Growing with Wood-Mizer

After 20 years in the business, Darrell Gruver, owner of D&D Logging and
D&D Hardwood LLC, still enjoys grading logs.

For nearly two decades, Darrell Gruver has built and grown his two businesses, D&D Logging and D&D Hardwood LLC, with a knack for identifying problems as opportunities and a Wood-Mizer sawmill. Over the course of 18 years, Darrell has owned five Wood-Mizer industrial headrigs, three Wood-Mizer portable hydraulic sawmills and is currently installing three Wood-Mizer WM4000 industrial headrigs to become the centerpiece of D&D Hardwood LLC.

Starting out as a logger in the late 1980s, Darrell established the family-owned and operated D&D Logging in Racine, Missouri. He quickly realized that he could do better for both himself and his customers by utilizing extra value from the logs he was handling. He discovered that all it took was a willingness to sort and haul better quality logs to a grade lumber mill rather than to their original destination of being converted into railroad ties or pallet lumber.

After running D&D Logging successfully this way for several years, potential catastrophe became opportunity in the mid-1990s when the owner of the sawmill where Darrell sold most of his grade logs informed him of plans to retire. Faced with the loss of this business, Darrell reasoned that having a mill of his own would decrease transportation costs and provide needed diversity to his operation.

D&D Logging and D&D Hardwood LLC in Racine, MO.

In 1996, Darrell encouraged his father-in-law, C.R. Smith, to purchase a Wood-Mizer LT40 Hydraulic sawmill and enter the milling business. For the next year, C.R. sawed logs into grade lumber in a pole barn near Darrell’s home with the diesel powered thin-kerf LT40 Hydraulic bandsaw. When C.R. decided to move on, Darrell purchased the mill himself and established D&D Hardwood LLC to supplement his growing logging business.

After six years and 9,000 hours on the LT40 Hydraulic, Darrell was pleased with Wood-Mizer’s service, production capacity and durability and decided to upgrade to the LT70 Hydraulic –Wood-Mizer’s most productive thin-kerf sawmill at the time. Shortly after the purchase, Darrell’s son Anthony became interested in the business and focused on running the sawmill, which gave Darrell time to concentrate on improving his logging operation.

Sawn and edged grade lumber.

Less than a year later, Darrell soon found D&D running out of sawmill capacity with the growth he had experienced with his logging business. He decided to expand into a full production sawmill capable of producing several million board feet of grade lumber per year and built an operation centered on a Wood-Mizer LT300 industrial headrig. “I had become a Wood-Mizer fan,” he said.

In 2006, production increased with the addition of two more Wood-Mizer LT300s, one to upgrade the LT70 and the second installed to act as a resaw to increase production. At this point, Darrell estimated that the three LT300 headrigs combined to saw lumber at a rate of 6,000 board feet of grade walnut lumber per hour. With high production rates and an efficient operation, D&D yet again continued to expand and just four years later, Darrell upgraded and installed two WM3500 industrial headrigs. “The machines are very reliable and the service from Wood-Mizer is unsurpassed,” Darrell said. “Choosing Wood-Mizer was an easy decision.”

D&D's WM3500s cut more than 140,000 board feet of walnut weekly.

Darrell says that using thin-kerf bandsaws not only increases the productivity of his business, but reduces the number of trees that need to be harvested. “We try to get the best lumber out of every log,” he said. “Thinner kerfs mean less sawdust and less sawdust means more boards. That’s good for the pocketbook and for the environment.” In the current operation, fitted with a Wood-Mizer LT300 headrig, two WM3500 headrigs, an LT40 HD, HR1000 industrial resaw, and two industrial edgers, D&D is producing around 200,000 board feet of hardwoods per week.

