CFDA Newsletter

Meyers Lumber Field Trip
In a fenced compound behind a mechanics garage in a wooded area of the Fox River Valley just south of Geneva, Ron Meyers has his lumberyard. Rows of stickered, gray lumber reaching nearly 16 feet in the air occupy most of the space. The Wood Miser mill and log pile take up the rest. The piles are not limited to the usual ash, oak, cherry, maple and walnut, but include unusual offerings like box elder, catalpa, elm, locust, hackberry, osage orange, sycamore and tree of heaven. Not only are the species unusual, but the lumber is often available as quarter sawn, air or kiln dried, in thicknesses up to 4 inch and sequentially cut from the same tree! In other words, it is a kind of dream world/paradise.

Generally Ron gets his logs mostly from tree trimmers. The logs come from golf courses, suburban yards or construction sites. Though Ron avoids the task of logging, he often goes on location to cut the logs into lumber. He normally works within a 50 mile radius of Batavia because the cost of moving his mill beyond that is excessive. He either saws lumber for his inventory or he sells his services to produce lumber for the log's owner.

To demonstrate how it works, Ron put a serious white oak log on the Wood Miser mill. Between his Bob Cat and the hydraulic arms on the mill itself, Ron could roll and position the log to maximum advantage on the bed with a minimum of effort. The bandsaw's blade is oriented horizontally and the bandsaw does the traveling while the log remains stationary. Rather than bore us by plane sawing the log, Ron opted to split the log into quarters, rotated each to 45 degrees and quarter sawed them. The quality of the blade cut surface was impressive, at least until the blade hit an embedded nail. Ron explained that magnetic detectors were of limited value because they could not pinpoint the location of nails. It is cheaper, he said, to resharpen blades than to reject entire logs because of the presence of steel.

The lumber Ron produced was beautiful, though many pieces had a large knot at one end. He explained that he does not grade his lumber according to the normal rules. Instead he separates it into cabinet grade lumber and industrial or utility grade lumber. His mill is set up to cut logs as big as 36 inches in diameter and up to 21 feet long. The trunks of most shade trees will separate into limbs long before 21 feet, and Ron said that he has sawed specialty fruit wood logs that were as short as 3' long.

This field trip was education and fun. Ron explained many of the subtle nuances of the process, and he gave a virtuoso performance of the machine. He also had lots to say about the many non-commercial species of lumber that he offers. Ron has already served as a supplier for several of our members, and, now that we understand the specialized material he can offer, I am sure many more will seek him out. Meyers Woodworking and Lumber 630-231-2955.