Timber Techniques Training
Dennis Helmus wrote:
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> The Timber Techniques Training was everything plus what was advertised.  This is truly a hands-on approach to learning.
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> My wife and I decided to go by ourselves because we wanted to scope things out without the interference of some of our friends and relatives that "know more than we know" about carpentry and machinery.  I guess you could call us very green.  My wife is a physician's assistant and I'm a nursing instructor.  Not really the tough outdoor types but we are willing to work and we love the outdoors.
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> Jim made all the difference.  He is very dedicated to responsible and sustainable forestry.  Jim not only preaches a philosophy of responsible stewardship of the landowner forest but has developed a practical way of reaping the benefits of continual forest growth through his "forest to finished floor" system.
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> We spent a week with Jim in his beatiful log cabin - built, of course, with native materials.  Jim was a gracious host, a good cook (breakfast and lunch), and was always the teacher (at least after his morning coffee and shower:):)  We started in the woods learning hardwood pruning, proper tree spacing, forest 'weeding', and "Game of Logging" techniques for felling trees.  My wife spent time with Jim learning how to safely operate a chain saw.  Safety was Jim's number one concern.  We wore the full garb of a logger - logging chaps, helmets with ear and eye protection and gloves.  Jim demonstrated safety by his own practices.
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> Day 2 was spent in the woods gathering our felled trees and bringing them to the processing area.  We were shown his new Woodmizer band sawmill and how to process our logs to boards and sticker the boards for air drying.  We employed his resaw to edge some kiln dried birch in anticipation of our flooring job on Thursday.  Later on we drilled some 3 & 4 foot long small diameter logs that we had thinned from the woodlot to make into Shittake mushroom logs.  Jim is always adopting a new (or old) technique to make the most of his waste wood.  Big sawmills and loggers wouldn't take the time to harvest this wood and yet Jim showed us that these small logs and waste wood could make real money for the landowner.  We visited two prospective customers to make bids and confirm our Thursday flooring appointment.  They were both obviously pleased by Jim's bids.  It must be nice to control the whole process from forest to finished floor and be able to underbid the job by eliminating the middle man's profit.
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> Day 3 found us in Jim's well-appointed workshop planing, molding and chop-sawing our birch blanks into flooring boards.  I had read about the Logosol PH 260 four-sided planer molder but I couldn't believe how well this small footprint machine was able to turn a plain board into beautiful birch flooring with just one pass and minimal waste.  It took us about two hours to ready ourselves for our approximately 200 square foot flooring installation - tongue and groove and two flat sides - WOW!!  I can see now why Jim was so excited about this relatively new machine. 
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