In 1998, Craig Howard from Alabama was looking for a way to supplement his income.
He was working at a local chemical plant as a chemical operator.
There were and still are a lot of portable sawmills around his area.
He first thought there was too much competition for him to make a profit.
But after further consideration, he decided that there was an opportunity for him to set up a stationary electric sawmill to custom saw for people that only have a few logs to be sawn.
Most portable saw mill operators won't go out for just a few logs, but the people with just a few logs would bring them to Craig's sawmill.
He also figured that it would be better to stay in one place to saw his own logs and sell the lumber.
Craig looked at several saw mills and settled on a fully hydraulic stationary sawmill.
"I wanted a sawmill equipped with an electric motor, but I had no three phase current.
I found one with a phase converter.
This let me run the three-phase motor off of single phase 220 volt current," recalls Mr.
Howard.
Shortly after purchasing a stationary sawmill, he realized that he had a problem that was costing him a lot of time.
He worked alone most of the time and the problem was the amount of time that it took to trim the side boards.
This problem was solved with a used Miner Edger.
The edger had laser lines so that he can make straight cuts and know exactly how to line the board up to enter the saws.
The edger increased his production and his yield.
Shortly after the sawmill got into production it began to pay for itself.
He only ran the mill 3 days a week at the most.
Within 3 years the mill had paid for itself as well as saving him money on several projects and put money in his pocket to boot.
Mr.
Howard built a 40 x 100 lumber drying shed.
The stationary sawmill cut all the lumber for this building.
The building contained 6x10x20 top plates, 6x6x18 poles to support building.
There was 2,600 linear feet of 2x6 for lathing and 40 foot clear span metal trusses.
He cut lumber for several people in the area to build their entire houses.
I cut everything from sills to the rafters, floor joist and siding.
After experiencing success Craig decided to take his business to the next level.
He had read about value adding to products -- taking an existing product and doing something to it to make it worth more money.
He knew this is what he needed to do.
In 2002, he used lumber he had cut to build a duel cell kiln building.
The kiln was fired with slabs from my sawmill.
He uses a wood-burning furnace to heat the kiln (and it also heats his house).
To process the lumber after it dried, he purchased a planer molder.
Now he could take the board he was already sawing and add value to it by making all types of molding and flooring.
This makes the same piece of wood pay more than double what it normally would pay.
Business grew and consumed more and more of his time.
He quickly started getting more than he could handle.
His reputation for sawing more accurate lumber and greater yield keeps his custom sawing service growing and he has great repeat business.
He now custom saws, dries and planes, manufacturing long leaf pine timber into heart pine flooring.
He also manufactures v-joint, bead and various other patterns of molding and paneling.
In August of 2002, he resigned from the chemical job to run the business full time.
"I really enjoy running my stationary sawmill and making products for my customers and myself," Mr.
Howard adds.