The lumber in the photos is a bunch of random logs that one of our neighbors has been saving up. It's a mix of Poplar and White Oak. I believe he was planning on making furniture and tables out of the dimension lumber. The off cuts and scraps, like the pithy oak cant above, we sliced up into 1/4 inch by 4 inch wide oak flooring veneers. He milled out enough to cover a few hundred square feet, aka, one or two full rooms in his house. He was down right giddy, since he always wanted real hardwood floors.... and it didn't cost him the $900-and-some the big-box stores get for flooring around here. Oh, all of the new lumber to build the actual mill-shed surrounding the saw, was cut on this mill too. It was all 2x6 material and would have cost about $1200 or so from the lumber yard. This rig has more than paid for itself several times over :-)
When budgets are tight we find alternatives for our solutions. When we ended up having an extra bit set aside for once we thought long and hard about the mill. The e-coupon we got and the free shipping clinched it. We try to find any way to make things useful. Because you're right, there is possibilities in everything.
The lumber in the photos is a bunch of random logs that one of our neighbors has been saving up. It's a mix of Poplar and White Oak. I believe he was planning on making furniture and tables out of the dimension lumber. The off cuts and scraps, like the pithy oak cant above, we sliced up into 1/4 inch by 4 inch wide oak flooring veneers. He milled out enough to cover a few hundred square feet, aka, one or two full rooms in his house. He was down right giddy, since he always wanted real hardwood floors.... and it didn't cost him the $900-and-some the big-box stores get for flooring around here. Oh, all of the new lumber to build the actual mill-shed surrounding the saw, was cut on this mill too. It was all 2x6 material and would have cost about $1200 or so from the lumber yard. This rig has more than paid for itself several times over :-)
You seem like you are the sort of people that see possibility in everything around you, very different than the way most of us live.
When budgets are tight we find alternatives for our solutions. When we ended up having an extra bit set aside for once we thought long and hard about the mill. The e-coupon we got and the free shipping clinched it. We try to find any way to make things useful. Because you're right, there is possibilities in everything.