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Portable Sawmill #1 USA Hud-son Sawyer

Sawyer and Hunter Sawmills

I’d like to take a minute to tell you about my Hud-Son Sawyer sawmill. I picked it up, probably been about six months now. I’ve used it quite a bit. I felt like I’d give it a little justice and tell a little about it. I picked it up at a local co-op, they are a Hud-Son dealer. I talked to them about different mills they offer. I kind of had a price point in mind about 2,000 dollars. This one was a little bit more than that so that worked out pretty well as far as price. So far I’ve been pretty satisfied with it. I really enjoy using it. It’s an experience because when you get it it’s in a big crate and fit in the back of my truck. I had to take it out piece by piece and you have to do all of them assembly. In doing that you get to know every part of the mill because you have to put it all together. This thing is constructed very heavy duty for what it is. The bearings and the shaft are very, very heavy duty. I think it’s an inch and a half shaft, bearings are huge and do a very good job. There is a six year warranty on that so their pretty confident in it. As far as the power it has a 7HP motor in it. It’s done a great job. We’ve had a 17 inch oak cant. One of my buddies cut up with a chainsaw mill and got it square, brought it over, and it cut thru it no problem. Blades are pretty reasonably priced. I buy mine from Timbery. I get a five pack, $12 a blade. They last a pretty good while.

I really enjoy using this mill. It’s productive, it’s been good. The only negatives I’ve had is the track is a little funny. With the aluminum and in three sections. I’ve had a little trouble with the joints, it likes to flex. With a little bit of modification I’ve got it nice and steady so that is good. Also with the loop system I’ve noticed that if you tighten the cap down really, really hard it creates a vaccum kind of like new gas cans that don’t have anyway to release the air so it doesn’t want to let water out. I fixed that by making a little hole and put a little rubber stopper in it. It seems to work fine. The log dogs do a pretty good job. At first you think, man these things are terrible because there coated pretty good with the yellow paint there but once you use them and get a little wear on them they start to slide easier. There actually pretty good to work with. They definately clamp down on the log and if you get in there good it’s not going to go anywhere. I added instead of the sticker they sent with it an aluminum ruler I got at Harbour Freight for 2 dollars. I put it on with zip ties and it seems to do the trick.

I would recommend this to anyone who likes to be outside. Who likes to do anything with wood at all because it’s something to do. There’s 60 acres out where I’m at and I’ve never run out of wood to cut either here or if other people have trees down.There’s always stacks of logs that I never seem to get to.

I’ve also included a video of cutting up a pine log I did earlier today making a pen for the horses. There’s always a project or two that you can get done. So hope you enjoy the video of milling. It’s a lot of work not necessarily something that is easy but it is rewarding. It gets you out, get’s you moving, and I do like that. You will want to have some sort of tractor or skid steer. Something to pick logs up because you would not want to be doing it by hang. That would not be fun. I’ve got a tractor so that helps out a lot. Overall I really enjoy it and hope this helps you if your thinking about buying one. It’s not something you’ll regret. If you use it, you’ll really enjoy it so, Thank you!

Nick Klaich “Successful loading and slabbing a 3,000 pound Elm tree-Urban Logging/Hud-Son sawmill”

Good morning, my name is Nick. Some of you might have watched my prior videos where I attempted to place a large Elm tree on my Hud-Son Warrior mill. I was unsuccessful but today we are going to get another tree and I have a new plan. Stay tuned.

Elm tree estimated at 3,000 pounds.

So in the clip here you’ll see me cutting what’s referred to as cookies in the wood working world. These are crosscut sections that can be used for tables or something like that. The maximum distance between the guides on my mill is 31 inches. This piece here that I’m cutting is 35 inches and this tree on my trailer is 12 feet in length. The max I can get on my mill is ten feet long so this is the way I can basically keep cutting these things off and than I get it the maxmium yield on the cookie pieces as well as keeping the long as long as I can for slabbing it out which we will see here in just a second.

