Mill Shop Services
Most of our inventory is either rough sawn or skip planed, which allows you to plane, rip and sand it yourself to whatever dimensions you want. That is sometimes most of the fun in woodworking anyway.
Many of our customers find that it makes sense to have us do some of the preliminary machining. We have planers, straight line rip saws, wide belt sanders & a resaw machine.
NOTE: In the past we offered milling services for wood even if it wasn't purchased from us. Because of a lack of manpower, we are no longer able to offer this service. We will only do machining on lumber purchased from Kettle Moraine Hardwoods.
The prices for these services are as follows:
PLANE 2 SIDES - $.18 per board foot
(Note: if we have to remove more than 1/4" to reach your finished thickness it will be more expensive). Our machines are rough planers so most customers will have us plane their lumber a little thicker than the desired finished size. This allows for sanding or finish planing.
STRAIGHT LINE RIP - $.18 per board foot per edge
One of the biggest challenges with rough sawn lumber is getting a straight edge so that a table saw fence can be used to rip pieces to their finished width. We have a saw that will take a board with a curve in it and straighten the edge. A table saw with a fence can then be used to make finished width pieces. The edge we make is not really straight enough to use as a glue edge, but it helps a lot especially when working with boards 6' and longer. We can also use the fence on our rip saw to make finished width pieces ripped on both edges if you want.
WIDE BELT SAND WITH 80 GRIT PAPER - $3.00 per minute. Maximum 40" wide. (Our sander is 42" wide, but the paper oscillates so 40" is about the widest panel we can sand.)
Our wide belt sander is probably the most popular machine that we have in our shop. We can sand a glued up panel, or sand boards which have been run through our rough planers to give them a smooth finish. We use 80 grit sandpaper, so some hand sanding may be needed before sealing and finishing. Note: Very large panels over 40 bf in size will be charged double the regular sanding charge.
RESAW UP TO 8" WIDE - $.50 per square foot with a $5.00 minimum charge.
Sometimes it is desirable to take a thicker board and saw it into 2 or more thin boards with our resaw. If 1/4" thick boards are needed for a project, it is likely more efficient to resaw a 1" board than to plane 3/4" of wood away. In some boards an interesting "bookmatch" pattern is created by resawing. When the boards are glued together the grain will show a mirror image on each side & can be used in decorative applications. The maximum width our resaw can handle is 8".