We may receive a commission when you use our affiliate links. However, this does not impact our recommendations.
Every woodworker who sees a downed tree quickly says a short prayer to the gods of nature and immediately thinks of turning that log into lumber. It’s just natural to want to see a natural resource being utilized and not wasted. And, of course, procuring some inexpensive lumber doesn’t suck either! But what does it take to rescue a downed tree? Well, a mill and some friends (with trucks!) would be nice or you can hire the same arrangement – there are folks with mills that make it a side business to make their mills available for hire.
Once your log is milled, you need to sticker and store the wood properly and the painful reality is that it may need to sit for a year before you can make something with it. Is it worth it? Sure!
As I mentioned, half the fun is watching the log (or logs) get milled. It’s an art in it’s own right, and in the video below we spent an afternoon with Ron Herman while he milled a log, but we’ve condensed the time to under 10 minutes … much more fun.
Here are some supplies and tools we find essential in our everyday work around the shop. We may receive a commission from sales referred by our links; however, we have carefully selected these products for their usefulness and quality.
