Shake Shake, It Happened To Them!

Our Hud-Son Oscar 228 Sawmill was previously deemed as a mystery.  The shake we have was not seen before.  We had been informed that they test every milll before sending it out.  In their testing, they FINALLY had a unit act like ours.

I was excited to hear that they were finally exposed to the problem first hand.  I was anxious to hear what the solution would be.  Unfortunatly, it was something that I refer to as "tinkering".

In previous posts, I've referred to this mill as something that we've been able to cut with, as long as we've been willing to spend a considerable amount of time "tinkering".  There are a few different things that typically happen during "tinker time".

1. raise the mill head all the way up. loosen the bolts that hold the stabilizer tube. slide each tube down until they are snug on the bottom of the frame.  Tighten the bolts.

2. clean and lubricate the stabilizer tubes

3. use a wire brush to clean out the wheels on the eject side and remove wet sawdust from the eject side of the mill tracks.

4. recheck blade tension and blade guide alignment.

5, if the ground is wet or a parucularly heavy log has been dogged up, recheck track straightness.

Since installing the "shake fix" brackets at the bottom, we do not have to constantly adjust the tube and bring it back down to the bottom of the track.  The sandwitching plates hold it where it needs to be.  In fact, in cases where it starts to shake, backing the upper screw off the stabilizer tube seems to soften it up.

Still looking for a solution that allows us to start the mill in the morning and cut all day w/o using tools for anything other than changing blades.  If we could make Tinker Time a thing of the past, we'd be headed down the right path!

Another Cutting Project

This weekends cutting project was

 somewhat simple.  Mostly 3"x10" boards.  I needed about 25 of them 8' long and 10 of them 16' long.  All in all, 35 boards.  Should be a peice of cake.

an 8' long 3"x10" is about 20 board feet

a 16' long 3"x10" is about 40 board feet

25 of the 8' boards is 500 board feet

10 of the 16' boards is 400 board feet

Add this up, and it's basicly 900 board feet

From what i've been told, this could be accomplished on a sawmill such as the Oscar 228 in a single day with no problem.  I'd have to dig through my notes, but something says the number was supposed to be around 1200 board feet per day.

In any case, I began preparing the mill.  It's a little quirky so you have to give it a once over.  I assume this to be true about most mills.  The only thing that starts and runs prefectly is my RedMax chainsaw :-)

Once I started cutting, the real confusion began.  One cut would be perfect, no shake, rock solid, as if the mill were functioning as advertised.  However, lower the cut heigh 5/4 and there would be a couple places in the same unturned log that caused a violent shake.

I cut small logs (under 18" in diameter) and large logs (16ft x 28") with similarly inconsistant results.  To my suprise, the largest log cut with a higher consistancy than the smaller ones.  This log was too big to fit on the mill w/o trimming on three sides with a chainsaw.  This alone was 

considerable work.  On the initial dogging, the log only touched the tracks in 2 places.  I was afraid this would cause some sort of instability with the mill.  However, there were no problems.

  This log was obviously too large to turn with cant hooks, so we had to use the winch truck to assist in turning.  In the end, we found that we were unable to completely cut the log up w/o the shaking coming and going through the process.

At one point, I was faced with redicule from the people watching.  When the mill starts jumping around, I basicly have to climb on top of it, and try to stabilize it for that particular cut.  The description was: "looks like a monkey f**king a football".

My response: "It feels like a monkey f**king ME with a football".

Still wondering what if anything can be done to make this a usefull machine/tool instead of device that, with enough tinkering and wrestling, can be wrangled into making a couple of decent cuts...

Oscar 228 Upgrades

Here is my new line of upgrade add-ons for the Oscar 228:

1. Level 1 Stabilization package
- Ejection side lower bracket. This part will increase stability slightly and cut down some of the twist/shake effect

2. Level 2 Stabilization package
- Operator side lower brackets. These parts combined will increase your stability above Level 1. (requires Level 1 package)

3. ProAm Stabilization Package
- Frame Tensioner package. This cage bolt on will add diagonal support to the front and back of the mill with quick and easy installation.

4. TopWeight
- Bolt on sand/water holding device to add weight to the top of the mill and keep the blade on track.

5. BotWeight
- Bolt on attachments (4pcs) that allow sand/water to be added to the posts just above the wheels. adds stability in cases where TopWeight doesn't help or causes head oscillation due to twisting build up in the upper load.

