Bud Candee used white pine and oak from his own wooded lot to create his new barn using a Wood-Mizer LT40 Hydraulic sawmill.
Wood-Mizer It’s amazing to see a fi nished project that sawyers create using a Wood-Mizer sawmill. Every two years, Wood-Mizer customers enter woodworking projects in The Personal Best Contest which is a showcase of creativity and craftsmanship using the lumber sawn on a Wood-Mizer sawmill. Warren “Bud” Candee is just one example of how Wood-Mizer customers make their dreams come true. Read on to learn how “Bud” used his own trees to build…More than a barn.
After retiring from the trucking industry in 2000, Warren “Bud” Candee of Great Barrington, Massachusetts, bought a used Wood-Mizer LT40 Hydraulic sawmill. “Ever since I’ve had it,” Bud said, “I do odd sawing jobs, which have given me the opportunity to meet a lot of nice, interesting people.”
This two-story barn took three months and close to 10,000 board feet to complete. It has a total of 1,440 square feet, and 100% of the lumber was cut with his LT40HD.
Bud used white pine and oak from his own wooded lot to create his new barn. “Since I had the logs and the Wood-Mizer, I was inspired,” Bud said. “I enjoyed the challenge of building a post-and-beam barn from start to fi nish.”
He also made use of Wood-Mizer’s ReSharp Doublehard blades. Bud’s specifi c challenge during this project was the need to cut many different sizes of wood, all while on the building site. The portable LT40HD helped him overcome this obstacle with its versatility and hydraulic features.
“The Wood-Mizer gave me that kind of freedom,” he said. His brother, sons and friends all joined in to help at one time or another, especially during the “barn raising” days. “Those were fun,” Bud said, recalling the effort put forth by friends and family.
The method used was post-and-beam Mortise Tenon, which emphasizes a simple, yet strong, joint system that has been used for thousands of years by woodworkers around the world. Found in archeological sites from the Middle East, Europe and Asia, the lumber is cut so as to interlock with a perfect fi t without using fasteners or glues, enabling the wood to expand and contract according to humidity. “The barn will be used for a workshop and studio space,” said Bud, “not an actual barn for animals. But every barn needs a cupola with a weather vane!”
Many of Bud’s family and friends have been impressed with his creation. “Everyone has said to me, over and over, ‘How beautiful!’ ‘Build us one! We could live in it!’” he said. He also made a good impression on the building inspector who said, “The way this is built, it’s not going anywhere!”
Bud estimated that he saved about $20,000 by using his Wood-Mizer LT40HD sawmill and wood cut from his own lot. “I felt proud,” he said when thinking about his feelings once the barn was completed. “I was able to mill out lumber from my own trees using the Wood-Mizer,” and that sense of accomplishment is worth more than money. “
Editor’s note: The preceding was paid advertorial by Wood-Mizer.”
