Gerald Sambrooke, a retired Chief Forest Ranger in Alberta, and his wife, Teresa, like to travel. That should come as no surprise given his 76 years of age. But he is also a bandsaw mill owner who hates to see a good log go to waste.

A graduate of the Forest Technology School at the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (NAIT) in 1969, Sambrooke, over his decades of service as a professional guide, timber management technician, assistant forest ranger, and then one of three Chief Forest Rangers for an area southwest of Rocky Mountain House as far as Banff National Park, experienced nearly every aspect of forest management —except one.

In all those years, one experience was missing: how it felt to saw a log into lumber.

“I knew how to scale timber, assess a mill, and gather and evaluate data, but in all those years, I had never sawn a log,” he says.

That changed when he retired in 2008, starting with a Wood-Mizer LT15 band sawmill he borrowed from a neighbour, leading to the purchase a few years ago of a new Timbery M285 band sawmill.

Gerald Sambrooke became expert in the operation of his Timbery bandsaw mill by first producing wood products for his own use, like this poplar tongue and groove flooring for the apartment above his shop.

Operating as Baseline Forest Services Inc. with a partner, Steven Haupt, his custom sawmilling and wildfire consulting business is headquartered about 15 kilometres southwest of Rocky Mountain House. Haupt has been more of a silent partner and helped with the purchase of the Timbery sawmill. He operates his own business, but now in his sixties, he hopes to be more active in the sawmill business in future.

Baseline produces mainly rough framing lumber for Sambrooke’s own use and for a wide range of customers, and he initially promoted his business by using the motto, ‘no order too small’. Sambrooke says that motto and a bit of advertising initially kept him busier than he wanted to be. So now, at 76-years-old, he has adopted a lower profile so that he can fulfill orders, work on personal projects on a schedule more favorable to him—and also travel.

Among his personal projects has been production of tongue and groove poplar flooring and ceiling material for an apartment above his shop, producing all of the framing and appearance lumber for a log cabin on a recreational property, as well as all the lumber for two storage sheds and a shelter for his firewood. He hopes to sell one of the sheds.

Meeting Sambrooke in person, it’s obvious that he’s mentally sharp and a walk around his yard demonstrates that he is definitely project-driven. His sawmill production numbers are neatly collated on a laptop computer, along with a record of production by blade used or resharpened.

“There is a certain amount of mental activity that goes into sawing, and to me that was just a challenge that I had never done,” says Sambrooke. “It’s still a challenge.”

Baseline Forest Services produces a wide range of wood products, but primarily 1” and 2” dimensional lumber stock up to 16’ long. Products range in size from 2” x 6” planking to material as small as 3/4” and 1/2” thick, used by beekeepers for bee boxes.

Sambrooke even produces a specialty lap siding product, having discovered how to manipulate cants through his bandsaw mill to achieve the angle cut he requires. A lot of his wood products are sold to local farmers and ranchers. For production of his own tongue and groove and planed material, Sambrooke uses a Delta 12” portable planer set up in his shop.

Over the years, Sambrooke has spent hours experimenting and expanding his knowledge of how to optimize his use of his bandsaw mill as well as its accompanying equipment. He has learned some hard but valuable lessons along the way of how to sharpen and set his own sawblades, and operate the bandsaw mill to consistently produce accurate lumber.

He began his custom sawmilling venture with a good foundation, as he harvests timber from about a 90-acre woodlot he owns, supplementing that by salvaging blowdown and damaged timber on neighbouring properties. He manufactures about 95 per cent of his wood products from spruce and pine, with a bit of poplar mixed in, bucking logs to about a 5” top and up to 22” at the butt. Recently, he moved the bandsaw mill in close proximity to a two-year supply of spruce and pine logs and what he describes as, “a huge supply of large aspen waiting to be turned into firewood.”

However, he has set aside that firewood processing project for now, as he has plenty of work making dimension lumber.

Even at his age, Sambrooke still falls, delimbs, and skids trees, using an older Wallenstein FX8000 cable skidder attached to a tractor. It lets out about 100’ of cable and he can choke up to three trees per drag. Recently, he purchased a four-wheel assist John Deere tractor to help him move logs and lumber around in his mill yard.

When he began shopping for a new bandsaw mill, Sambrooke discovered that the Timbery line offered many attractive features, one being that the dealer and parts supplier, Western Sawmills, was relatively close. They used the Timbery product themselves. Sambrooke’s sawmill was purchased from Western Sawmills, located in Brule, Alberta and their representative, Dave Flato. He describes their service support as excellent. Timbery itself is based in Indiana.

The Timbery M285 bandsaw mill he purchased is mounted on a trailer for portability. He chose the 16’ deck because that was about as much weight as he can handle manually at his age, although a deck extension is available. Loading logs on the sawmill deck and the movement of the sawing unit back and forth is all manual, requiring a fair amount of physical labor, although Timbery offers many models with more hydraulic and electronic features, which obviously impacts the cost of the sawmill. For orders of lumber longer than 16’, he still has access to the Wood-Mizer LT15, which can manufacture wood products up to 42’ long.

Sambrooke describes the Timbery M285 as having a sturdier steel frame than other brands he investigated, with sawdust blown on the opposite side of the operator. The sawing unit is powered with a Robin/Subaru 20.5 horsepower EH64 gasoline engine, equipped with an electronic starter. Sambrooke says the engine starts quickly in all weather conditions, has a built-in oil change indicator, with easy access to the air cleaner designed with a pre-cleaner.

As with many custom sawmilling operations, Gerald Sambrooke is highly valued locally for his ability to saw and deliver lumber products to many customers right in his own backyard. When he needs planed lumber for customers, Sambrooke leans on his small-scale Delta-brand portable planer (above).

“It also has a good log dogging system that is easy to use,” he adds.

The blade he uses is a standard 1-1/4” Wood-Mizer bandsaw blade with a .042 pitch. He recently purchased the Timbery Sharp-n’-Set blade sharpening unit. Sambrooke discovered that it was a worthwhile investment as he does a better job sharpening his own blades, achieves much better production, produces more accurate lumber, and earns a longer lifespan on the blades by managing this function himself versus sending them out for custom sharpening.

Sambrooke is always thinking of new challenges, and the Manitoba maple log he delivered to his yard donated from an old farmstead by a neighbour has him intrigued.

Next year he hopes to return to Australia where he will make a point once again of visiting a few local sawmill operators and observe the hardwood timber that they are sawing. He’s already done it once and recently returned from Hong Kong.

“I saw some trees there that I’d love to mill,” he says. “The food was not my normal sawyer’s diet, but I can sure operate a pair of chopsticks now.”