6. ProFrame28 Package
- Replaces the entire mill frame. Provides a drop in replacement (put the 228 engine/bandwheel) which removes your 1.5" thin tube flexible frame and replaces it with 2"x3" box tubing. Flex is removed for 28" logs and you are ready for work.
- Includes space for 16hp engine upgrade, 12v battery pad for accessories such as electric start, electric drive, lights for night work.

7. ProFrame+Vanguard 16hp
- Everything you need to drop your 228 mill head into the ProFrame28, swap the motor, and cut like a pro.


Level 1: $19.99
Level 2: $19.99
ProAm: $19.99
TopWeight: $39.99
BotWeight: $49.99
ProFrame28: $749.99
ProFrame28+v16: $1,949.99

AllAm Plus Pkg: $125 (save $25)
- includes level 1, level 2, proam, topW, botW. Everything required to do non-frame upgrades

ProFrame upgrades DO NOT use or require any of the lower level items. Along with your factory mill frame, these items can be added to your scrap metal reserves.

Advice: Buy the Oscar228 and an extra millhead w/o the engine from the factory. Then purchase the ProFrame28_16v. Use the Proframe28 for sawing and the factory 228 for edging.

*All uprade items are made upon request by an unsatisfied Oscar228 owner that has a shop and fabrication skills.

Cutting Logs vs Edging Boards

So, the last couple of days has included mostly edging boards or sawing small logs. The interesting things is that this mill, the Hud-Son Oscar 228, edges just fine and cuts up small lumber just fine.

But, i'm still having issues with cutting "real" logs. What i've been noticing is that the wider the logs, the worse the cut. The mill starts a noticeable laboring process when the blade path is greater than 5 to 6 inches of cut. With edging this is not an issue as the cut is usually only 3 or 4 boards, which is 4 x 1.25" or 5".

However, throwing a 28" log on the mill, which it's "supposed" to handle, has yielded less than the best results. The wide cuts are wavy, which results in lost lumber. Getting down to 3x3 yields some usable lumber, but still not as straight as what you would expect. Certainly not as straight as from the mill that has a frame designed for work.
I'm really starting to think that i was a little mislead on what this mill can do. It just feels like a light weight hobby machine that is not capable of cutting good lumber, but more of a tinker toy for the hobbiest to play with, work on, and eventually get a board out of.

To be honest, being told this machine can cut 1000bdft a day "feels" like false advertisement. It would more honesty be 100bdft per day. :-(

What to do, what to do.

Another Day of Cutting

Well, here we are, Thursday already.

Saturday: Mill replaced and finished up the 21ft log that has been sitting on the tracks for a month.
Sunday: Took the day off, Was supposed to get started first thing monday morning.
Monday: Help fell through. Ended up getting a sitter so me and my wife could go out. We were able to get the 5 or 6 logs cut into trailer deck lumber.
Tuesday: Did some work around the shop and watched the TV Coverage of the President being sworn in.
Wednesday: Started edging a bunch of slabs that hadn't been processed. Made a decent stack of lumber out of wood that my dad wanted to throw into a pile and burn to get out of the way.Thursday: Went to work on some large quartered logs that had made their way to the pile over the past few months.

A few people saw the sign and headed up to the shop to check it out. We got an order for some trailer decking that were cutting tomorrow. If all goes well, we'll have enough 16ft White Oak to fill that order and handle a few more trailer decks that we've been asked about.

Not terribly excited about the mill today. Had one call with the dealer. For whatever reason, the new mill has been throwing blades off the front when cutting. Supposedly they are getting hot, as it happens an hour or so into heavy cutting. When they get hot, they stretch, get loose, and come off the wheels. Or so i'm told.
Trying a couple things and hopefully we'll be able to keep the blades on. I've got help scheduled to be out here at 8am tomorrow, so hopefully that will pan out.

This Weekends Verdict

So, the big question was "how did it go?". It seems that everybody knows the troubles we've had whit this sawmill. So it was no surprise that there was a high level of interest in the outcome of Saturdays mill exchange and subsequent test cutting.

As mentioned in the previous post, the new mill shook although not as bad as the first mill. My guess however, is that with a little use, it would have worked enough flex into the new frame and begun shaking as violently as the old one. One of the bonuses would be that the old mill never worked smoothly with regard to setting the cut height. It took a serious turn of the crank to get the head up, and often the head lodged and wouldn't come down when you cranked the opposite direction. The height adjustment was a definite bonus.