On a typical day, oak, walnut, cherry and maple logs between six and fourteen feet arrive at D&D Hardwoods where they are scaled, graded and sorted. The logs are then sent to one of three headrigs depending on wood species and all of the grade lumber is removed. When sawing species other than walnut, a residual pallet cant or railroad tie is produced. Boards and cants are edged to obtain the highest possible grade and sent to the HR1000 resaw to reduce further processing. “From start to finish our operation strives to not only get the most out of every log, but to do so in environmentally sound ways,” said Darrell. “Depending on the customer’s needs, we almost always selectively cut in ways that will be the best for a sustainable forest.”

Today, Darrell is in the process of installing three Wood-Mizer WM4000s to increase productivity and improve consistency across the business. Complete with high tech computer automation controls, servo motors in the head, and 50% more steel than the WM3500, the WM4000 is designed for production and built to last. “These saws are very efficient, fast and powerful,” said Darrell’s son Anthony who has been operating Wood-Mizer mills for more than a decade. “The thin blades require less power than other saws and the setworks make them a ‘no-brainer’ to run.” As the market expands, Darrell’s proven business model and forward thinking approach has positioned D&D for continued growth and success in the lumber industry.

To see how you can grow your operation with Wood-Mizer, visit www.woodmizer.com/industrial. 

Family Sawmill Business Boosts Production with Wood-Mizer WM4000

Mike and Shawn, Honey Grove Hardwoods LLC owners, with their Wood-Mizer WM4000 industrial headrig

Shawn loading a log onto the WM4000

In less than three months after taking ownership of the family sawmill business, 3rd generation owner Mike Junk and his brother-in-law Shawn Fowler made the changes necessary to compete and thrive in the lumber industry. By installing a Wood-Mizer WM4000 thin-kerf industrial headrig to replace their old circular sawmill, Mike and Shawn positioned Honey Grove Hardwoods LLC on the cutting edge of technology to increase efficiency, yield and profits for their business.

Producing grade lumber for moulding, stair treads and flooring, the Pennsylvania based Honey Grove Hardwoods used a circular sawmill as the center of their operation for more than 70 years. Last year, Mike and Shawn came to the conclusion that their circular saw with conventional wide kerf blades had reached the end of the line. “We realized we were running outdated equipment when we weren’t getting the footage and grade yields that we thought we could get with thin-kerf technology,” Mike said.

Shawn operating the WM4000

Mike also noted that their operation with the circular sawmill forced the sawyer to do multiple jobs at once. “A vertical edger was positioned in front of the sawyer booth on our circular headrig, which meant the sawyer was also the one doing the edging,” Mike said. He explained that this process helped with saving costs on labor, but since the sawyer was rushed to saw as well as edge the lumber, it sacrificed quality and production.

Transferring lumber to the
Three-Way Conveyor

Wanting to improve efficiency throughout their operation, Honey Grove Hardwoods added a Wood-Mizer Log Deck, Three-Way Conveyor, and Green Chain along with an EG400 edger to complement the WM4000 in their production line. “We put the whole Wood-Mizer system in starting with the Log Deck, which helps ease loading logs onto the WM4000. From there, logs are cut on the headrig and then moved from the built-in conveyor to the Three-Way Conveyor,” Mike said. “Material is transferred from the conveyor to the Green Chain and then to the EG400 edger for a very smooth transition from logs to accurate lumber.” With this system, the sawyer no longer has to be the edger, which improves efficiency and quality of materials.

Feeding boards into the EG400

Compared to their old circular sawmill operation, Mike said their yield has improved greatly with Wood-Mizer equipment. “The yield factor is amazing with thin-kerf producing only one-third the waste of our circle sawmill, plus you can slab smaller and lighter which increases usable lumber,” he said. Being able to produce more product from fewer logs also cuts down on transportation costs and increases the profit per log. “We are getting the same amount of lumber while using 25% less timber and raw materials, which in turn, reduces transportation costs across the board,” Mike said.

