There is a local guy around us that brings his portable mill
He charges .50cents a board ft. Is that a fair price? What does it cost in your area?

.50 could be a great deal if cutting a bunch of small cedars into paneling but it's alot if your cranking out 12x12s.

Local guy charges 50 an hour on an LT40, I have a mill but 50 an hour is below my cost if I have my hired guy run it.

I used to run a Lucas by myself. Charged .30/bf, but that was 25 years ago.

Probably varies a bit depending where you live. Just my 2 cents.

I don't get the board foot charge for a portable mill. If cutting 4 quarter boards to get a stack 12" high you'd make 13 passes of the blade through a log. Same log and cutting 12 quarter boards you'd only make 5 passes of the blade through the log. Same number of board feet either way and ca. 1/3 of the times the blade is cutting wood.

Local mill charges 0.75/bf for softwood lumber and one portable operator is $60/hour plus $25/mob fee. 0.50/bf seems reasonable.

charging by the board foot is a foolish way to go.

Charge by the board foot, and I'll give you a couple of white oak logs and have them ray sawn to maximize the ray fleck. See how much money you'll loose on that deal.

I prefer to pay by the hour, I have used several different guys, it doesn't take long to tell who knows what they are doing and operate efficiently and who doesn't.
I'll gladly pay more and get better boards. There is more to sawing up a log than just tossing on the machine and slicing it up.

Right on Dirty D
that wood only has one chance in being done right, especially with the ray flecking

I have a mill and took a lumber grading course.. Once you know what the grades are, you can turn the log , to obtain , the most value. Put the knots and defects on the narrow , low value , boards. I was cutting hardwoods, but also applies to all logs. I didn't do much custom work, charged 40.00 an hour , a few years ago. There is more to sawing , than volume.. old243

We had a person 3 years ago that charged $60 per hour plus a setup fee which I can't remember exactly if it was $50 or $75. He sawed about 20 12 to 18 foot ash logs for us. He was there about 4 hours. By the board foot it would have been a lot more.

Bryce

As long as I buy fuel and blades I can cut all day. LT 40 of a friend's. Cut a few thousand bf last summer.

Have a log here that weighs over two ton.
For that price bring it, best bring your big loader too.

It's a shame some the wood that goes into the stove.
Moving it is a big expense many overlook.

Sounds fair to me. I have a couple dozen 12-20inch black walnuts I need sliced up for knife (scales) handles.

You got that right. It pays to have a mill man that can read a log and make the most out of it.

I have a big hudson bandsaw mill permentnantly mounted on an 18 inch thick pad. I'm not that great at reading logs but I'm getting better daily. The few for hire jobs that I do the people have to bring the logs to me. I charge 50 bucks an hour. Even I can produce over 300 dollars worth of lumber in an hour. Never had an unsatisfied customer.