Re-purposing Wood 2

Among the piles of old, almost worn out lumber, stands Titus Gilliam, an innovative entrepreneur who sees a lot of beauty in old wood… lumber that is destined to rot or be burned up… That is unless Titus finds it in time. "We have wood that comes from barns, corrals, industrial buildings, any kind of demolition project that’s taking down their old wood and then we can repurpose it into our new and finished product.” Products that are things of beauty, in many creative ways. Wall paneling, floors, doors, storefronts and stairs. If you can dream it, Titus can make it. "Our custom shop that can do any kind of custom woodworking that one can dream up. Our specialty right now is primarily engineered, solid wood doors, engineered flooring, textured wall paneling that people use for accent specialty walls. Fortunately reclaimed wood is becoming more popular, it's a trend right now, so we are front and center in people's attention and there are a lot of people who come to us instead of throwing away their building and having it go to waste. They will ask us if we can salvage the wood and use it.” But this is an agricultural broadcast, so tomorrow we will find out how Titus’s craft relates to the ranch or farm.

 

 

Yesterday we learned that Titus Gilliam reclaims old wood and turns it into new products such as wall paneling, floors, doors, storefronts and stairs. Reclaiming is not an easy process. It begins with the removal of all metal. Nails mostly and then steam washed. Here, the old wood meets the re-saw Where it is sliced into dimensions close to the finished width desired. "After the wood comes off of a re-saw, it is stacked and stickered so that it has nice even airflow through it. It comes in on carts to our drying kiln where it spends from a couple of days to a month depending on the thickness of the wood and how wet it was when it came in.”

 

Now onto the finish shop where lasers cut the exact dimensions needed for sale. Gilliam's message to farmers and ranchers, he can use just about any old board from the farm with a few conditions. “Anything that is not painted or treated, that is a board. If it is a reasonably solid and sound board, there is probably a way we can turn that into something. It may not be worth a fortune but it is probably better than burning it or throwing it away. If it's at least a half-inch thick, 2 feet long and four or 5 inches wide and reasonably sound solid material that doesn't have anything else on it, meaning no bad smells, no paint, no finish no chemical treatment, then we will figure out a way to use it. Sometimes we just take it off their hands but if it is reasonably big, solid material that is something that we can really utilize, like 16 foot long corral boards, lots of times we pay more for the old wood than comparable would costs if it’s really good quality material. A good example of that is, maybe a dairy has wind break fences that they swap out, that's a great source of material for us.” Reclaimed lumber, making the old barn or beautiful fence into products consumers want.