Rich wrote:
I've never had a problem having a mill cut custom planking or odd sized
blocks of wood for me, albeit sometimes I've had to wait a couple of days
before they were able to get to my "small" order.

....

I'd sure like to know where those mills are, Rich. I've tried various
ones where I was located in TN and VA and no dice was the general rule
for anything less than several hundred bd-ft minimums--essentially the
equivalent of a hardwood "bundle".

The closest I ever found was one old codger when we first were in
Lynchburg (VA) down towards Alta Vista who still puttered around his
one-man mill some for a few years, but when he could no longer run the
mill himself, it closed and that was the end. Later on in TN, there
simply were very few small mills around any longer and their production
was essentially all contract--mining timbers or ties or somesuch and
they simply wouldn't (as in couldn't afford to) change setups for less
than at least a full day's worth of sawyering.