How an Italian Woodworker Profits More From Every Log

If you take the two-hour journey from Venice, Italy, to the Alps, your path will take you past Marco Marcante's workshop. Located in the foothills of the Vicenza region, Marco's business continues the traditional firewood production that his father started almost 30 years ago. However, Marco ensures that the company grows and diversifies its products and customers as times change.

When his father started the company, they were logging and producing firewood. However, once Marco began to manage the company, he found that profit margins were tight and there were only ways to increase the profitability and security of the company if they diversified the company in some way.

His solution came when he was in the USA and Canada in 2011.

"There, I saw a Wood-Mizer LT15 sawmill in action, and I realized that such a machine could help us to expand the range of services we offer," says Marco. 

"All the wood you see in my workshop - beams, boards, slabs, and other projects - was done with my Wood-Mizer LT15."

"Why did I choose Wood-Mizer? Because this sawmill can do what it needs to do. It is a professional, compact, functional machine that allows you to do good work. Our Wood-Mizer LT15 cuts logs with diameters of up to 70 centimeters, 8 meters long, and has 8 meters of bed sections."

"Traditional sawmills would require 16 meters of the track to move the log through the sawmill, but Wood-Mizer cleverly designed its sawmill to move the bandsaw instead of the log."

"We had also evaluated other sawmill brands, but Wood-Mizer was the best value for the money on the market. This sawmill is ideal for the type of work that we do in our company and is very precise. I can cut boards 1.5 mm thick and 8 meters long, and the Wood-Mizer is accurate to 1 millimeter for the whole board."

"Wood-Mizer has allowed me to pursue my passion for woodworking. It allowed me to succeed. A tree that would have been thrown away by a traditional sawmill because it was not profitable for them. For me, I can use it to produce pallets!"

"My decision to buy a Wood-Mizer was based on the fact that the value of a log locally is about 100 euros per cubic meter. But sawn into boards, the value is 400 – 450 euros per cubic meter. That's larch. This was the reason why we started sawmilling for ourselves and the reason why we got ourselves a Wood-Mizer."

"Wooden chairs, lamps, benches, wooden stools are coming back into fashion and are a way to give value to logs that otherwise would not have been considered profitable," observes Marco. By adding the sawmill, the company has multiplied its capability to produce products, plus grown the number of markets it serves, expanding its customer base widely.

Today Marco offers - in addition to logging – firewood for sale, arborist services, and of course, finished custom timber for sale.

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