I clamped a scissor jack to the sawmill frame to see how well it performs as a toe board. A toe board is essentially a jack that raises one end of a log so that the log can be milled with the center axis of the tree parallel with the travel of the saw head.

Also, how long does it take to completely mill and process a log on a manual mill? According to today’s testing, 35 minutes if the log is already placed and ready to go. 47 minutes if the log is sitting next to the sawmill. This includes cleaning off the sawdust on the cut lumber and stacking it on the appropriate pallet. An average diameter (for me) 8′ log was used for each of the tests. I’m not sure if that is fast or slow for my setup, but it’s an established baseline that I can reference going forward.