How 2x4s Are Made: Sawmill Tour
Are 2x4s the greatest building product of all time? Many thanks to Douglas Country Forest Products for the tour. Learn more here: www.dcfp.com/
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Would love to see the process Home Depot uses to put the bowing and cupping in before sale. 😂
You made me chuckle
It's proprietary, but I've heard they only hire the best bowers and cuppers in the business.
Lol iv had some flat stock door jambs my wife returned home with they had a twist like a propeller lol 😂
My buddy spent over 3K there on 2x's for a 12x16 Sugar Shack. Had to sort A LOT of board to find something workable. I spent $3750 and bought a Woodmizer LX25 and a 15 pack of blades. Guess who got better lumber with 23 Acres of mature NNY white pine and Hemlock :)
Easy! They put them inside a warm and dry building in a tight pile so that only the top layer dries very quickly and the underside of the board stays moist thus warping! They also take measures to make sure that every board in the pile warps by selling to customers who only want two or three boards at a time ! There you go!
Great video Nate! I can only image the size of the maintenance crew that it takes to keep all this specialized machinery running. Great insight into the process.
I drive by this mill every day on my way to and from work. I love watching action in the yard from mornings to nights. Roseburg is a great town, I could have lived any were in the US and have but I chose Roseburg over all of them. Roseburg Forest Products is great company with such a high standard. Thank you Essential Craftsman for making this video for people that are not from Rosebuurg.
After helping to build several sawmills in Oregon, my grandfather, Dennis Allen, worked to build the "original" Douglas County mill in the mid-50's, then went to work there, eventually retiring in the late 1970's. I teach wood shop at Hamlin M.S. in Springfield and will use this video to show students how lumber is produced. Now if you could do another video showing how plywood is made... Great videos, and proud that you are from my hometown! Thank you!
Appreciate the video. My dad has been a sawmiller for 37 years in the south. Brings back a lot of good memories of when I used to help him. Especially walking on the wood sawmill floor
Nate, cool tour. Towards the end, when there were guys sorting the boards, do you remember (if you asked) why they were flipping some of them over? It was amazing that they'd be able to discern anything about the boards, given how fast they were moving.
Checking for the number, and size of knots to the foot. Experience speeds your judgment skills up. I have worked in both hardwood and softwood mills and can vouch for that. In the 1980's I worked in an oak sawmill setting. I was the preliminary grader and stacker. The owner hired a college degreed lumber grader to grade after me in the evening. I was a relative newbie at 19, but he paid that guy a lot of money to pull out maybe 2 to 3 boards I had missed out of an entire semi-load of lumber stacks. The reason they did that was because the company that bought his A-grade lumber would lower to the B- grade price on an entire stack of lumber if ONE board was below the grade it was supposed to be.
My wife and I moved up to Myrtle Creek in 2015. Drove by the mills MANY times and often thought how much fun it would be to get a tour. We moved back to Southern California to be closer to our kids. What happened next was taking that tour with you guys! Thanks for that. Now a tour of the plywood mill out past Riddle would make another great video, lol. BTW, we were there for the open house of the spec house. Good times.
I have been wiring sawmills for 40 years as a construction electrician. And i am still impressed with the whole system. The innovations just since I started have been amazing.
Thx for the tour. Places like this are wonders of the industrial world. Its what allows stick framing to cost what it does, and go up as fast as they do, and not 3+ times longer/more expensive. Those forklifts that unload a whole semi in one bite are impressive too. Must feel like the king of the world operating something that powerful.
Have you seen that video where during unloading somebody's log truck gets flipped?
Thanks Nate, excellent video it makes me think of trees as a blessing to us and with proper management will continue support and house our families.
I was raised in Arcata, California in the 50's and 60's. I've seen my share of logging trucks and breathed the wood ash from the "tee pee" burners. I was 16years old and my dad's friend who worked at a mill that produced two by fours, got me a summer job called, "pulling on the green chain". After all, cutting to size and grading, we would pull the lumber off the green chain, called this because the lumber was still wet and very heavy. Four of us would pull, stack, band and the loader would take it away to the yard where it would "air" dry. Acres and acres of lumber stacked 20 feet tall. Real hard work. What a great learning experience, and I made a few bucks also. Watching this video and seeing how much the computer has changed the process for the better is amazing. Now, if we can just get all the tree huggers and politicians out of this industry it will be even better. By the way, my little brother hauled logs out of the Redding area to the mills on the coast, sometimes only two loads a day because of the distance. Up at 3am home at 7pm, tough job.
