Millwork can be Messy Work!
Sharing stories of the wood we reclaim is exciting and photos of the finished products are often inspiring but, we also make a big mess during the process. Operating a full service millshop on a daily basis produces a lot of sawdust, and all this sawdust needs to go somewhere other than our millshop. Our dust collection system fills the bed of our 1966 Ford dump with about 16 yards of sawdust. Being in a rural area, many farmers prefer to use this sawdust as livestock bedding. But, one of our dilemmas is that the millshop is shut down when the truck is out for delivery and we would drive up to 10-15 miles roundtrip to deliver some loads (remember this beast is a 66’ Ford dump = not fast!).
So, we looked for a solution that would not only lessen the amount of time the millshop would be shut down, but still supply this sawdust bedding to area farmers and support our local community. Fortunately for us, there is a small country store about a half a mile from our millshop, Siegel’s Country Store. Siegel’s supplies feed, seed and hardware to a lot of area farmers and is the perfect distributor for the sawdust from our millshop. The arrangement has worked out as a win-win for all involved, Siegel’s purchases this sawdust bedding for a lower wholesale price, area farmer’s can still take advantage of our hardwood, kiln dried sawdust (preferred over other bedding – since it’s kiln dried, it’s not damp to begin with and cuts down on infections and illness in livestock), and the millshop is only shut down for a matter of minutes since our deliveries are now close and consistent!
One hallmark of our business is reclaiming all the materials we use to make amazing finished products. We like to say this barn wood sawdust is going back to where it came from – the barn!
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