I also wanted to take the time to give a shout out to my buddy, Mike, from Battle Born Tree Service in Carson City, Nevada. If your located in the Reno, Carson, or Lake Tahoe area, you should definatly check him out. He does great work and he’s a huge help to me giving me these large logs.

Okay without further audo, the big surprise on this video is how I’m going to get this tree on the mill. It’s actually removing the mill head. With all the ideas I had this seemed the easiest. I really didn’t do a great job prepping the palletjack here. You can see I put two little clamps but it got it off safely. In the future I have a better idea of how to get it attached. Overall I’m going to call it a success getting it safely out of the way so we can get the trailer back up here which you will see in the next video.

So here I’m just showing you the tree the strap goes to, it actually goes under the log deck and than comes out where it is chained around the tree. You’ll see me when I start to pull this off. I’m not too concerned at this flat end were looking at because those seem to land softly. It’s the other end I’m concerned about. If a  3,000 pound log just lands directly on the mill its basically going to bend it and completely throw it out of caliberation. What your going to see me do here is straighten it and then on the other end I’m going to set up some crimping which successfully catches that other half of that load. I know some people have suggested using pipe to get it on and off but here’s the problem. Once the tree is on the trailer I can’t lift it due to the design of the log arch. I really don’t want to put pipe under it while I’m traveling on the freeway because I don’t want to risk any of it coming off.

I think you’ll see here the successful catch of the load with crimping.

“Starts sawmill and start’s cutting with the Hud-Son Forest Equipment Warrior portable sawmill.

So you can see on the side of the log to the right that I shaved off some of the face of it with a carbide grinding disk. I didn’t do enough that’s why the mill is kind of catching here. If you don’t give enough space to have the sawdust inject out than it kind of bogs it down a little bit. So I pushed it thru which is probably not the right thing to do for the guides or the mill but the substant cuts that are not in this video I ended up taking that carbide grinding disk and giving it about three quarters of an inch on either side of the guide so that it preforms much better.

So some of you have not seen my last video. The product that I use to keep my slabs tied tight and straight is called Kubinec strapping. It’s a nelon basked material that has these buckles here that you thread thru and than you rachtet like this. You can get this really tight. Almost like a piano string. Some people were upset that it’s plastic product and that I will ruin the planet. The good thing is that it’s reusuable. You can tighten it with a side rachet or if you stack this up but if you were to break it or pull a slab out of here, you can easily re-loop this and use it again. So it has a lot of life left in it. You can see here how to tight it is and keeping everything in a line.

So on this other stack here you can see I did not use that Kubinec strapping on because I didn’t have it yet. Don’t look at these top three pieces, they don’t really count because they we’re cut with a chainsaw and the ladder moved on the deck. These ones down here you can see that if you don’t put the stickers in the right place where I didn’t and you don’t keep them tight, you get a lot of movement and vibrations on the end so I’m really happy with the new product and the new strapping. It’s definately keeping things tighter and cleaner.

So in the next clip here your going to see me successfully stack two of my log stacks and put them on top of each other. This is something that I’ve been thinking about in my mind on how I would do it and it would obviously expand the limited space I have in my driveway where I could store more material. Having a forklift would be ideal in this situation but I don’t have the money to buy one or to maintain one I’d buy(an older one) on Craigslist or Ebay. I’m pretty pleased here with a little injunity and a little bit of planning I was actually successful in getting them on there. I thought it was relavitly safe looking at the operation afterwards. So happy that this worked and I’m going to keep it going to decrease the footprint around my property.

Well we have arrived at the end of this video and I hope you’re enjoying watching it as much as I’ve enjoyed making it. Hopefully I have inspired one of you to possibly go out there and mill your own lumber or their woodworking projects because it is definately a blast. I enjoy doing it and these video’s allow me to share that journey with you. So please subscribe if you haven’t already done so and I hope you have a great day!

Off Grid with Doug and Stacy Game Changer! How to make money on the Homestead. A Hud-Son Warrior sawmill was part of this plan! Thank you Doug and Stacy for sharing videos with us.

A plan to make money on the Homestead with Doug and Stacy. Unboxing our first Hud-Son Warrior sawmill.