By taking advantage of Wood-Mizer thin-kerf technology, Mike and Shawn have positioned Honey Grove Hardwoods LLC to be competitive in the lumber industry for generations to come. “The WM4000 put us right back up to the competitive edge on utilizing and maximizing yields for our business,” Mike said.


To learn more about how you can step up your production with thin-kerf technology, visit woodmizer.com/industrial

Preserving History with Cooper's Shed

By repurposing beams from Gronauer Lock once located on the Wabash and Erie Canal near New Haven, Indiana, Peter Cooper is preserving history in order to demonstrate some of his own. 

White oak beams from Gronauer Lock

The white oak beams from Gronauer Lock are dated as far back as 1837 and will be used to build Cooper’s Shed in the Pioneer Village at the Indiana State Fairgrounds. Peter and his son will build the 10’ X 12’ shed in the traditional timber frame construction style, the same method that was used to build Gronauer Lock on the canal more than 175 years ago. With help from sawyer, Greg Baire and a Wood-Mizer LT50, these aged beams were precisely cut and turned into usable lumber for Cooper's Shed.

Peter Cooper (left) and Greg Baire talking about their next cut

In order to keep as much history of the original beams in place, Peter chose a Wood-Mizer to minimize as much log waste as he could. He said, "I knew that Wood-Mizer could cut the logs to the size I needed with minimal waste. I wanted to keep as much as the old hand hewed part of the log as I could and as much of the original log that I could. That's why I chose Wood-Mizer."

Greg Baire re-purposing 175 year old beams for Cooper's Shed

In the Pioneer Village, Peter Cooper will use Cooper’s Shed  to demonstrate the history of “coopering” which is the traditional method of making wooden staves and bounding them together to build barrels, baskets and tubs among other items. The construction of the shed will take place during 2014 and will be nearing completion around the time of Indiana State Fair in August. Stay tuned for updates!

For a brief history of Gronauer Lock, read 'A Lock on History' by Craig Leonard here.

Massive Wood-Mizer Sawmill provides new Profits for Portland Hardwood Supplier

Meet Art Blumenkron. This forward-thinking, eco-minded owner of Goby Walnut & Western Hardwoods has recently installed an extra-sized thin-kerf Wood-Mizer sawmill to maximize profits for his business and minimize his impact on the environment.

The Pacific Northwest is well known for its towering tracts of evergreen forests. One Oregon company, however, is making a name for itself by tapping into the wooden treasures found within a different natural resource: dead, dying, and diseased hardwoods. Goby Walnut &Western Hardwoods is seeing worldwide sales due to their impressive product offering, and is leading the way in using environmentally responsible & profit enhancing business practices.

Started over 35 years ago by Gary Goby, the company was purchased in 2007 by Art Blumenkron, an entrepreneur who was looking for a break from the high stress of his dental equipment manufacturing business.  He was ready to invest his time and money into something more rewarding. That’s when he discovered Goby Walnut, being run from Gary Goby’s home outside of Albany, Oregon.

A large Walnut slab, up to 75" wide, in inventory

Art realized that the growing specialty hardwood supply company had untapped potential, and after making the purchase, he moved the company to the Northwest Industrial area of Portland, hired additional employees, and invested in a professional website displaying their inventory of hardwood slabs, figured boards, tone wood billets  and veneers. Art’s changes are having their intended effect. The company processes 50% more logs, and sales have tripled since 2006.

Goby Walnut buys trees from Arborists, municipalities, parks and individual landowners within a couple hundred mile radius of their Portland location. They look for trees from two to over seven feet wide, and will pay from $500 to $20,000 for the right tree. These logs are milled into slabs, boards, and veneers that all fetch premium prices from high end furniture makers, musical instrument craftsmen, and woodworking hobbyists. Two of the rough sawn figured Oregon Black Walnut slabs on the company’s website are priced over $10,000, but Art also supplies boards and remnants for under $100.

