Setting Up My New Timberking 1220

I posted a project the other day about my wood gloat! My new Timberking 1220 came packaged in a crate made from 3 sheets of 1/4” plywood, a stack of 1X4’s, 2 1×6’s, and several 2×4’s. The day I posted the project, I parked my trailer under a big maple tree in my front yard so I could hoist the saw head over the base sections. The first day I only had time to get most of the wood off the crate and position the new sawmill so I could start pulling it into the air like the way they treated cattle rustlers in the old West. I got some unexpected help from a local contractor who dropped by to give me an elm log he’d removed from a customer’s yard. Giving it to me is a lot cheaper than taking it to the land fill. Thanks Rusty! He had 3 of his employees with him and together we made short work of unloading the mill. I had the situation under control with all my moves planed in advance… You know how that goes… I had the mill unloaded and it was going to be a simple project to raise one end of the bed, back my trailer under it, and pull it up with my new winch…. Only one problem, some idiot put the saw head on facing the wrong direction. LOL It’s funny now, it wasn’t then. Ok, Hoist the saw head again, all 550 or so lbs of it, turn it around and put it back on the rails. An hour later it was time to load the trailer. Oooops, the saw head is behind the trunk of the tree and the entire 1500 lb mill has to be moved at least a foot to the side. Ok, 4X4’s to make a base, bottle jacks to raise everything up, and a couple of hours later, the sawmill is far enough to the side to allow the mill to pass the tree… Getting this mill going is looking more and more like an episode of the Keystone Cops or 3 Stoogies. You know the short film where they are trying to get a ladder through a doorway sideways…

Ok, one last problem, the instructions say, “Set up your sawmill on reasonably level ground.” Hey, this is East Tennessee, I’m not sure there is any level ground outside of a basketball court anywhere around here. Anyway, I got everything bolted together and the log deck level and I set up the mill in a temporary spot where I can cut some of my locust trees so I can make a base for the mill that won’t rot and won’t cost $50 to $100 in treated pine at the local hardware store. Here’s where it’s sitting now. In my back yard with the sun going down. It’s going to rain tomorrow, so It’s early next week before I can run my new sawmill and see how it works. None of the problems and troubles I had today were the fault of the manufacture. So far, I’ve not found anything about the mill I don’t like. And yes, I wish I’d bought the trailer package. But, I didn’t have the extra $1000 and I don’t intend to move the mill after I get a level place to put it. The Timberking 1220 is covered and when the rain stops in a day or two, I’ll cut some slabs from some locust trees and square up some locust 6X6’s to start building a shed for my saw.

Look at that big oak on the right side of the photo below. It’s at least 5’ in diameter and it’s huge! I’ve got a dozen white oaks that big in my woods. My 2 story farmhouse needs new floors! I’ll have to quarter a tree this size to saw logs from it, so… Wonder how long it will take to saw up 3200 bft of quarter sawn white oak?

-- Hal, Tennessee http://www.first285.com