USA

Based in Minnesota, USA, Nelson Wood Shims is the largest shim manufacturer in North America, producing high-quality woodworking products for nationwide distribution. The company recently invested in a new sawmill system to maximize log yield while minimizing investment and operational costs.

Steve Kesti, the owner of Backwoods Lumber company located in Michigan, recalls first becoming interested in woodworking as far back as childhood. “Ever since I was a kid, I always wanted to build a cabin in the woods,” remembers Steve. His father was a carpenter, and after taking a carpentry class in high school, Steve followed in his father’s footsteps becoming a carpenter himself. “I have been working as a carpenter until, eventually, I began building houses for other people,” says Steve.

With the combination of being a woodworker and owning a Wood-Mizer portable sawmill, Gregg Turk was able to build an incredible new wooden sleigh for Santa Claus.

After dreaming and planning for decades, George Coker milled and made the Mulberry Chapel on his 450-acre farm in Georgia with his Wood-Mizer portable sawmill.

Arthur and Valerie Flores of Tumacacori Mesquite Sawmill in southern Arizona milled and made a unique mesquite treehouse with their Wood-Mizer portable sawmill.

By sawing urban wood with a Wood-Mizer portable sawmill, Megan Offner and New York Heartwoods are reducing wood disposal expenses, redirecting material from the waste stream, decreasing greenhouse gas emissions, fueling the demand for local wood products, and growing an exciting new economy.

Ken Postema, a woodworker from Michigan, USA uses his Wood-Mizer portable sawmill and planer/moulder to build tens of thousands of wooden toy cars for Operation Christmas Child.

Mack Lowery turned a tragedy into a dream come true when he finished his stunning hand built, two-story, timber frame home in the dense woodlands of Mississippi. The first log cabin which Mack originally built as a young man in 1976, burned in a massive fire that left his family homeless and devastated. “It took me a couple of years to even go back out to my farm after the fire,” recalled Mack.

When the Model T Ford Club of America decided to build a museum dedicated to “the car that put the world on wheels”, Richmond, Indiana seemed to be the perfect fit. A town lost in time, Richmond is one of the birthplaces of the early jazz movement, where jazz giants like Jelly Roll Morton, Bix Beiderbecke, and King Oliver’s band with the young Louis Armstrong on the horn performed and recorded some of their first songs.

A homesteader Nathan Brown from North Carolina, USA, was tired of powder-post beetles destroying the lumber he laid out to air dry, so he decided to build a solar kiln.

One of Wood-Mizer’s smallest sawmills was used to cut 50% of the timber for the world’s largest freestanding timber frame structure – a Biblically-sized reconstruction of Noah’s Ark.

From woodworking at a young age to sawmilling with his brother and son, a sawmiller shares his journey of living the wood life and a promise that comes from his love of working with wood.

With the help of Wood-Mizer LT40 sawmill Herbert Butterfield built a small barn out of white pine and ash on his family farm in Charlotte, Michigan. In this barn he made a sugarhouse for maple syrup production.

Many Wood-Mizer owners do unique interior projects from wood. Eric Means is one of DIY people. When a 90 cm diameter black walnut tree was cut down by the electric company, Eric Means realized the potential value and was determined to salvage the wood. “I milled it with my Wood-Mizer hydraulic LT40 and ended up with beautiful slabs,” said Eric.