“My granddad was a carpenter. I grew up in a shop, I thought maybe I would be a carpenter when I graduated from high school or college, but life took me in a different direction. I went into corporate America for 25 years, but I wasn’t really satisfied with that.
I was looking forward to my retirement career of being a carpenter. Then when COVID hit, and I lost my job, I went ahead and pulled the trigger and decided to pursue my wood business dreams full time. I’ve been doing it pretty much full-time since April 2020, and it’s pivoted and evolved several times, but right now, our primary focus is on furniture and producing home furnishings.”
- Avery Earwood
Right now, Avery’s focus is on high-quality home furnishings. These include but are not limited to kitchen islands, coffee tables, benches, computer desks, floating shelves, and fireplace mantles, and he’s moving into the charcuterie and cutting board phase of his business right now as well. Alongside the smaller items, Avery supplies custom milling and custom drying services and directly sells live edge slabs and lumber to other businesses.
“Most of the stuff I build is in the shop, but we will occasionally go on-site and install a fireplace mantel or a butler pantry or something like that, but I don’t do any cabinetry. Just horizontal surfaces and the table bases. Every now and then, we’ll take on a job if it pays well or if it’s for a repeat client; we’ll take on something a little bit more out of our wheelhouse.”
- Avery Earwood
Making an Upgrade
For Avery’s business, as well as many others, you live and die by your ability to adapt and evolve with the ever-changing needs of your business. Not only has Avery continually reinvented his product offerings to his clients, but he is investing in the tools that will ensure the future of his business.
Most notably, that upgrade has been a Tru-Cut Series 96 Ultra Wide sawmill. Avery picked up his Tru-Cut back in July of 2021, and after getting his milling shed up and running with all the electrical and everything he needed, it has been living up to its name.
“It certainly allowed me to mill wide logs and make bigger slabs. I’m sitting on a bunch of logs right now that I need to mill because it’s provided me with customers who have logs that are too big for other people’s mills. There are only three guys in the area who have wide mills at all, but none of them can do eight feet.
It put me in a unique position to be the only guy producing these size slabs in the area.”
- Avery Earwood
Versatility is King
Whenever you make a significant investment for your business, that investment needs to do its job perfectly and make itself worth its while. For Avery, the Tru-Cut has opened up the obvious potential for cutting significantly wider slabs than any of his competitors. It has also provided some benefits he didn’t see coming at first.
“Cookies that big are more common because they’re usually the part the homeowner saves is only like a three-foot section because that’s all they can move. So they end up with this short log that is really big. They’re usually cut with a chainsaw, which doesn’t produce a very good cut, so I also flatten cookies frequently.
I didn’t really anticipate doing that when I got the mill, but it’s been interesting. I’ve used it to flatten slabs that are already kiln-dried. I’ve got a slab flattener, but it takes a long time when you’re removing a 32nd of an inch at a time. So I can put that same slab up on the big mill, get a good flat edge, flip it over and get another edge parallel. Then take it and do a final flattening on the other machine.”
- Avery Earwood
Avery’s ingenuity with the Tru-Cut sawmill is incredible to see, but the next step to level up his business process would be to acquire a Tru-Cut Surfacer. Not only can the Tru-Cut Surfacer share a track with our sawmill, but it can surface slabs in record time, taking minutes instead of hours to get the job done.
The Benefits of a Small Company
Tru-Cut is a small family-owned company making its unique addition to the sawmilling industry. That familiarity has allowed Avery to have a phenomenal experience with buying, installing, and operating his sawmill.
“It’s a small company with very few layers. I rarely have a problem, but because I let my mill sit for almost four months outside, some water got in the motor and rusted a couple of parts. So it didn’t want to spin when I finally did get around to hooking it up to electricity.
They helped me work through that process, and I got to run it, and it was fine, so there were no issues. We built our own track system based on the plans they provided, and I had a couple of questions about that when I called them, and I had some questions about blades. They’ve always been extremely responsive and helpful, and I can’t say enough good things about the people I’ve worked with.”
- Avery Earwood
We’re proud of our customer service team and responsiveness when it comes to any issues that may arise. Selling a quality product is only half the battle, providing the quality service to back up those products is what we pride ourselves on at Tru-Cut.
Trusting the Right People
Quality matters no matter what product you’re buying, whether through a massive online retailer or a small family-owned company. Where better to learn about the quality of something like a Tru-Cut sawmill than by the expert woodworkers using it? Avery has revolutionized his business with this machine; he knows what it means to him and what it could mean to your business.
“The build quality is exceptional. It’s an exceptionally well-built machine, and it’s built to last. The design is outstanding; as long as there’s a sharp blade, I haven’t had to do anything. The blade tracks perfectly, the guides are good, it goes up and down perfectly, and it moves forward. It just does exactly what it’s supposed to do. As long as there’s a sharp blade on it, it cuts very well. All I can ask is that it does what I need and is affordable.”
- Avery Earwood
Avery was so pleased with the affordability of his Tru-Cut mill right from the moment he completed the purchase. Especially when taking into account the exceptional quality of build, he believes that his sawmill has more than paid for itself from the very start through to today and beyond. The combination of incredible customer service, quality craftsmanship and attention to detail sets Tru-Cut apart from the competition, and ensures that other wood businesses can have the same amazing experience as Avery.