Portable Sawmill - “Have sawmill, will travel” could easily be Harry Pages’ blueprint for success. Learn how using a hydraulic portable sawmill will produce a massive amount of lumber in one day.
  
  
• Here's How Customer Derek Decker Got Started - I narrowed my choices down to two. It was between a well known competitors portable sawmill or your Accu-Trac MP32 sawmill. If I bought the other sawmill it meant that I would be spending more money than I wanted to spend. From the literature I received the competitors ‘starter’ manual mill looked cheap and not nearly as sturdy as your MP32 portable sawmill.
  
  
• Billy Butler Smitten by the Sawing Bug - I cringed every time that old circular saw blade cut through the log slicing off another 1x12x8 board, and as I watched ¼ x12x8 inch of that log end up on the sawdust pile.
  
  

Owning a Successful Sawmill Business

• Find Your Niche Market in Sawmilling - Weekend sawyer Paul Leverenz finds niche in lumber sales. Niche marketing is another key to staying in the black, Mr. Leverenz said, and fits with his sustainable forestry practices. "It’s finding opportunities to use those things that normally would go in the firewood pile."
  
  
• Sawmill Used for Additional Income - We all know that the old adage “time is money” is never more true than for the independent businessman. Be sure to read Larry Lindsey's MP-32 portable sawmill success story. He is a true entrepenuer!
  
  
• Flexible Hours and Excellent Compensation - Sawyer Rich Littauer says: "I schedule my work around the weather, as well as my choice of clients and projects. If my client has a dream, I seek to fulfill it on their schedule. I earn 30 to 35 cents a board foot plus set up charges."
  
  
• Craig Howard's Successful Sawmill Business - Craig Howard was looking for a way to supplement his income. He was working at a local chemical plant as a chemical operator. There were a lot of portable sawmills around his area. Craig first thought there was too much competition for him to be profitable. But after more consideration he decided that there was an opportunity...
  
  
• School of Hard Knocks - Of late I have been thinking more about why we do what we do, and why some good people are successful and why some are not. It seems that much of it boils down to our teaching or education going back even from our very early years...
  
  
• There's Gold in Them Thar Trees - If you own land with trees on it then the old cliché ‘Your sitting on a goldmine!” holds true for you and I if you own property that has a gold mine on it would you buy the equipment to dig for it? “Yes”, you say. Well I would too. So why not buy the equipment to mine it? Buy a good sawmill and harvest the trees the same as you would if digging for gold...
  
  
• How To Survive and Grow in Hard Times - Much of the time survival and growth are a matter of how we think about things. I heard a story one time of two shoe salesmen that went to a foreign country. When the first guy got off the plane and walked around he noticed that nobody wore shoes. He promptly called the home office and said “This is a terrible idea. There is no opportunity here because nobody wears shoes!” The second salesman got off the plane...
  
  

Increase Portable Sawmill Profits & Production

• Understanding Sawmill Guides & Adjustments - As we work and talk with sawyers around the country we find many things that need to be discussed and explained to help their sawmill run fast and accurate. One thing that ranks near the top of this list is to understand sawmill guides and make these proper adjustments.
  
  
• How Fast Should a Sawmill Turn? Does That Change For Frozen Logs? - These two questions are very good questions and are asked very often. Everyone who saws should consider how fast their saw is turning, no matter who manufactured the mill. Here we reveal from experience some facts that have been tried and proven.
  
  
• Choose The Right Size Bandsaw Wheels - The question is often asked. "What kind of bandsaw wheels should I use? Should I use V-belt sheave bandsaw wheels or is solid steel better?" There are many types of bandsaw wheels used today. Also there are many opinions of what is best. I will give you my opinion using physical logic which I have experienced and witnessed.
  
  
• Rules Were Not Meant to be Broken - As I daily consult with customers who own portable sawmills, I enjoy helping customers improve their sawing. I have found that there is a solution to every problem that arises from using thin kerf band blades. I have found that there are 6 basic rules to follow to solve all sawing problems that sawyers deal with daily...
  
  
• The Meaning of Value -Every individual has values but what many don’t realize is that a company has values as well, and these values are established by the leaders of the company...
  
  
• Evaluating a Bandsaw Blade - I hear many people in our industry using the number of sharpenings they get out of a blade as the measuring stick to determine its overall value. I hear this so often, I tend to believe it’s the only way some people even rate the value of their Bandsaw blade...
  
  
• The Lumber Chain of Value - We have all heard of the food chain. In the world of sawing logs into lumber there is a chain of sales.  In this chain we have green lumber sales that include many things such as pallet lumber, crossties, hardwood flooring, grade lumber, etc.
  
  

Sawmill Blade Insight



• Paradigm Shifting - A paradigm is a set of beliefs that we have gained through our lives based on what we have been taught. We think the way we do, and react the way we do, because of all our past experiences, and we are the sum total of all our past experiences...
  
  
• Understanding Blade Flatness - Let me share a little history of how I came to understand
  the role that blade flatness plays in consistent cutting...
  
  

How to Get Started Sawing Logs to Lumber

Owning a Sucessful
Sawmill Business

Increase Portable Sawmill
Profits & Production

Sawmill Blade Insight

History of Cook's Saw