 

What an exciting day here at the homestead! I think one of the most asked questions we get here on our YouTube channel is how can we make money and live the lifestyle that you’re living. One thing I want to express to you guys is what your watching and what your seeing right now if your just tuning in or if you are a new subscriber to our channel is eight years of blood, sweat, and tears right now. None of this stuff happened overnight. We saved, we struggled, we hauled water. It took a lot of things to get us to this point.

That’s right Mr. Rooster!

So just remember that when you watch these don’t think that your going to show up at your homestead and things are going to happen overnight but you need a plan. A plan to make money on the homestead. And that’s one of our goals here with Stacy and myself. Showing you field trip Friday and talking to people that are doing this lifestyle. Giving you ideas of ways that you can make money so you can leave that job that you hate, out of the city that stresses you out, so you can breath fresh air, grow your own food, and connect with nature.

So one of the things that we try to focus on is how you guys an get out here and make money on the homestead and live this life. We’ve shown you guys a lavender farm. She turned her passion into a business. We’ve taken you to market gardens and introduced you to market gardeners who are making over six figures. Growing crops such as kale and spinach, carrots and beats. Stuff like that. We have taken you guys to many different places like the alpha’s farm where that guy was raising alpha’s and than sharing them. He makes products out of their fibers so lots of different ways that you guys can make money on the homestead. That’s why Stacy and I put out those video’s. It is to help motivate you and help you think outside of the box.

Just like today’s video where we are going to be talking about a sawmill and unboxing our first one here on the homestead. Then this can bring money to your homestead as well and its really not that complicated.

The one thing I can say about the sawmill so far is that they packaged it really well. They shipped it really good. Everything was strapped down with metal straps and actually this package has been sitting on the side of the barn for quite a while. I just put a tarp over it, a couple of them, and it just stayed dry. Everything is in tact, everything looks good. You guys did notice I actually hauled it over, over here to the pad with a chain on the top so that’s important because usually you get stuff shipped to you and they put it in crappy crafting so when you get it’s all dinged, scratched, busted, and messed up.  So were off to a good start.

Okay guys were going to show you real quick a safety feature so you never saddle a dead end on a cable like this. Right so this is what you call a dead end and this part right here is the saddle. See this right here? Right here, let me show it to you so you can see that. The big end there not the arch but the fat end where it all clamps down, that’s what they call the saddle on the live wire not on your dead wire.

I’m going to show you guys how that looks. This is not just on this. It’s anytime you are stiching up a wire like this and your using these saddles. You want to make sure that you never saddle a dead end. That is your safety tip of the day. So this requires two so I’ll put another one on here right now. I’ll make sure that they are straight and make sure that they’re saddled properly.

Now were going to install the battery. Alright that’s all we got for you today. We got a lot of it assembled and had a couple other things we had to do around the homestead. So we had to break it apart and we will get back to you on the next video. We’re going to oil up the engine, get the gas in there, and than put it all together with the blade and the whole nine. Fire it up for you guys and show you what it’s like. Maybe grab one of these skinner pieces of logs just to kind of put it on there and see just how that thing cuts right thru like butter.

One thing I want to talk about real quick is the company. The Hudon family has been in the business since the 1940’s. There out of New York and their a family run business just like I was talking about earlier. Their passion was forestry and they created a business around their passion. Now they service all of North America freely with all these great sawmills and other forestry tools. As a matter of fact they were actually introduced to us by our friends at the LogOx, a family run business that were friends with here on the homestead. Which your going to see a lot of coming up because we got a lot of firewood video’s coming up and they really help us harvest our firewood with a simple, yet effective invention. They were able to turn their passion into an income as well.

So hopefully all of this is actually inspiring for you guys. The Hudon family adopted the name Hud-Son. What happened was that the son was involved with the business too and its just a really good story and we really like working with them so far.

