Vince Antonicelli got laid off so he started a successful weekend sawing business that’s simple, clean, and makes good money. Customers cut their own trees and stack the logs. Vince shows up with his TimberKing, saws lumber, and drives home with a check!
“I got introduced to sawmilling when I was a kid. We took logs from a farm to a mill where I watched them get sawn into lumber. It was amazing to see. Decades later, I bought my first sawmill, a TimberKing 1600. I’d gotten laid off from my job as an engineer and used my severance to buy the mill. I figured it would be something to do besides getting welfare. Later, I got rehired by the same company but I’m still running a custom sawmill business on weekends.
Article: you can make good money sawing lumber
I read an article in Fine Woodworking that said you can make decent money sawing hardwoods into lumber for others. And I saw an article by a guy who recommended getting a mill that’s simple and easy to maintain. TimberKing is very simple, very well built. I went to an open house at a TimberKing dealer to see one in operation.
I like TimberKing’s design because it’s a horizontal bandsaw run by hydraulics. It’s built like a tank and I love the simplicity of it. And working with the guys at TimberKing has been good.
Vince does no tree felling or log stacking
My customers include a lot of engineers, small scale home woodworkers, and people looking to maybe make a special table from a favorite tree.
I don’t do any felling – my customers cut and stack the logs. I tow in the mill and saw them. I don’t mill at my home, it’s all at customers’ places. I joke with them, ‘I come to your house and make a mess and leave with a check.’
When I got the 1600, I expected to get logs only 16” to 18” diameter but I got logs 30” diameter and 12’ to 15’ long. I needed a bigger mill and traded up to the TimberKing 2000.
$100 an hour
I charge $100 an hour with a two-hour minimum. That includes travel from my home to theirs and back home again. These are ‘urban logs’ and I sometimes hit nails. I don’t nickel-and-dime customers but if I hit many nails, I ask them to compensate me for blades. There’s never any pushback on that.
I work a regular job and a side job during the week and saw lumber for others on the weekends. A good weekend for me is a lot of small sawing jobs in different suburbs within 50 or 60 miles of my home. These are usually small jobs people can’t really take to a commercial mill so that’s my niche. I’m usually scheduling work a month out.
Side business in sawblades
A few years ago, the guy who sharpened my blades went out of business. So I took over his business and became a dealer for several blade manufacturers. I have 500 or so blade customers. (Editor’s note: one of Vince’s sawblade customers wrote on Facebook, “Vince, you put together a heck of a blade! Ran this one through 16 nails before it finally stopped sawing. I’ll definitely be ordering again soon!”
These days, I work at my engineering job in the mornings, work on my blade business in the afternoons, and saw on weekends year round except winter. Business is growing.
Future plans? It’s hard to leave a full-time job with a steady paycheck. I’ll keep sawing and selling sawblades. I may get into hardwood lumber sales – logs are inexpensive these days.
I do some woodworking myself. I have a Woodmaster planer, a jointer, and a small wood shop. I got an email from Woodmaster that a customer had returned a planer and they gave me a good deal on it.
Find a good niche and good pricing
Here’s my advice for others considering doing on-site custom sawing like I’m doing. Start small with low prices and learn where the market goes. See what your expenses are – insurance, fuel, your drive time, that sort of thing. Learn the market and find a good niche and a good price. I started at $50 an hour and worked up to $100.
My customers sometimes say, ‘Now I have too much lumber, what do I do with it all?’ I tell them to put it on Craigslist. Sometimes they’ll ask me, ‘Is that all you want for all your work?’
TimberKing’s a great machine and I’m very happy with it.”
— Vince Antonicelli, TimberKing 2000 Owner, Despatch Custom Milling, Rochester NY
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