Continuing his great-grandfather’s legacy
“100 years ago, my great-grandfather owned forested land and started an industrial sawmill and firewood business here in Oregon’s Hood River Valley. My grandfather helped make it a success in the boom years after World War II. Our family got out of the wood business in the ‘60s but the property stayed in the family.
I’d never seen the property and when I visited I was blown away. I’d been in construction in Atlanta but I cut wood and did some logging here in Oregon. In 2013 I made the commitment to stay here. That’s when I got my first TimberKing mill, a 1400 model, with payments of $500 a month.
Growing a fully-equipped TimberKing operation
The 1400 was a really good mill but I started cutting bigger, 24” diameter logs so I got a TimberKing 2000 last year. I had a great time with this mill on outside construction projects, cutting beams, board and batten siding, and more. I sold everything I cut.
But I needed to saw logs longer than the 2000 handled so I traded up to the TimberKing 2200. And I got a lot of equipment to support production.
These days, I’m clearing woods into pasture. I saw the logs and turn the tops into firewood. I set up a production center in a corner of the pasture. I saw boards on the TimberKing then edge them on my TimberKing Talon Edger. Then I have two Woodmaster 718 Molder/Planers. One’s set up as a gang rip saw and the other has Woodmaster’s 3-Side Molding System. I have one of TimberKing’s Nyle kilns and I’d like to get a TimberKing Resaw. One thing leads to another!
I was hesitant to get all this going but as you grow your business, you want to be as productive as possible.
Significant advantages over other sawyers
I’m at the three-year mark and business is great. The phone rings every day and I book maybe one out of every five calls. Right now, I’m booked three months ahead. One more sizeable job will book me out farther and farther. Then, toward fall, it turns into firewood season.
Several things give me the edge over other sawyers. Many run crappy equipment — a lot of guys have old Wood-Mizers. With TimberKing, the reliability is great. It’s so simple. It’s like a Mercedes. Most sawyers don’t have the access to logs that I do. When I do construction, the only thing I have to buy is nails!
I advertise on craigslist.com and community flyers. The word spreads from there. I do custom sawing, custom beams, board and batten siding, and more. I also do construction and remodeling from time to time. An average custom milling job might bring in $1,500 to $2,000. When I do construction, an average outside job might be $15,000 to $20,000. And since I’m milling my own wood with the TimberKing, it’s all earned revenue. I don’t have to split it with anybody.
Jon shares his trade secrets
This kind of work is not for everybody. You have to be passionate about it. If you’re going to do it, you must understand equipment. I used to build and weld plumbing for hydraulic components — that gave me a deep background on how you build things like TimberKing mills.
Having a good working space and good equipment like the mill, edger, a loader, and so on shows people you’re serious and that attracts customers.
Sawing with the TimberKing is the fast part. You have to figure out how to get the logs to the mill faster and how to make your operation bigger and better. What’s great about the TimberKing is it doesn’t take long to turn logs into lumber. Three hours of sawing can give you enough material to keep you busy for two days of building.
If you own treed acreage, you don’t want commercial loggers cutting logs for you. Your margin becomes very thin if you’re paying others to saw for you. Get your own mill and you have no overhead for logs or lumber. I can cut white fir lumber and sell it for 10% to 15% less than Home Depot does. It flies off the shelf.
“You make much more money than you’re paying in TimberKing financing”
Equipment is cheap when you consider what it does. Especially when you use financing. Commercial bank financing is difficult to get but with TimberKing, you get in and set up a trade account. You make payments and you can add equipment as you go.
You can make so much more money than what you’re paying in financing! TimberKing has become my business partner. I’ve got nice, new equipment without having to fork out $150,000 up front. With its production capacity, the TimberKing mill is the cheapest piece of equipment I own.”
— Jon Heltzel, TimberKing Owner, Hood River OR
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