Great mill for home production...... If you are thinking about milling for other people (to make money), you basically need a fully hydraulic woodmizer LT30 or LT40. Seriously don't even think of trying to make money with a manual mill like this. I bought this mill off craigslist 4 years ago for $5200 and I just use it for our homestead projects. Here's my only major complaints. 1. I have it sitting on stumps and I have to re-level all the feat twice a year due to frost heaving/resettling.... this is a bit of a pain and could have been remedied by stiffer fatter steel rails. If I don't have it near perfectly leveled it will saw tapered boards and beams. It takes me an hour or two to level all the feet. I got this mill with a trailer kit, but moving it would be a big deal with leveling and all. 2. I have had to replace the fuel pump twice (I believe because of poor design). 3. The boat type fuel tank leaks fuel when it gets hot out. Other than that, it's a pretty damn good mill. The only other experience I have with other mills is a guy I know owns an LT40 and mills with it for a living. I worked with him two days and watched him operate.

Roachven thanks for this information. I've been using my homemade Alaskan mill for a few years now and really want to upgrade, but haven't found anything in my neck of the woods for a reasonable price. The closest I've come is a Baker 18m "demo" unit with trailer package for $10,000. $10k is a tough pill to swallow, particularly if I can't use it effectively/efficiently to mill for clients. I've looked at TimberKing and Woodmizer, but anything with hydraulics is pushing $20,000. TK sends a business plan with their marketing material claiming I can make $30/hour milling, but I make $40-$60 as a self-employed builder, so those figures don't excite me either!

I have the same set up and what I do is when it gets down to about a gallon in each pan I lift them (with pot holders on) and transfer them into just two pans. I then put the emptied pans back in place and fill them up with warm water. If you don't keep the original set up you'll get a lot of soot flying around and into your syrup. At the end I scoop most of it into a pot (that I'll take inside to monitor on the oven) and then pick up the pans and empty the rest into the pot. It's pretty easy.

I'm sure it would have been even funnier if you were putting up the trusses.

Thank you, I have 4 maple taps and about 5 hickory and 5 walnut taps. This year I used roasting pans but they had ridges on the bottom which meant there was an airspace between most oft the pan and the boiler. I'd like to get a few of these if you can suggest a size for me. This year was a very short sugaring season by me, it went from super cold to warm spring days with very little in between. Thanks in advance