lake superior timeless timber water logged lumber company

The modern technique for cutting slabs of wood is the flatsawn method, in which flat slices are cut from a log like slicing a carrot. One of the traditional techniques Leick Furniture uses to improve the quality of the products built from the wood is the quartersawn method. Leick Furniture uses the wood for such items as its red oak Ashland Curio Cabinet, which costs $2,500, as well as for red oak clocks, which retail from $100 to $750. “Because this wood is so special, it deserved the best treatment we could muster.” Leick, chief executive officer of Leick Furniture, based in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, which makes furniture from the logs. “We had to teach ourselves,” says Gregory M. Craftsmen who use the wood first had to rediscover and learn these largely antiquated methods. The furniture is assembled with old-fashioned woodworking techniques, such as pegs in place of nails, and pinned mortise and tenon joinery. The furniture, much of it built in the mission or Arts & Crafts style, costs from a few hundred dollars to several thousand. One can purchase a walking stick made from a century-old hard maple for $135, wood carvings starting at $140, or a handcarved decoy for $1,500. Marketed under the trademark Timeless Timber, many of these items are crafted by locals in the Ashland area. Superior Water-Logged is using the salvaged wood to build furniture, handicrafts, and musical instruments. “The growth rings are so tight, they’re like pages in a book,” says Mitchen. This compares to an average of six to 15 growth rings an inch in today’s harvested trees. The result is a superfine grain, with 25 to 70 growth rings an inch (the highest count yet is 77 rings an inch). The low temperatures and oxygen content of the lake preserved the logs, some nearly 700 years old, embalming them like mummies from a lost civilization.īecause these mummified logs once grew under a canopy of conifers in low light and limited-nutrient conditions, they matured slower than the fast-growing varieties modem tree farms now use. Lake Superior, the world’s largest body of fresh water, proved to be the best possible resting place for the lost timber, some of which sank below its thick glassy surface before the United States of America existed. Mitchen’s underwater logging operation (he has described the lost logs as the “Jurassic Park of wood,”) is also harvesting red oak, flaming red birch, maple, cherry, elm, walnut, and more - all of which have slumbered for centuries in the cold silences of the Great Lake. “This,” says Mitchen, “is the biggest treasure we’ve ever found.” That is, until treasure hunter and shipwreck salvager Scott Mitchen and his team of divers get hold of it. Transported in chain-boomed rafts to sawmills, 20% to 30% of the timber became water-logged and fell to the lake bed, where it is destined to remain. in Ashland, Wisconsin, discovered that hundreds of thousands - if not millions - of sunken logs lie preserved on the bed of Lake Superior, remnants of logging operations that stretch back over 300 years. The old-growth trees of those far-reaching Northeast lands are forever gone-or are they? Several years ago, Scott Mitchen, cofounder along with Robert “Buz” Holland of the Superior Water-Logged Lumber Co., Inc. In the closing decades of the nineteenth century, an army of loggers labored beneath the seemingly endless canopy of the white pine forests that stretched from Wisconsin to Canada, harvesting the virgin hardwoods that grew beneath the cool protective shade of the pines. Home Organization News, Blog, & Articles.Energy Efficiency News, Blog, & Articles.To learn more about Superior Hardwoods click here. Others species provided include Ash, Basswood, Cherry, Hickory, Hard Maple, Soft Maple, White Oak and Walnut.

Poplar and Red Oak are two of the primary species produced at Superior. Our computerized 55-bay laser sorter and tally systems, coupled with our experienced staff of NHLA (National Hardwood Lumber Association) certified inspectors, provide strict quality controls load after load.Īddress: 6429 W 100 N, Montezuma, IN 47862 Phone: (765) 245-2634Ĭomputerized 55-bay laser sorter and tally system This sawmill facility is located in West Central Indiana and is vertically aligned to control lumber quality from timber procurement to lumber delivery. In 2017, Superior Hardwoods became a location of Baillie Lumber Co. This facility utilizes some of the latest innovations in lumber sorting and grading technology to ensure that our clients receive consistent quality hardwood. Superior Hardwoods is one of the one of the largest sawmills in Indiana.

Lake superior timeless timber water logged lumber company