Growing up I always had a passion for woodworking and still do to this day. As a long time custom woodworker I started Twisted Oak Sawmill with several ideas in mind.  One of the ideas was to be able to take local area logs and create lumber out of these.  Numerous high quality hardwood trees are harvested yearly to produce firewood in the area, many are still pile up and burned. I thought it was time to build a sawmill to take some of these high quality trees and produce lumber from them.  Some of the local trees in the area include red oak, white oak, eastern red cedar, pecan, hickory, black walnut, and several other type species.

After looking at several sawmill manufacturers and the cost related to them I determined it was time to build a custom fully hydraulic sawmill myself. Was this ever a project.  It took 2 1/2 years to build the bandsaw sawmill.  I guess if you subtract all the time that I spent fishing during those 2 1/2 years it would calculate much less.  Sawmill log capacity is 42" wide and 18' long.  There is over 500 feet of hydraulic hose routed throughout the frame. This project also gave me the opportunity to work with other types of tools I have never really worked with before.  Its really amazing what you can do with a metal lathe and milling machine.
	Once I started to produce lumber I quickly realized I needed a way to dry the lumber, this led to another project of building a kiln.  After researching several kiln designs I realized I wanted to build a solar kiln.  The solar kiln I built consists of R30+ walls and doors, the solar collector cover consists of two layers of polycarbonate clear panels.  Air circulation is generated by two high volume industrial fans connected to an electronic timer.  The total kiln capacity is 1200 bd ft per charge.    The highest internal temperature recorded to date is 196 degrees Fahrenheit.
The next project was to build a building to  put the sawmill in to keep it and myself out of the weather.  The building was 24' x 36' with a concrete floor.  The sawmill is bolted to the concrete floor to prevent it from moving when large logs are loaded and turned on the mill.
	I soon discovered that I needed larger equipment to move the logs around.  In 2007 we purchased a new John Deere tractor.  The tractor is a four wheel drive with a 50 hp diesel engine.  The front end loader has a lift capacity of 3400 lbs.  The logs can now easily be moved around the yard and loaded on the sawmill rails.
The next item I discovered was the sawmill building was not large enough.  A new 23' x 54' section was added on to the existing sawmill building.  The new section contains three 24' wide door openings. The sawmill building is currently 24' x 90.  Hopefully this will give me enough room for several years.