Oddly enough, this one vibrates SIGNIFICANTLY more than the last one did under no load. The other mill was smooth running and low vibration until you put the blade into the log. This one acts like it's trying to come apart when you have it running. The engine shakes kinda back and forth (back goes up and down as if out of balance.)
The band wheels "look" to not spin on their center, but the outer circle is fine, so it's probably just how they balance them.

However, with the addition of the sandwitch plates where the ejection side pillar touches the bottom frame has made it cut w/o shaking off of the tracks. You can kinda feel in the hard spots that it wants to shake, but it just can't with that attached. I need to verify with the manufacturer that this particular solution will solve the problem w/o creating other issues with the mill.

So, in summary, here are some pro/cons for the mill exchange.

Pro: The cut height adjustment works right on the new mill.
Con: The cutting head seems out of balance and vibrates significantly
Pro: The new motor includes an exhaust pipe that we can connect to our indoor exhaust vent hose.
Con: There is still some shake in the fram, although most of it diminishes when the pillar bottom is braced.
Pro: I was able to cut up the logs that had been sitting there waiting for me since november.

Con:Things still arn't right.  Cutting is inconsistant and requires significant tinkering to get a log cut.

Con: The dealer had to drive 20 hours to support a mill we drove 10 hours to get in the first place. Yeah, that's 30 hours of driving. That's 1800 miles of driving to get a partialy working mill...

The Dealer Makes His 2nd Trip

After the saddening failure of his december trip, the dealer received a replacement mill and was headed back out here to swap the units and start sawing.

He was here early, having started driving about 3am, so we had a little time to handle offloading the new mill and loading up the old one.

Soon, we were cutting. Sadly, the brand new mill was still shaking, although not quite as bad as the old one. However, it was a show stopper, the new mill wasn't performing effectively.

After a few calls with the manufacturer, we started trying to see what we could make it do. At one point, the dealer put his foot on the ejection side pillar, bracing it to the bottom of the frame and limiting it's motion. As soon as he did that, the saw stopped shaking and took off cutting like there was no tomorrow.

Did we have a glimmer of hope? At this point, we had made our first successful cut. Unfortunately, there were two problems with this method.

1. Requires an extra person to do nothing more than wedge his foot against the pillar.

2. The extra person is not only standing in the ejection port (getting covered with sawdust), but is also wedging his foot next to the bland blade. If somebody were to always do that, they would probably trip at some point and end up losing a set of toes or a foot, maybe even a leg.

I came up with a couple of ways to handle this particular shake. The obvious solutions required welding a couple of pieces of angle iron similar to the top mount and throwing a bolt in there. However, I was mostly interested in a solution that didn't require drilling or welding to the mill frame. I wanted a solution that solved the problem without permanently altering the sawmill.

For that days testing, I clamped the post with the mill travel stabilizer that i built for the trailer. This worked after shimming cardboard on the pillar but only allowed the mill head to drop to about 5 or 6 inches. It did however allow us to do enough testing so that we could take information back to the manufacturer.

After the dealer left, i still needed to make cuts that were loser than 5", so i pulled it apart and put some clamps i had pa bring out.

This allowed me to bring the mill all the way down to 1.25 inches, which was our lowest cut for that particular wood. We were able to get everything cut up that was on that particular job, load the mill back into trailer form, then get it back to the house.

The final modification, which is currently in use is the two steel plates that sandwitch the offending post into place.

Regarding the verdict, i'll leave those details for the next posting.

The dealer makes the 10hr round trip drive

So after more than 3 months of floundering with no solution for the problem, the dealer made the drive out here to look at the sawmill. Before he came, he let us know that he's only available on Saturdays as he has to run his business during the week.

He hadn't called to confirm, so it was a little bit of a surprise when he called saying he was in town waiting at the gas station. I headed out to where he was to meet him and take him to the mill. He had told me on the phone that he was bringing a new mill out and we'd swap motors and I would end up with a new mill with my motor on it. If that would solve the problem, I told him that would work. If it didn't solve the problem, I wanted him to be prepared to just load up the mill and cancel the transaction and we'd get a WoodMizer.

When I showed up at the gas station, I was looking for a pickup with a mill in the back. However, that was not the case. He informed me that he had actually sold that mill since we last spoke. His intentions for the visit revolved around making a couple of adjustments and getting me lined out on properly using the mill.

Since I was more interested in having a working mill than getting one that was 3 months newer than the new mill I already had, I was hoping he was right.