With the increased sales and growing worldwide demand, Art saw the need to further expedite his milling and drying processes. He had been milling the huge hardwood slabs with chainsaw and swingblade mills, but knew that there had to be a more efficient way to accurately saw the premium logs and decrease the amount of precious wood being wasted in sawdust.

The WM1000 cuts down on sawing time, while improves yield

Familiar with Wood-Mizer’s thin-kerf  portable and industrial sawmills, he learned about Wood-Mizer’s most recently released machine, the WM1000 thin-kerfheadrig, which can saw a 67” log in half while only losing 1/8 of an inch in sawdust each pass. Art weighed the cost of the machine with its increased efficiency, cut quality, and unbeatable material recovery, and knew he had found exactly what he needed to maximize his profits from his logs.

With the WM1000 installed at his facility, and running full-time every day, Art is confident that the machine will pay for itself quickly. Every log cut yields an extra slab each time. Each large slab in his inventory ranges from $1,000 to $10,000 dollars each, which means a significant increase in profitability coming from the new mill.

"We recently cut a 15 foot, 48” diameter walnut log and were amazed to find that the thickness of the slabs didn’t vary by more than 1/32” over the whole 15 feet. Our finish on the slabs is much better than [our previous mill] and we yield an extra slab on every log. Another consideration is time…it takes about 10 minutes to complete a cut on a large slab…."  

Art Blumenkron

But the uses for this machine are not limited to just cutting premium slabs. “The WM1000 is great for any kind of sawmill business that deals with large logs, whether it be parting logs so they can be milled or sawing large slabs. It’s a lot of machine for the money!” Art explains.

Large slabs for furniture makers are not the only wood product offered by Goby. Gunstock blanks in three different varieties of walnut, cherry, maple and myrtle are available for muzzleloaders, rifles, and shotguns. Craftsman of musical instruments can find Oregon Walnut and Big Leaf Maple tonewood for most stringed instruments, providing superior sound and looks for the musical instrument.

For woodworkers, walnut veneers, book matched boards, turning blocks, remnant wood boards and blocks are available. Goby Walnut’s inventory also boasts large walnut, maple, redwood, and myrtle burls for tabletops.  

Art is continuing to research how to make his business more efficient and profitable. Right now he is sawing many smaller hardwood logs on the WM1000, which takes time away from sawing the big logs. He is looking at remedying that problem by putting in a Wood-Mizer industrial WM3500 to handle all his smaller hardwood logs and let the WM1000 concentrate on the big logs.  Art is also working with kiln manufacturers to see if he can utilize new kiln technologies to speed up the drying process while maintaining the integrity of the wood. Large hardwood slabs presently take 1-3 years to completely dry and be ready for resale. He would consider his investment worth it if he could process those same slabs within months instead of years.

To learn more about what Goby Walnut & Western Hardwoods offers, visit www.gobywalnut.com to learn more about the company and to browse their extensive inventory of hardwood slabs for sale.

Visit www.woodmizer.com to learn more about the WM1000 and other industrial sawmills that are giving sawmill operations additional profitability from their logs.

Ways that Goby Walnut & Western Hardwoods is making more profits by being environmentally conscious.

• Uses the WM1000 thin-kerf headrig to maximize profits and minimize sawdust from premium hardwoods
• Uses sustainable tree harvesting practices, and is in the process of being “SmartWood” certified
• Uses waste wood to heat his buildings and saves thousands on energy bills
• Installed more efficient lighting in his warehouse, and will save even more on his energy bills
• Is developing a way to market walnut shavings as a natural weed suppressant.

Keys to Success from 57 Years of the Sawmill Business

The Baize Family team. Author Jordan Baize to the far right.

