maple?

[Crash2510]

have 4-6 3 foot diameter x 6-8' logs of soft maple? logs are straight

now the question is it worth getting these cut into boards and if so approx. what would it cost.

[Wood_workur]

Yes it is worth it, but you will have to dry them. go to www.woodfinder.com, enter your zip, and check the box under saw mill specialites that says "on-site sawing" that means that they will come to your house and saw the log for you, or the check the box that says "custom sawing" if you can haul the logs to the mill. And check the box that says "kiln drying" if you don't want to dry them your self with a tarp, and a de-humidifyer.

No matter what you do, get about 6 coats of ANY latex paint on the endgrain NOW, to prevent checking.

[dedaddy]

I had three large red oak logs cut up by a sawyer with a mobile sawmill at my house. He charged $40/hr including travel time. It took us an hour and a half to get set up and get the first log on the machine. It took about another 2 hours to load and cut up all three logs into about 800+ bf of 4/4 boards. Total cost was about $220.

If you have this done, have a place ready to stack all the lumber. It comes off the saw about as fast as you can tote it. Also, the boards are very heavy because they are wet. I had boards 1"x14"x12' that I think weighed close to 80#. Have the sawyer cut up scrap into stickers. Mine did as we went along so I could stack the boards up. I painted the ends of all the boards the next day with any paint I could find.

Good luck!