We spent a lot of time shrugging and staring at the mill when he realized that it was not a procedural or adjustment fix. There was a significant amount of time on the phone with the manufacturer while we tried to figure out how to solve the problem. Eventually, the techs had us try cutting with a bunch of weight stacked on top of the mill head.

We were able to cut a little bit better, but there were still issues and they needed to talk monday with some others at the manufacturer and try to figure out the real solution. All in all, he drove 10 hours, I got up abruptly and early on a Saturday, and nothing changed with the mill.

The Part That May Stop The Shake

While testing the new sawmill, we immediately noticed that it had the same propensity to shake, just not as violently. Of course my assumption is that the more you run it shaking, the more the metal will flex and eventually it will shake just as violently.

After double checking everything and trying in vain, the dealer placed his foot on the ejection side riser post. The movement of the bottom of these posts was my "theory" on most of the headshake.

The amount of play at the bottom allows the entire head to flex as the blade grabs wood. When the flex is pulled to it's situational maximum, the blade lets go and swings back. Of course this happens a bit faster than it sounds. But, we did show that by keeping that part from moving, the head stopped shaking and actually made decent cuts.

So, I temporarily clamped angle iron to the area where the riser post and the bottom of the mill frame make an inverted T. Tomorrow morning we are going to go back out there and try to cut up the remaining logs. Instead of building some overboard solution, I just took some metal, flattened it out, drilled three holes, threw some screws in it, and have what you see in this picture.

Frustrated and Abandoned but Still Trying

Without support from Hudson or the dealer, feeling frustrated, feeling abandoned, but still needing the thing to work, we started trying our own solutions. Although we were able to eventually get the manufacturer and dealer back into the mix, we decided to tackle the leveling problem with a vengeance.

We had to find a way to take the crown out! The only way we could think of required a significant materials expense and a trip to the supply house for some serious steel. Although this is entirely uncalled for, the product should work w/o throwing extra steel at it, we saw this as the last option. However, we couldn't bring ourselves to spend the money on the type and size of steel it would take to counter the effects of the 1/4" crowned steel angle iron.

So, I hadn't messed with it in a while, so I pulled it out of the shop, took it to a family friends house, setup and tried to tinker and see if I could get it to cut. It was blatantly obvious that we were going to spend way too much trying to level the unit out in his pasture. Then it was obvious that even if we did get that part handled, that we'd be right where we started. We really needed the material to pull the crown out of the track.

It turned out that our friend had a stack of 3x4 ibeam. We loaded some up and headed back to the house to build the new track frame. Of course this project turned into a portable mill trailer by simply adding an axle and a tongue. The important part of the story is that we were not able to adjust the track and push/pull the crown out by using bolts in the 3x4 ibeam. Although we did end up with VERY straight track and the ability to move the sawmill easily, we did not solve the violent shaking problem.

Once again, in a holding pattern and wishing I'd just left the thing stacked up in the shop...

Make It Work Or Take It Away!

After a couple months of phone tag, hours on with support, UPS delivering shipments that don't solve the problem, and being walked through tearing the mill down, making adjustments, and trying everything short of sacrificing a goat, we gave up on the mill.

We contacted the dealer and the manufacturer and told them that if it wasn't going to work, that we needed it gone. At this point, we tore the whole thing down and placed it in the corner of our shop. We worked out a deal to use a mill from a family friend until we got our issues handled or purchased a WoodMizer.

We were basically told that they would make it work. Of course we were not convinced or even interested at this point. We had become accustomed to phone calls not being returned assumed that we were being ignored in the hopes that we would fade away. At this point we contacted our credit card company and started the process to reverse the charges for the mill. That is actually a great benefit when compared to just writing a check. Visa can get money back from a merchant and you can't get your bank to handle it if you paid with a check.

At this point, we did start getting phone calls returned. This would have been about three months into the process. We tried to put forth every effort to make it work. We already purchased the mill so it was in our best interested to make it work. In addition to calls getting returned, our dealer was now trying to schedule a visit to "fix" the problem. At this point, i'm still hoping that it's user error and that he'll just show up, call me an idiot, and tell me i'm doing something wrong.

Bolt it to the ground

One of the suggestions along the way was to drill holes in the concrete, install bolts, drill holes in the track, and then use nuts above and below the track to set it's height ever 2 ft. Although this sounds like the perfect way to assure level every 2 ft, it's somewhat prohibitive.

