If you’re looking to buy a sawmill for cutting wood, you may be faced with the decision of whether to buy a portable one or a stationary one. Portable sawmills can travel but stationary sawmills are fixed in place. Let’s compare the two options so you can decide what’s best for you.
Portable Versus Stationary Sawmills
Portable sawmills are sort of like great big machines on wheels that you can transport from place to place. Which means you can set them in place where you need to cut wood, and then move them where you want them, when you’re done. Stationary sawmills are facility where they remain in one location at all times. This can be useful if you have a dedicated wood-cutting area and don’t have to move the sawmill.
Benefits of Portable Sawmills
Portable sawmills have one major advantage: They can get to the wood. If you have trees on your property that you’d like to turn into boards, you could take them to a big mill somewhere that has a stationary mill, but a portable sawmill can also come to the woods where the trees are and cut the wood at the source. This can be a real time and labor saver over transporting logs to a fixed sawmill. He also suggested portable sawmills are good for folks who work at different job sites and need to take their Portable Bandsaw Sawmills with them.
Performance by Stationary Sawmills
Portable sawmills are wonderful for small projects, but stationary sawmills are generally more appropriate for larger scale work. On the other hand, if you plan on cutting a lot of wood or you need to do it frequently, a stationary sawmill is probably the better option. These are typically larger, beefier saws that you can use to chop up a lot of wood in quick order.
Factors to Think About
Determining whether a portable or stationary mill best meets your needs is a matter of what you plan to cut and where you'll be cutting it, and how much portability you should have. If you are going to be transporting the sawmill frequently or using it on site, a portable wood sawmill machine is probably the best option. But if you have a dedicated workspace to cut wood and plan to be cutting a lot, a stationary sawmill may make more sense.
Portable or Stationary?
Ultimately, the overall question of whether a portable or stationary mill is the better choice is entirely dependant on what you need the mill to do. If your need is for a home portable sawmill, portable sawmill may be your answer. For big jobs and high output, stationary sawmills are the way to go. Consider how you will work, how much wood you will cut and where you will cut the wood to help determine which sawmill is the right one for you.