Uses
The portable mills can cut lumber with speed and accuracy, though the subsequent steps of planing and drying must still be performed to produce finished lumber. Commodity lumber in standard sizes can be made this way. Occasionally, this is done.
The more common use, however, is in the production of specialty timber products not readily available through lumber yards. Portable mills are particularly effective for truing up logs for use in log construction, replacing the traditional use of a drawknife, which is inordinately time-consuming. They are also used for low-volume production of specialty hardwoods used in furniture, and can be used to produce the large timbers used in post-and-beam framing techniques.
Portable mills have also been used in conjunction with salvage logging operations. In salvage logging, logs that were lost underwater during nineteenth-century river-borne log drives are recovered by divers. These logs are often worth many thousands of dollars. The thin kerf blade of the portable sawmill allows for much higher board foot yields from these valuable logs.
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