First, you have to talk yourself into drilling 8 holes into each track segment. Then you have to drill 16 holes in the concrete for each segment. After that you have to install 32 bolts in the concrete, install 32 nuts, place the track and if it lines up, install the final 32 nuts. Of course you have to level it once you get all of that done.

Since drilling holes in the shop floor is a somewhat permanent solution, you have to be pretty damned sure that you're going to be using the sawmill exactly where you drill cause it's not longer a "portable unit" anymore. So yes, we were somewhat surprised by this advice. Although we did contemplate this out of desperation, we decided against it.

Rather than bolt it down, we did want to do something to make sure that Hudson knew we were taking care of the leveling and that our base surface was not the issue. So, we utilized jetline and a laser level to determine the exact deviance between the concrete, true level, and the bottom of the tracks. We then cut our supports to 1/16th inch of that deviance based on 2 1/2 inches average.

The end result was each block was level from front to back and side to side for the full length of the track. A level base was no longer the issue. However, the crown in the track caused the track to stand higher than the base in a few places. :-(

UPS Brings The New Track!

As we patiently waited for the shipment to make it's way from New York to Oklahoma, we dreamed of a functioning sawmill. We were 5 to 7 business days away from getting started sawing straight logs. Talk about an end to a rough start. We were certainly looking forward to it in any case.

Once the track segments arrived, we unpackaged and began inspection. Although one segment was (to the naked eye) perfectly straight, the other one was as crowned as the 2 original segments. Seeing this, we were back on the phone again, wondering why they sent one straight and one crowned.

It was at this point that they started discussing what was and was not considered crowning. The track has to be out of true for more than 1/8th inch according to the warranty department. I could have told them the first track segments were within that spec. So, it turned out that they sent us another 12 foot of track that to replace the track that we received with the sawmill and was, according to them, perfectly acceptable.

Although getting $750 worth of track is a nice bonus, the fact that it didn't solve the problem in any way kinda made it useless. We now had the ability to make 21, lumber that wasn't straight while the mill shook so violently that it actually came off of the track twice.

"maybe the problem is ..."

There are obvious problems with troubleshooting a machine of this type over the telephone. Primarily, the words used to describe the problem don't always translate into the proper mental picture on the other end of the phone. Even if you think you are describing the problem perfectly, actually being able to watch the action and observe all of the details surrounding the issue are of great help.

However, the telephone was our only option. As such, we heard a lot of "it could be", "i wonder if", and "can you try ".

The first attempt was a walk through of every adjustment and alignment possible on the mill. There were obvious issues to the raising and lowering of the head, probably due to whatever caused the mill head supports to become dislocated as we pointed out when we picked the unit up. Were we not halfway through a 10 hour drive, we may have passed and ignored the "it's no problem, just put it back together right" and waited for a different unit.

Since the weld broke where the winch pulls the head up, we kinda figured there was way more stress there than was appropriate. They just told us to take it to a welder or weld it ourselves. Afterwards, they walked us through removing the posts, checking them for straightness, and putting it back together. Ultimately, that issue was never fully resolved and the unit never worked as smooth as it should have. But, we had bigger fish to fry. It still wasn't cutting straight lumber.

So, they said that since the tracks were on a level base, that something was wrong with the tracks. I pointed out that each segment was crowned, causing the joint to be lower than the middle of each track. As such, a 12ft track consisting of two 6ft segments would have three low points (ends and middle joint) and two high points (halfway between each 6ft section). Since this would cause the wheels to not be level at all 4 points for the entire track, they decided to replace the track. UPS was now in the mix and we were waiting for delivery.

Troubleshooting On The Phone

With the sawmill not cutting correctly, we began the long process of calling the dealer and the manufacturer. Initially, we only called the dealer. However, he was not aware of any units having serious headshake unless one of the following was the problem.

- Tracks not level: This causes the opposite front/rear wheels to lose contact with the track. This can be caused by uneven base below track or excessively crowned 6ft segments, or improperly connected 6ft segments.

- cutting with dull blade: Supposedly this can cause the sawyer to cut with too much pressure and cause the blade to catch and start pulling the mill up off the tracks. Alternately, this can cause the blade to catch then release the wood during the cut.

- Other mill head adjustment: There are multiple adjustments on the mill head. Left and Right hangers that set the mill head cut height, mill head pillars that brace the head as it goes up and down the cut height, mill head stops that set the bottom limit of the blade height.

These are some of the things we learned from our dealer. However, he is located 10 hours away, so we were limited to phone support. When the above information turned into random education rather than a solution to our specific problem, we began contacting the manufacturer for support.

