Robbing the Wood Chipper
A while back, a man who works at the Huge sawmill 25 miles north of here stopped by with some wood. He loves wood. His job is at the resaw, where wood cants are sawn into pallet parts. Pieces of wood that don't fit the specifications of the machine are thrown into the wood chipper, then sent to the paper mill.
He rescued boards that were just "too good to be chipped up" His boss let him take a few boards home every day, and soon he had a whole shed full of good lumber. Sugar Maple, Walnut, Cherry, Oak.... All sizes and shapes.
He brought some of this lumber down to be dried and milled into flooring for remodeling his home. While the wood was in the kiln, his marriage failed and a battle for custody of the wood developed. I ended up buying the lumber from the couple, so they could settle the division of their assets.
This week we are processing the lumber that was dried in our solar kilns.
Here we are ripping the lumber into different widths with our edger saw.
Elmo sights down a sugar maple board that was headed for the big chipper. This board will be kept full size due to it's high value. Big industry deals with volume. Mass production where everything must be the right size. These odds and ends are discarded - What A Waste!
We will use each board for it's highest value use. We are making 4 sizes of baseboard, thin lumber, and S4S lumber for furniture projects in the future. The two pieces Elmo is holding will be base.
These boards have been planed and are ready for use. It is very rewarding to make something valuable from wood that industry would have chipped. We do this all the time, in all phases of our operation.
The big corporations are all about making money - for a few owners and managers.... To industry, the forest and forest owner and loggers and laborers, are all used - then discarded when spent.
The timber industry in Wisconsin has used and abused us and the forest is now devastated. Cheap foreign labor and untapped forests in Russia, Burma, Brazil.... are forcing American mills to close at an accelerating rate. Corporate downsizing and profit taking are in high gear, soon the industry will be gone...
Small Business offers hope for our future. Wood is the perfect Fuel for Small Business.
Timber Growers - Promoting the use of locally grown and manufactured wood products.