Watch: DIY Chainsaw Mill for Less Than $50

Chainsaw mills allow folks to convert timber into lumber, using a tool most often used for crude freehand cutting (a chainsaw). If you are a hands-on kind of person, you have probably seen chainsaw mills in use and thought, “Man, that’s cool! I wish I could do that myself.” But the main hurdle to that is the high cost of most chainsaw mills — especially the ones that meet this guy’s criteria:

He wanted to use it while standing up
He didn’t want to lift a log very high to get it in position for milling
He wanted a safe distance between him and the chainsaw

The video has some great info and demonstrates good craftsmanship, but unfortunately there’s loud background music interfering with some of his soft-spoken narration. Most of this sawmill is made of wood, which is pretty cool.

This is only the first video… there’s another, which I’ll add down below. He made that video after making some refinements to the mill.

Just as soon as this next video begins, he lets us know that it contains a paid promotion. Sounds like he got a free chainsaw out of the deal… nothing wrong with that.

Next up, we learn that he made his mill super-portable for a surprising reason… it had to fit into his Prius! Ha!

We get to see the mill deployed in the field, and used to cut some large slabs of southern yellow pine. A hand crank also helped keep the saw fed into the work more steadily.

Enough from me… watch this video, and enjoy.

Russ Chastain

Editor & Contributing Writer Russ Chastain is a lifelong hunter and shooter who has spent his life learning about hunting, shooting, guns, ammunition, gunsmithing, reloading, and bullet casting. He started toting his own gun in the woods at age nine and he's pursued deer with rifles since 1982, so his hunting knowledge has been growing for more than three and a half decades. His desire and ability to share this knowledge with others has also grown, and Russ has been professionally writing and editing original hunting & shooting content since 1998. Russ Chastain has a passion for sharing accurate, honest, interesting hunting & shooting knowledge and stories with people of all skill levels.