The one thing about this mill that its called the Warrior sawmill and every time they sell a Warrior sawmill they’re actually donating money to the veterans. So that’s near and dear to our hearts. A lot of you guys have been with us a long time and know that were a military family. Our sons are in the military and we have a strong bond with service to our country and patriotism. So good job on you guys for that and were really looking forward to seeing the next stage of this Hud-Son sawmill the Warrior. I’m going to drop for you guys a clip right here about some bullet points and things Hud-Son put together for you guys can enjoy. Again look forward to more video’s to come and as soon as we get back from the Homesteaders of America conference where Hud-Son is a sponsor as well as LogOx. These people that are running family businesses as well that are investing back into the community guys. So if you guys have money to spend and your looking for ways to improve your homestead please consider all the people we talk about here on our channel because we are supporting and promoting family business and when we can do that everyone is a winner.

 

We would be remiss if we did not mention this full circle tear to your eye mesquite log story. This coming from our good friend and customer of Hud-Son sawmills in Cocoa, Florida CW Bailey:

Quote:  “His story was enough to make even a crusty old sawmiller much more than a little misty.”

Hey CW,

My wife and I were in your place last month.  We bought a slab of mesquite so I could make a box.  This is no ordinary box.  You see, my father was a fighter pilot during the Vietnam war.  In 1967 he was shot down and was listed as MIA.  Well, earlier this year some very dedicated people were excavating the crash site and his remains were finally recovered and identified. The box I made from your wood will hold MIA bracelets with his name on them and other things people want to include.

Another great part of this story is that I flew in the Air Force too and ended up in the airlines. I will be flying my father home from Oakland CA to Dallas Love Field where I last saw him at age 5.

Great closing of the loop.

Just thought that you would find it interesting what happened to a piece of your wood…

 

Bryan Knight

 

A story on my dad

Read More

H360 Sawmill Used to Build a Barn

What was once a pipe dream is now a reality with the help of the Hud-Son H360. Brian of Maxx Forestry (a Hud-Son Dealer) and his customer Matt of Colorado take the time to show us how they used the H360 to build a barn. Some of the timbers used in this build were from the Black Forest Wildfire. Thanks for sharing with us guys and we hope you enjoy there video.

 

 

Learn More

be the boss and a dealer

Come see us at the 3rd Annual Cherry Valley Outdoor games at the Alden Field in Cherry Valley NY.

June 14th-16th the Cherry Valley Outdoor Games ​will provide a variety of entertainment featuring STIHL®

TIMBERSPORTS® 2019 Northeast Men’s and Women’s Qualifiers. Paired with these events will be CVOG’s very own lumberjack competition, which in 2018 was named “one of the top 5 open lumberjack competitions in the country.” In addition to the lumberjack competitions, the Outdoor Games will include the 2-day corn-hole tournament, 5K Run, BBQ cook-off, archery shoot, skid steer rodeo, lumberjack obstacle course and a professional band on Friday and Saturday night. The entire event is free admission.

Kingdom of Comics had an idea to put a Knights of the Round Table style bar into their comic store.

Being a comic store they would have to think of something different and exciting. What better than a lava flow through the bar top? This could be done with some Red Cedar cookie cuts and some colorful epoxy. This is when they found CW Bailey from Double Eagle Sawmill. With the Hud-Son H360 CW was able to cut 2″ x 24-28″ cedar round 22 in total.

The round where then placed on the bar mold to be filled with epoxy.

The end result was beautiful. Keep in mind these picture don’t do the final result justice but enjoy!

Please come and see us at the Redwood Region Logiing Conference in Redding CA.  John  and Julie Dunlap will be there to show the equipment and answer any question you may have.   If you need more info please call John @ 209-532-4974 or email him at jdunent@aol.com.

 

Please come and see us at the World Ag Expo in the International Agri-Center 4500 South Laspina Street Tulare CA. John  and Julie Dunlap will be there to show the equipment and answer any question you may have. They will be in booth # NS108.  If you need more info please call John @ 209-532-4974 or email him at jdunent@aol.com.

More info

Empire Farm Days August 6-8, 2019 at Rodman Lott& Sons Farm Seneca Falls NY. Live sawmill and firewood processor demonstrations during the day and a static display of Uniforest skidding winches will be there as well. Hud-SonForest Equipmentr staff will be there to answer all of your questions.