 |
|
Timberland Wood Products has wide market |
|
March 25, 2012 |
By Mike Ashby
 If
you’re ever in Branson, Missouri, stop in at the
Big Cedar Lodge at the Top of the Rock golf
course. You will find a marvelous green on which
to shoot a few rounds of golf and while there
you can check out the handiwork of Timberland
Wood Products of Bonners Ferry, Idaho.
That lodge is sided with genuine North Idaho
cedar boards, sixteen foot long, three inch
thick and sixteen inch wide, milled by the Isaac
family of Timberland Wood Products.
Glen Isaac began his business in 1998 with a
small Woodland Pro band saw mill at a site south
of Bonners Ferry.
He had spent considerable time in the timber
industry, but with logging becoming so intensely
competitive, he decided to try milling the logs
instead of selling them.
 In
2003, he moved his operation to the Oxford Loop
area, then in 2005 to its present site one-half
mile east of the Three-Mile junction on Highway
Two, where sons Chad, Todd and Nathan now share
in the ownership and operation of the mill.
Some might label the Isaac’s operation a
“horse-and-a-half” saw mill, but a cursory
glance into the lumber storage area will dispel
that notion.
Their storeroom displays a huge selection of
beautiful trim, paneling, flooring, beam
material and assorted lumber, both finished and
rough-sawn. To the delight of the finish
carpenter or the craftsman woodworker, the vast
majority of their product is high grade and
clear grained, with no knots or defects because
Glenn and his crew are able to take their time
sawing each individual log.
 Utilizing
a Wood Miser LT 70 saw with an extra wide
throat, the Isaacs can rough cut almost any size
timber, trim or dimension lumber.
Randy Ellson is Timberland’s full-time sawyer
and a custom timber framer. Once the rough cuts
are made on the logs, boards that are to be
surfaced are handed over to Glen’s son, Dave,
who operates a planer/molder at the Timberland
location and can custom cut just about any
pattern.
About 50 per cent of their raw material is
obtained from a local saw mill and the rest from
local land owners. They utilize all the Western
soft woods available in this region, as well as
a lot of birch. Occasionally they also purchase
wood from other sources as well, such as two
years ago when they obtained logs that had laid
on the bottom of Montana’s Flathead Lake for
decades. Glen says the grain patterns on those
logs were unbelievable.
With the death of saw mills in North Idaho and
the Pacific Northwest in general, finding a mill
that can produce not only standard building
studs and dimensional lumber, but also offer up
such a large variety of custom-cut woods is a
rarity these days.
 As
Glen points out, presently the nearest head rig
for processing logs that are larger than 27
inches on the butt is the Riley Creek Mill at
Laclede, Idaho.
Any logs bigger than those are normally
transported to a saw mill at Lewiston, adding
additional transportation costs to the finished
product.
Timberland can process raw materials that high
production saw mills would have “culled” or been
unable to process because of their size, thus
utilizing waste logs to the max.
Glen says his primary cuts are “whatever the
customer asks for.”
Besides providing the unique cedar siding for
Branson, Missouri’s Big Cedar Lodge, the Isaac’s
have been asked to fill some other unusual
custom orders. They recently completed the
siding for a home at Lake Tahoe, California,
where the customer wanted just the cedar slab
with the bark left intact. Timberland shipped
the six to ten inch-wide cedar slabs to a very
satisfied customer and Isaac was pleased, too,
because after the slabs were cut he had the
remaining whole logs left over for other
purposes.
Another unusual request was for blued pine
flooring, which was shipped to a customer in
Georgia.
Blued pine is seldom used for flooring since it
is very soft. Besides shipping to folks all over
the United States, Timberland receives many
orders from Canadian customers as well.
Timberland Wood Products is open Monday through
Friday from 7:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Stop by and
check out their complete inventory. Glen and his
sons would be happy to help you with all your
building material needs. |
|
|
|
|