You did a great job with this Nate, your enthusiasm is infectious, your sense of when to speak and when to observe is very appreciated. Your “good work” is showing, keep it up. Thanks.
Damn bruh the beat at the beginning is insane 🔥🔥
The machinery used to do all this is just amazing! Thanks for sharing this tour with us!
I liked the double band saw set up.
Such a phenomenal video. Would love to see other areas within the field of construction materials that are being produced in such a sustainable way. Thanks for the great content.
Called on this mill for many years. Met a lot of great people. Lee is one of the best!
Great video of a modern sawmill in action! 40 years in the building trades and just recently toured a domtar stud mill in Canada. Amazing how much automation and science goes into the lumber making of today!
Thanks Nate for another great and informative video! It would also be interesting to your viewers to see a tour of a plywood mill if there is one close by. It is good for people to know how the products in our homes and buildings are made. Thanks Again, and "Keep Up Your Good Work!"
My grandfather was a millwright at a plywood mill for a couple decades. He took me on a tour a couple times.
Such a wonderful thing to see! Having been raised in a logging/milling family (between Valasetz and Willamina), it still amazes me!
Watched this before my morning dog walk. I remember touring this part of Oregon. Beautiful country. What a clean and impressive operation. I now have even more respect for what goes into making a 2x4 and shall never complain about lumber prices again! Thanks for posting this.
This is absolutely fabulous. My kind of heaven. Thank you so much Nate.
This is the best tour of a saw mill I have seen. Amazing. Going to share with my students
This video brought back memories. In the early 70s, I worked the stud mill at Gustina Brothers lumber in Eugene, OR; 5, ten hour days. I pulled and stacked studs and occasionally graded them. When the forests were shut down in the summer, I swept the whole yard, dug out bark from under a packed debarker deck, and cleaned under the log peeler building. In the winter I also pull Dry Chain, veneer that came out of the dryer.
great video! the sawmill process is amazing to see it run on a scale this large.
Excellent, it really opens one's eyes to how lumber gets made......pretty impressive.... Thanks
What a great video! Living in Washington State, this really hits home for me. Logging was/is such a big part of the economy and area I grew up in. Thanks!
Amazing. I can't get my head around how they use wet steam to "dry" lumber, but the whole process is so self-contained! It's cool beans.
Very interesting video. A behind the scenes look at how a tree a log becomes lumber. I like mechanical machinery and the entire saw mill process is fascinating 👍
Best sawmill tour ever. Ever! And I've seen them all.
Seeing the efficiencies of a large mill does make it easy to see how my one man band mill cannot compete on price. I spend more time with each board then they spend on a whole trees worth of logs.
Excellent video! One of the best I've seen on the milling process. Great work, guys!
Great video! I worked at a Lumber Yard out of High School and unloaded so many of these lumber packs from Railcars. It was a good job for a young guy. Most of our Lumber was Canadian if I recall correctly.
Fantastic video. Seen sawmills in the hills above my town for years and now I understand what the "WigWam" burner was that we'd see on our way to the snow. Nice to see what they do today.
Thanks Nate, I really like the tour, and keep up the good work!
My dad worked in a plywood mill for about 20 years. Thanks for this video.
Awesome video. Living near sawmills for the last 30 years, I thought I knew more! Good stuff.
Anyone from Maine here? My father whose currently 86 used to work in a sawmill (during summer vacation) in Rangeley as a teenager, then graduated to hauling logs out of Rangeley and the surrounding towns down to the pulp mills in Livermore Falls, Jay, Rumford and a toothpick factory in Farmington (I think). He used to tell me a lot of these stories from back in the day.
Mesmerizing! I thought "how interesting could this be?" but it was fascinating. I kept repeating the part where they were sorting the boards by pulling them out and I was wondering how that worked.Turns out by pulling the board over it reaches a point where it tips off the line. So dang cool.
