Dry Kiln Workshop Brings California Entrepreneurs to NC
Every year, NC State’s Wood Products Extension offers a series of workshops for professionals in the wood products industry with topics from hardwood lumber grading to high-end firewood and edge slabs. One steadily attended workshop is the Dry Kiln Short Course, a week long intensive that serves to promote professionalism and technical knowledge of dry kiln operation. The workshop is a mix between lectures, practical lab, and industry tour, including guest speakers who provide insights about their technical equipment, customer needs, and recent projects.
In addition to sawmill operators in the Southeast, this summer’s attendees included two innovative companies based in California, Sacramento Urban Tree Rescue and Deadwood Revival Design from San Luis Obispo. Pictured above is a custom project by Deadwood Revival Design.
Shift Towards Entrepreneurship
Historically the wood products industry has been heavily dependent upon the health of the U.S. residential construction and household furniture industries. In the mid 1990’s, production of engineered lumber, for example glulam beams and laminated veneer lumber (LVL), began to rapidly rise. Within the past decade, a shift towards entrepreneurship has changed the working landscape — the wood products industry included. Deadwood Revival Design and Sacramento Urban Tree Rescue are two organizations attempting to tackle both urban development challenges and consumer-driven demand for sustainable products.
Seeking to overcome the rapid replacement of the natural environment “by concrete jungles” in California, entrepreneur Daniel Torres and a team of skilled partners created Deadwood Revival Design. The company is a member of the Sustainable Furnishing Council and handcrafts furniture and slabs salvaged from California’s Central Coast region, thereby restoring “the connection between people and the environment by telling the unique story of each tree through [its] designs.”
Danny said he decided to travel from the West Coast to attend the Dry Kiln Workshop because “NC State offered the most comprehensive curriculum at the most affordable price.” He added, “The quality of the program truly exceeded my expectations. “Now, we have taken certain steps during the air drying stage that will save us money. I have tweaked my prior approach to the kiln drying aspect. So far, we are seeing steady improvement and have a more organized system to keep better track of our process. I am definitely more knowledgeable on the subject of lumber drying, but more importantly I know where to go to find answers. I have the resources I never had before.”
Urban Wood Products
Danny believes there is a market for experts to focus their research and educational objectives on urban wood products stating, “The standard approach to drying commercial hardwood isn’t fully transferable to urban lumber (slabs).”
Marcel Kropat, Forest Biomaterials Ph.D student and Dry Kiln Workshop attendee, agrees, “Slabs are recently considered trendy in the furniture and interior accessory market. I believe it’s beneficial to create a workshop in which content is shaped to the special needs of dealing with big dimensions as present with slabs — needs in terms of drying and mechanical processing.”
Behind this observation, there are 500,000 Instagram posts with the hashtag #LiveEdge slab and over 2 million with #madeinamerica. It’s easy to spot a market trend towards luxury, American made, urban wood products.
Other timely programming, Marcel points out, could include “a reclaimed lumber workshop and a short course that sensitizes homeowners to the special requirements of wood as a building material — best uses and practices, such as avoiding long term moisture aggregation.”
The primary mission of NC State’s Wood Products Extension is to increase competitiveness and profitability of North Carolina’s wood products industry. As short courses and workshops bring steady attendance and continue to evolve, Extension accomplishes its mission, even beyond North Carolina.