Not saying anything bad about our dealer, he just couldn't come see the unit in action and was constantly saying he "needs to call the manufacturer and see what they say". After calling a couple times for follow up and hearing that he "hadn't talked to them yet" we began to bypass him and go straight to the dealer.

Making the first cut...

Here is where you would expect the drum roll, maybe some cheerleaders, a tv crew, and lots of confetti falling from the sky. However, it wasn't nearly ready for prime time. The mill head was not in correctly. The rise posts that connect the mill head to the four post chassis were not in place. The entire head was misaligned and was not able to move up/down.

We had been instructed to "just put the bottom of the post on the pin, slide the top of the post into the bracket, then tighten it up. Well, this looked easy enough. However, the process was a bit tougher than expected. We did get the mill head lined up and the posts secured, but the height adjustment didn't work correctly. Everything just seemed to bind a little, nothing was smooth. It certainly didn't feel "new". A couple more phone calls and we were a little closer, but still "not right".

Now that we could adjust the height, it was time to give the 8hp Briggs & Stratton motor a pull. The thing fired up right off the bat. However, the mill shook quite a bit when attempting to cut the log. This being our first bandmill, we tried a few things like adjusting the blade guide, checking blade tension, pushing slower, etc.

We were able to get the log cut, but it wasn't making smooth straight cuts since it was jumping around so badly. Double checked the level, tried again, still the same.

This would be the beginning of our (to date) 4 months of phone contac with the dealer and the manufacturer.

Getting the Oscar 228 Unloaded and Setup

We were faced with some bad weather when we made it home and were also w/o help, so the sawmill sat on the trailer for a couple of days. However, this gave us a chance to read the manual and become somewhat familiar with the unit before just firing it up and learning the hard way.

The initial setup seemed easy enough. However, you do need a solid level surface if you want to cut straight boards. Since we needed to prepare a level base, we started trying to determine the most effective location for the unit on a daily working basis. Since this was going to take a fair amount of ground prep (given the chosen location) we decided to make a couple of cuts on the driveway first.

So, we did some measuring and checking and found a place where it would be level for the 12ft of track and put a log on it. The machine is fairly simple, and other than being level, requires minimal assembly, adjusting the cut height, dogging the log, annd starting the engine.

How it started

At the end of august, we took a 5 hour drive to the "local" dealer and purchased the Hud-Son Oscar 228 Sawmill. By the time we arrived, we'd made a couple of gas and mcdonalds stops and were pretty beat. We were ready to load it up and get back on the road for the 2nd half of our 10 hour round trip drive.

This was our first sawmill purchase, so we weren't really sure what to look for, check, or verify before loading up and heading out, but we had asked specific questions before chosing this sawmill, so it seemed that there was little left to do beyond loading it up and heading back home to setup and work.

There was an issue with the riser posts being out of their mounts, but it was supposedly because of the way the mill head had been chained/winched for lifting. We were told that we just had to work the head back into place then tighten the bolts and we'd be off to the races.

After a quick stop at the local eatery (WalMart: Deli Sandwitches), we were on our way, east bound and down, loaded up and trucking. Other than the random highway weirdness, everything was ok. We were happy to have our new Oscar 228 loaded up and were looking forward to getting down to business making lumber.

This particular unit is under $5,000 with 12' of track (approx 9' log capacity) and additional track segments were available at about $375 per 6' section. Price was one of the considerations for this unit. The other units we looked at were in the $15k to $30k range.

We determined that for getting started and making sure we had sustainable business, this unit would do what we needed and someday we could upgrade to one with all the bells and whistles. We had already spoken to the dealer and the manufacturer to verify that this unit was capable of cutting 28" hardwood logs.

While the Oscar 228 in no way compares to the $15k or $30k mills, it seemed to be significantly better than any of the $2,800 - $6,000 mills that we researched. Of course we did go back and forth repeatedly between this mill, the TimberKing 1220, the WoodMizer LT10, and the WoodMizer LT15.

HudSon Oscar 228: $3,995
TimberKing 1220: $5,695
WoodMizer LT10: $3,700
WoodMizer LT15: $5,900

With tax and blades, our 228 came out in the $5,000 range. In short, it was in the middle of the road for the size. I didn't include the Norwood or a few others that are in the sub $3,000 range as they were not considered viable for daily use.

So, that's how we ended up with the Oscar 228 on our truck and rolling East.

Next step: Unload, Setup, Load a log, Saw.