By Jordan Baize

Family photo from 1981

In today’s economy, a few years in business is something to be proud of, not to mention almost 6 decades.  Our family’s lumber manufacturing company, B& K Wood Products, is celebrating its 57^th anniversary this April.  Companies like ours and Wood-Mizer haven’t just been lucky over the years or stumbled into good fortunes.  Our company has instead formulated a Company Philosophy for longevity and growth made up of some of the simplest ideas known to man, and I’d like to share these principles with you.  Caution: this is much simpler than what they teach you in business school!  Let’s get started.

 

 

Integrity - Establish relationships with business partners with a handshake and a solid word.

Not many companies can say they are selling to some of the same customers as they were 40 years ago, but ours can.  There’s no easy, cheap, or quick way of getting customers to buy the same product from your for more than four decades.  There is only one way to accomplish this: treat your customer with integrity.  Look at the customer-vendor relationship as a marriage. In 40 years, the customer will have plenty of time to find the faults in you (and there always are a few faults in all of us).  But if you have treated your customer with integrity for the length of the relationship, they should care enough about your organization to overlook those faults, or at least give you time to correct those faults without dropping you first.

Milling in 1959

Organizations should make it a point to serve customers, not just push products their way.  In the end, the only thing that generates customer retention is positive relationships that are built on integrity.  If the waitress at your favorite pizza joint is rude and unhelpful, the pizza you once enjoyed will start tasting worse and worse.  No product is good enough to overcome poor relationships.  Integrity wins in the end every time.  Not to mention it just feels good at the end of the day to be able to hold your head high.  Try it! It’s worked for us.

Diversification - Offer a wide array of products and services.

 Our company was started over 50 years ago as a side lumber and crossties operation only.  Today, sawmilling is still a big part of what we do, but it is not the only thing we do.  Nor will it ever be again.  We have adopted a more diverse range of products than just the standard lumber and tie variety out of necessity.  This has always been a strategic position of ours, and it proved its worth in 2009.  Countless friends and competitors of ours shut their doors for the last time that year.  At the time, most of them were still cutting the same side lumber and crossties we were cutting 50 years prior.  There is nothing wrong with consistency, but when times change, we must change with them or risk looking failure in the face. 

One of B&K's Wood-Mizer Industrial Headrigs

Diversifying your products and services to cover varying areas of the market is a necessity.  For instance, during the heart of the economic crisis when the housing market had tanked, we were not able to sell much of our inventory that ends up as cabinet facings, hardwood flooring, or stair treads.  Instead, we had to lean heavily on other products that we produce and divert those revenue streams (which were quickly drying up) down other avenues.  A few years back our wood chip market was soft so we went looking for another way to capitalize on our wood waste.  Because of that diversification, we are now Kroger’s largest producer of manufactured firewood, a new use for the same material our wood chips once came. 

Whatever It Takes – Manufacture products of unquestionable quality using both trail-blazing technologies and beaten-path tools of the trade.

  Our company has been around for a while and learned many things over the years.  We pride ourselves in not forgetting the many lessons learned through the decades, all the while not neglecting newer technologies and good, old-fashion hard work.  We feel like that is simply the only way to be consistently profitable in business.

Another Wood-Mizer thin-kerf headrig at B&K Wood Products

When our organization sets up a production goal, we meet that goal. Period.  Budgets and forecasting are useless if the top number on the income statement (gross revenue) is lower than expected.  Companies must aim to produce quality products in the expected timeframe.  Anything short of that changes the financial landscape of the company.  Use all resources necessary to get the job done on time—whatever it takes.

Thrive, Don’t Survive!

The B&K Wood Products facility

The simple active application of these ideals to our business has resulted in longevity spanning 57 years.  It’s important to remember that most people who have been successful have taken a few easy-to-understand principles that their grandfather could have taught them, and followed them without wavering.  Instead of avoiding failure, business owners and managers should instead be trying to attain greatness and longevity.  Thrive, don’t just survive—let’s go the distance!

For more information on products that have helped B&K succeed, visit woodmizer.com. Also, to see how thin-kerf headrigs can help your business increase profitability, watch this video: Ohio Valley Veneer