Billy Butler in love with the sawbug
Billy Butler of Cairo, GA, was bitten by the sawmill bug 20 years ago when he had 12 eight-foot cypress logs sawn by an old man who owned a former sawmill. The logs were used for siding on his house that he was building at the time. The old sawmill did the job, but it cringed every time the old circular saw blade cut through the log cutting another 1x12x8 board, and as he watched ¼ x12x8 inches of that log end up in the sawdust pile. If his calculations were correct, it’s 2 board feet per pass! The cut on that circular blade wasted a lot of wood!
Billy had worked hard for those logs, cutting them from the swamp gaps of a stream. He had to wade in waist-deep water to knock down the trees. He then lifted the logs out of the water eight feet at a time, split an eight-foot log, and hauled it onto dry land with a farm tractor. The thought of losing so much hard-earned wood to sawdust was a shame.
The experience of sawing logs on his property into lumber that could be used for his own purposes convinced him that one day he would purchase his own portable sawmill and that it would be a band sawmill so that more of his lumber would end up in the woodpile at place of the sawdust pile.
Over the years, Billy has researched at least a dozen bandsaw mills, corresponding with vendors, perusing their videos, and seeing demonstrations at a local annual agricultural show. Some were cheap, some expensive, some well built and some very flimsy.
Finally, the time came when he was able to retire and have time to do more of the things he enjoyed, most of which involved working with wood. With retirement, the time was right to buy that mill.
In December 2002, Billy watched videos and decided which mill to buy. The design, durability and ease of use cannot be beat at any price.
Billy has owned his sawmill for eight months and says, “I am very pleased that my decision to purchase the AccuTrac MP-32 sawmill was exactly the right one. Over the years, I have purchased equipment only to find that even though the equipment It was good, there were small and annoying things that I could fix, but that could have been avoided if the manufacturer had improved the design a bit.” But Billy notes that this is not the case with his portable sawmill. He has worked with it for these eight months and considers it to be the best designed team he has ever owned. “Every day it’s ready to saw. There are no repair issues or readjustments before you can saw,” says Billy.
Mr. Butler has sawn hickory, cherry, cypress, poplar, red oak, cedar, and pine. The narrow cut of the belt is ideal for expensive woods, giving you more wood for your effort with less wasted sawdust. He has used lumber that he has sawn in the construction of an additional master bath to his house. He used cypress and red cedar to build the wrap-around base for his whirlpool tub and for the bay window in front of the tub.
“Owning a small tract of lumber land, I’ve found that also owning a sawmill gives me an endless supply of fine lumber to build whatever I want,” says Billy. In the process, he also helps him manage wood, allowing him to cut down mature or struck down trees one or two at a time instead of hiring a crew to cut down enough for a load. There is much less devastation to existing trees and the forest floor.
The sawmill also came in handy during the beetle infestation that hit most of the southeast last year. Mr. Butler was able to salvage the newly infested wood to use for projects around the farm instead of letting someone haul it in for five dollars a ton. This wood worked well as a barn siding and for other outbuildings.
According to Mr. Butler, “The boards are so precise and smooth; I’ve found I can cut smaller rough dimensions because there’s less planning needed even for the wood I use to build furniture.” And he has expanded his craft to other items. He built a custom door made of 600 year old cypress and is the exterior door to his new bathroom. The powder room was built from the same cypress.
Other projects are in process. He plans to build two log cabins on the creek near his home to use as weekend retreats. He also plans to market his sawmilling skills to others to generate additional income during his retirement years.