I'd like to hire a mill without a bloke!

[Relative amateur]

Greetings all, I'm writing as a complete newcomer to Arbtalk; nice place.

 

I'm a woodworker, who has recently benefited from sizeable oaks coming down in London (involuntary, in that case), where I live, and in southern France, where my father-in-law lives. I intend to turn them into 30 - 50mm thick boards, plus a few a bit thicker, and when seasoned I'll certainly have enough wood to see me out, with plenty left over to mend the barn of the farmhouse in France.

 

I've spent a long time thinking about what sort of mill to use, and come to the conclusion that a swing mill is the answer; because (1) one never really uses wide boards in my sort of work (can't be doing with that rustic look), (2) chainsaw mills look like hard work to me, and (3) the French log (should I be calling it a stick?) in particular weighs about 3 tonnes, is in a thoroughly inconvenient place, and the chap who runs the local sawmill seems to be better at Gallic shrugs than what we might call can-do.

 

What I'd really love to do is hire a Lucas or Peterson mill for a week or so and do my own thing - first in London (Greenwich), then take it to France in a van and bring it back. Would anyone be up for that? Second best would I suppose be to spend a day here with its owner making sure I wasn't likely to do anything daft with it. I've seen the thread somewhere on Arbtalk where the merits of hiring mills on a 'machine only' basis were discussed, and for the life of me I can't see that they are more damageable or dangerous than plenty of other bits of kit regularly for hire.

[kernowstu]

Sorry to say but there is no way I would let my Lucas go anywhere without me

[Justme]

I doubt anyone would let it out of the country.

 

Hire one here & hire one there. In both cases with an operator. You will get more done with someone that knows the kit & the extra pair of hands will help too. Prob only need it for half the time that way & total cost will be less.

[Big J]

Hire a mill with an operator. You will get much much more done and no mill owner/operator in their right mind will hire you their mill. It is so, so quick to do serious damage to it.

[Dizzer]

I know someone who will hire their lucas mill but will need £18000 deposit for it to be hired out:thumbup1:

[kernowstu]

I know someone who will hire their lucas mill but will need £18000 deposit for it to be hired out:thumbup1:

 

plus vat

[Relative amateur]

Hmmmm,a large part of the reason for this is that I haven't managed to find anyone with a mobile mill of any sort in the relevant part of France )Tarn et Garonne) - if anyone knows anyone?

 

And £18k (+ VAT!) also seems rather a lot, I'm pretty sure I need a fairly basic machine costing a lot less than that.

[Eddy_t]

Why not just buy a saw and Alaskan?

And a mini mill to face the timber up.

[Stephen Blair]

Buy 1, use it, sell it when you are done.

Simples.

[timbernut]

Like big j says you're far better off with an experienced and knowledgable operator.

I get a pro in (you call that big) and help him =highly productive and cost effective.

Also good friend has bought mill and I'm watching him on a steep learning curve, he's fine but was painfully slow in the early days!