Anyone ever run their own saw mill?

[LuckyIL]

I'm looking at lumber costs for putting up platforms and box blinds, those plastic redneck blinds etc.
treated lumber prices have gone sky high since the last time I built a few. Holy smokes, anything over 10ft long is at a premium. So here's my thoughts and questions:

I have plenty of marketable timber, white red and black oak. Why couldn't I mill my own lumber? The only thing I'm weary of is if it isn't treated. I have already built several 6ftX6ft platforms, I just need the legs. Was looking at 4x4 or 4x6 and I would probably go 18ft.. put 18" to 2' in the ground or so. What kinda life expectancy would you think I could expect outta the boards? Could I seal or stain them??

Then I'd probably top them with a redneck blind or similar and anchor them into the ground. I'm looking at putting up at least a dozen if not more.

 

[Bowsnbucks]

I don't know about black oak - but white oak will last a LOT longer when in contact with the ground than red oak. That's why ships used to be built out of white oak, whiskey barrels are white oak, barn thresholds, etc. Naturally super water - resistant because of it's cell wall structures. I know NOTHING about poly / plastic blinds. Can't help on price comparisons.

 

[Satchmo]

The treated tower and platform will be a fraction of the cost of your Redneck blinds............Go Treated!!!!!

 

[j-bird]

I didn't think about the white vs red oak thing, but Brownsbuck is correct. White oak is used in ships and barrels and the like because the pores of white oak are filled and thus make them more water resistant. That is what gives the dark contrast in the white wood. Red oak pores are not filled and as such is more susceptible to water. I missed that in my post on the QDMA forum.

I just looked at bass Pro as a reference and a redneck trophy blind is listed at $1,600, with a 10' tower it is $2,500 - so I can see why you don't want to buy the tower. You should be able to build quite the tower for $900 price difference - even with elevator brackets and bought treated lumber I think that would be very doable and be far less headache than milling your own lumber. Depending on how valuable your time is....$900 per tower may not be all that unreasonable as well. i suspect the bought tower would assemble in an hour or so with basic tools, where building one is going to take far more time than that and some basic carpentry skills as well. I build my box blinds from scratch - tower and all for far less than the $900, but I'm not an outfitter with paying customers though either.....

Time is money - it's going to cost you one way or another.

 

[LuckyIL]

I'm working with a sale representative, he has several sitting around and was going to swap them for a few hunts. It's not exactly a recreational expense I'd be absorbing I'm still running a business and sure my times valuable but I also have two hands and lots of good help =)

thanks for your input guys
I have some harvest pics that BigRock wanted me to post I've only got my phone with me so I cant post them easily but you can see them on:
www.facebook.com/luckyoutfitters
if you open up photos, under albums there's a folder with this years havested bucks

 

[mthompson]

I use a saw mill pretty regularly, we have a TimberKing 2200. It's way more than what you are looking for, but is pretty simple to run once you get a handle on the controls....about like driving any computerized heavy equipment these days.

One tip is don't drag you logs out of the woods...dirt in the bark will dull blades in 1-2 passes. And get a metal detector to run down the logs so you can find metal objects before the mill does.

If you are handy, there are plans/videos out there on making chainsaw mills.