Tom the Sawyer Portable Sawmill Service

07/27/2024

03/19/2024

11/07/2021

Operating a small sawmill business is not known for its wealth generation aspects. Many of the sawyers I know operate as sidelines to other businesses, as part-time endeavors, or even as a hobby. Although mine is a business, I think the greatest reward I receive is the pleasure I get from the challenge of opening a log and getting the best I can from it. It is seldom about production, but more about extracting the beautiful grain patterns, or helping a client get the best lumber for their intended projects. Very few of the logs I mill were harvested for their value as timber, more likely they were salvaged from urban removals, storm damage, or other reasons.

It is gratifying when clients leave my mill, pleased with what we have produced, even if we started with old, small, gnarly, or crooked logs, And just think, I get paid to create that product. Icing on the cake is when they are thoughtful enough, often years later, to send photos of the finished product.

10/19/2021

The nice thing about being retired is that I can be as busy as I want to be. It has been awhile since my last post, only 45 jobs since then but I just don't think about FB too often when I am focused on my clients needs. Today's job was worth sharing a few photos.

It isn't unusual to get calls about milling "burls", sometimes they are just overgrown stubs. Milling a burl is always a gamble, usually a myriad of opinions about how to cut them, and sometimes you cut into it and find a thousand ants, or a gaping hole.

Today's project was a walnut log with a large burl on two sides. My client was pretty happy with what we got.

06/13/2021

First time this year we had heat indices over 100 this week and I lucked out with today's mobile appointment, last nights t-storms kept temps today in the 80s. Today I was milling just west of Lake Olathe, cottonwood and walnut logs. Cottonwood is the Kansas state tree, and there is a lot of it, but it is normally used as a utility type wood, passed over furniture and cabinet work. The first logs I ever had custom milled, I built my daughter a writing desk out of cottonwood almost 40 years ago.

06/05/2021

I frequently get calls offering me 'free' logs, if you take the tree down... no thanks. But a couple of weeks ago I got one that was interesting. A bunch of trees removed for a home construction project, owner hated to see them go to waste, and the neighbor was a retired detective who did a web search, found and recognized me.
I buy most of my logs from tree guys who deliver them here, but selection is limited. It has been years since they have brought me big eastern red cedar logs, but I get requests from clients so the opportunity to salvage some large cedars was very tempting. Working around my schedule, and the muddy ground, I was able to save a bunch of logs from the burn pile.

05/25/2021

The current high cost of lumber is driving the cost of new homes, and home improvements, sky high. Foresters and sawyers frequently get calls from people who have timber and want to use their trees to build a new home. In an area like Kansas, where we have primarily hardwood species, the answers aren't that easy. The Kansas Forest Service addressed that meme, and other topics in their latest podcast, Higher Use Logs. Check out #12 ( I was in it) and the rest of their episodes.

Tom Hogard's passion for woodworking began in junior high school when he opted to take woodshop. Over the years, he discovered that using salvaged logs or milling his own lumber provided some cost savings for his wooodworking projects.  Today, Tom owns and operates his own portable sawmill serv...