I've always loved your channel. But as a saw filer, this one is especially awesome. Thanks for sharing!!
Love hearing more from you nate.
That was really cool to see how that operation works and how they use the bark and sawdust.
Ahh, reminds me of when I was able to go on a tour of the Stimpson Lumber Mill in Gatson with my father before he passed away. Great video.
Very nice, informative, and enjoyable video! Thank You! -Bob...
Lots of improvements since I worked there 20 years ago. Good video
Great video, i live in the Great Northwest and pass lumber mills often, nice to learn more about what they do
Totally cool! Great tour and education, Nate
My Grandpa worked his whole life at a sawmill in Heber, AZ. What a cool video.
THAT was informative and interesting. Well done.
This brings me back, I went on a field trip to Weyerhaeuser in Washington state when I was a Cub Scout
Amazing, bring schoolkids to see this facility
I really love this I worked in a re manufacturing mill & I loved it. I would love for you to do a more in depth video on the mill!
This is a serious mill. Big Big bucks.
Great video. Great fiddle music. Old time. Love it
Always enjoy watching videos like this
So cool! Thanks for the inside look.
This is so amazing! I am in awe.
Very cool video, really geeked out on the entire sawmill process! Keep it up!
Great video, Never really saw how logs are turned into lumber , I've only seen it in books. Very cool!
This is an incredible and educational video! Thank you!
A renewable resource that provides the energy used to process it. Total green!
The best place I've ever worked !! You don't know what you have until it's gone.
Great show, love seeing lumber mills.
I drove log trk an dumped lots at DCFP a user friendly mill!! Love the mill employees Great video
That was really cool! So neat that those boards were created so close to where you live!
I've lived right next to a lumber mill for 25 years. Love them guys and gals.
Super fascinating. Thanks Nate!! 🤙
Very intresting! Always wanted to see this. Great filming, interviewing and editing!
wow, this was an awesome vid, thx for sharing the process
Much appreciation for a really great video!
Wow amazing they use all of the tree to run the plant and make the product, even electricity. Thank you for sharing.
Great video, should definitely do more this style
Fascinating video. Amazing operation.
Great job on the production. Humans are amazing. Would have been cool to touch on maintenance and also the economic ups and downs.
Truly Fascinating.
I live in the Yellowwood forest area in southern Indiana. We have very little softwoods like you have. Ours is all hardwoods. Interesting to see how much is the same and what’s different.
There’s just something special about a sawmill.
Love a little “EC How it’s Made”! Good job Nate.
Very cool ! Thanks for the tour
Went to work at Klamath Lumber in Chiloquin 1970. Three days out of highschool. Worked stacker, green chain & planer chain. Sure has changed. Impressive!
Amazing video thank you so much!
I get your point regarding the efficiencies from burning bark, it’s cool. Like why not ? but smart folks started making steam for operations years ago. The wigwams buddy’s talking about, for sure existed because building co-generation systems aren’t sawing lumber / peeling veneer.
That was a great video! I did not know how techie cutting 2x were.
KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK
Really great video and impressive sawmill !
Great video. I worked in a walnut lumber saw mill as a temp over 30 years ago. Looks very familiar minus all the laser technology being used now.
Very cool to see that operation!
Keep up the good work
WOW!!!!! THANK YOU!!!! BRILLIANT!!!!
Will need every board for the next hurricane.
Whole new appreciation for the old 2X4's. Wow
Love your work 👍
Top 5 videos you've ever made. Well done Nate.
In Canada we call Wigwam burners Beehives. A relic of my youth. When my family drove out to the BC interior for camping we saw a lot of these.
Good video. I’ve been in this industry for many decades and I am always impressed by the throughput of these mills. I recall one from the 90’s that was producing 500,000 per shift with two shifts per day. Now, I’m sure they can do more. Here’s the crazy thing. You can go to Sweden and see sawmills and operate with only three people per shift. It’s all completely automated.
Thank You. Nice job
Absolutely super video!
Cool video, thanks for sharing.👍
Keep up the good work!
That was really neat man Great content