The concept of a portable mill, especially a portable chain sawmill is probably a foreign term to a lot of people not working within the lumber or paper industries, people whom have to cut down trees on a daily basis specifically in an easily processed manner. However, a portable mill like this is advantageous to a whole host of industries not just including paper or lumber. Land clearing, construction and landscaping crews as well as forestry and parks maintenance people also stand to benefit greatly from a portable chain sawmill, believe it or not.
So, what are these exactly? They sound like just chainsaws with a little bit of extra technology behind them, right? Well, if you put it simply, that’s basically what the concept is. It is a series of modular machinery intended to create an assembly line-style process of cutting down and further slicing felled trees in a manner where they are easier to ship and require much less processing on the other end. These usually consist of various jigs and chainsaw implementations allowing trees to be sectioned, limbs to be cut off and also section, etc., making the job site easier to clean up, as well as the chunks of the tree far less difficult to move.
When you think about shipping logs, you picture the large trucks with strips trees bundled on them, as well as barges and even train cars loaded with them. There will always be scenarios where these large post-like strips trees are necessary, certain sizes of lumber and other processes requiring them to be in this state when they arrive at the plant. However, a great many scenarios don’t need this, and you can imagine just how difficult it is to move, load and unload failed to mention ship such massive, heavy and dangerous components.
With a portable chain sawmill, or any kind of portable mill concept, you can use adjustable and modular technology to section off the trees into whatever sizes you need, capable of handling any type of wood, and a size of tree and use a surprisingly minimal workforce to achieve anyone task. This allows you to get more use out of your larger workforce, capable of handling lots of trees in short order, and your shipping people as well as your loaders and unloaders will have a much easier time with the smaller components.
Even if you aren’t in the paper or lumber industry, you can see the big advantages of this concept. You still have to get these fallen trees out of the way, and going at them with traditional chainsaws is dangerous, tedious and inefficient. There are in fact a great many types of trees that are nearly impossible to section off this way, at least not without a massive workforce spinning a lot of man hours on a single tree.
If we have piqued your interest, consider looking into some of our other pieces on how to find the best portable mill concept for your needs, and pay close attention to how much emphasis we place on safety measures put in place with their designs.
Bio – The highly versatile Watts Solo Chainsaw Mill provides convenience and durability in a single tool for transforming raw logs into lumber. The solo chainsaw mill can be moved with a utility vehicle and the devices can easily be transported with a bush plane or helicopter. The type of lumber that can be cut is only limited by the chainsaw being used.
