SELECT HARDWOODS & SOFTWOODS
Paul Sills retired from driving truck in 1999. He had worked for MidStates Express driving local routes. He also had a deal with Maxwell Tree Service to get rid of scrap logs. Paul is 64 years old and has been married to his wife Aletha for 40 years. He lives and works at 7920 Winchester Road, where he runs his business, S&S Custom Cut Lumber.
Paul stopped in the The Waynedale News office a couple of weeks ago and asked us to run a birth announcement for his new granddaughter Hope Elizabeth Carnahan. We talked awhile about his hardwood business and Paul invited me over to his place for a look around. I traveled over to S & S Hardwoods on Winchester Road Thursday morning, June 30.
We had just had a severe downpour, which left everything green and dripping. Paul was on his tractor, moving a load of spalded maple to his trailer for shipping. Spalded maple is a type of maple that has been infected with a fungus. The fungus eventually rots the tree, but if the tree is cut at just the right time, the grain will display a black stain that accents the wood without actually damaging it. Cabinetmakers, and custom hardwood shops love it for its beauty and durability.
Paul said, “I used to just burn everything that came in, as Maxwell needed to get rid of it and my 27 acres is located close to them. Then the EPA notified me that I wasn’t allowed to burn, so I decided to get into the lumber business.”
Paul purchased a horizontal band saw and is now able to cut logs up to 28-inch diameter by 10 foot. Most of the large buyers of hardwoods aren’t interested in yard trees, or trees that have been removed from residences. Those types of trees often have old nails and pieces of fence or scrap metal within them and the big buyers are afraid of damaging their saw blades which are very expensive. The smaller businesses, like S & S have saws with lower cost blades and are more willing to take a chance on city trees.
Paul and one of his employees, Mike Baumgartner, cinched up an 8-foot, 13-inch diameter maple log and Paul tractored it over to the horizontal band saw. They chucked it onto the metal table and Paul pull-started the gasoline-powered engine. The saw has a manual adjustment wheel that engages in one position to set the depth of the cut and re-adjusts to another position that allows him to manually feed the band blade into the log.
After the first cut, the log is rolled 180 degrees to make the second square cut. This particular piece of hard maple was cut into 1-inch boards and when finished, he had produced about 80 board feet of fresh-cut maple.
The lumber was then moved to a drying barn. Paul had previously cut a cottonwood log to make shelving for the proper spacing and drying of the various woods. Each rack of wood is marked as to type, date cut and drying time. He said, “I dry the wood for about four or five weeks and then send it out to be kiln dried for another 4 or five weeks. The finished product will have a moisture content of about 6%. The slow drying decreases wood checking and creates a superior product for the really picky woodworkers.”
Paul has two part-time employees, Mike Baumgartner and Wayne Polley. Aletha, Paul’s wife, helps him with the books and he has been able to market everything that he cuts.
“I love it,” Paul says, “I wish I had retired earlier.” If you have a favorite tree that you would like to have turned into lumber, call Paul at 478-4878 or e-mail him at sscustomcutlbr@aol.com.
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