3/21/2010

By TIM UNRUH

Salina Journal

Saline County District Court Judge Jerry Hellmer's intellectual burdens in the courtroom can be heavy as he rules on law, decides the fates of convicted criminals, child custody disputes, medical malpractice cases, divorce decrees and monitors sex offenders.

When the black robe comes off, however, on go faded blue jeans, old sweaters and mud-splattered boots as the judge escapes into the woods of northern Saline County.

There, with the help of a portable sawmill, antique John Deere tractor and loader, a wood shop and all available strong backs, he transforms huge logs from native trees into fine furniture, flooring and trim.

"It's a labor of love," said Hellmer, 62.

A walk through Jerry and Susan Hellmer's home nestled among a thick growth of timber -- anchored with a fireplace built with rock they gathered -- reveals a shrine of their hobby.

Beds, chests, cabinets, vanities and other furniture made with walnut, oak, ash and osage orange -- from scratch -- are more than proudly displayed. The pieces are also put to practical use.

Their home is trimmed in oak that was sawed, stacked, planed, dried, cut, shaped, sanded, stained and finished.

"That's how we keep our sanity," Jerry Hellmer said. "It's a lot cheaper than therapy."

Susan helps with each of many steps, and often handles the staining, varnishing and other finishes.

"Jerry comes up with most of the ideas. I just help him implement them," Susan said. "I love to be outdoors."

Flooring for their son

The latest project is milling hackberry lumber into wood flooring for two living rooms, a dining room and kitchen in their son, Ryan's home in Topeka. He's an attorney there.

Starting with a tree, rather than shopping at a local lumberyard, makes working with wood an extended hobby, Judge Hellmer said.

"It's a very labor intensive process," he said. "People who think it's a great way to get inexpensive lumber -- not true."

Starting with a log, sawing it into planks, planing it into lumber and stacking it for drying, is just the beginning.

The Hellmers open-air dry their lumber by stacking it on stickers, or thin slivers of wood placed crossways, allowing airflow through the boards. The outdoor stacks are covered with sheet metal to keep off moisture.

Once the wood has dried to 8- percent moisture content, it can become anything from a home, barn, fence or playground, to trim, flooring and furniture.

But drying it can take six months to four years, Jerry said, depending on the type of wood and climatic conditions.

"We've put it in a basement with a dehumidifier and fans. Ryan was able to bring some (moisture) down pretty quickly," Jerry said. "We try to get at least two years of seasoning."

The Hellmers are considering adding a passive solar kiln, Jerry said, which can speed the process to 90 days.

"We've planed two sides of the lumber at this point. The next phase is to rip it into widths with a saw and plane it to the desired thickness," he said. "Then we stack it in racks according to species."

Those racks are in the "wood library" in the loft of a barn, where there are stacks of cedar, walnut, locust, elm, sycamore, ash, mulberry and oak. Their wood shop is in another loft.

It's not about money

The process requires patience and persistence. One of Ryan's flooring boards must be handled seven different times before anyone can walk on it.

"There's no real cost savings, other than it's my time. If I paid myself $10 an hour, there's nothing," Ryan said. "It would've been $3,000 to $8,000 to buy the materials and do it myself. In that sense, I'm saving a lot of cash."

But it's fun to saw into a log and see what beauty is revealed.

"You get that first slab off. Sometimes you get a beautiful log. Other times there's nothing inside of it," he said. "It's hit and miss."

As the blade saws through, Susan finds it interesting "to watch the colors of the wood -- yellow, brown and bright red."

The Hellmers' sawmill is a heavy duty bandsaw that slides along a four-post steel frame for stability.

"You've got a lot of labor tied up into one of these things," Jerry said. "It's one of those passions in life that you kind of develop."

The sawmill is capable of milling 1,000 board feet a day, a tenth the output that neighbor Don Bremmerman once was capable of with a more automated machine that featured a circular saw blade. Bremmerman is a former sawyer who has mentored Hellmer on many occasions.

"He's incredibly knowledgeable, my expert that I always go to," Jerry said. "He's forgotten more about lumber than I'll ever know."

'Timber-line' connection

Hellmer obtains his logs through the "timber-line," so to speak. By being in the loop, he hears of power companies, farmers, or builders planning to take down a tree.

"You talk with companies that cut trees down commercially. Finding logs is not as much a difficulty as having the time to cut them up," Jerry said. "I'm not a sawyer. I don't do it for a living. It's purely for our own consumption."

Collecting a stash can take some time, he said, considering that only a third of every log becomes lumber. The rest is waste that "heats the neighborhood." Four homes in his vicinity are heated almost exclusively by the culls from the Hellmers' wood pile.

The family sawmill will sit idle through the winter months, and is used sporadically throughout the year, a day here or a weekend there.

Making your own lumber "is a do-able thing," said Jim Callarman, a partner in C&L Milling, of Minneapolis. C&L -- the "L" is for Don Lott, the other owner -- used to saw logs for Hellmer who bought his own mill in 2007, paying $5,000 for it.

Sawmills are available in many price ranges, Callarman said, up to $100,000.

"You can build a house out of anything," he said, but every species of wood has its set of quirks. Oak, for example, has a tendency to twist and bow and the boards are difficult to nail. Making your own lumber, for whatever reason, is an option.

"If I was a young guy, that might intrigue me more," said Callarman, 68.

The Hellmers take logs that commercial sawyers wouldn't touch, such as those from trees in someone's back yard. Nails, hooks, porcelain insulators, bullets, even a blob of concrete, have been discovered in their logs. All are murderous to a steel saw blade that costs $30 to replace.

"I have a magnetic wand that I use, but it's not that precise," Jerry Hellmer said. "A lot of times, we'll cut through a bullet."

Mom, Dad and son

The hobby offers priceless bonding time for Ryan, 27, and his parents. He will drive home from Topeka on a Saturday morning, work up to seven hours on the sawmill and return that night.

Ryan is halfway through remodeling his home. Sharing a passion with his father has been enjoyable.

"We get to share tools and knowledge this way," he said.

The Hellmers' woodworking prowess is popular in the family -- in addition to Ryan are their daughters, Traci Hellmer of Salina, and Jill Ahlers, of Helena, Mont., and granddaughter Cyleste Frame, Traci's daughter -- especially when gifts are exchanged.

This past Christmas, Ryan presented his father with an elaborate wooden tool chest, made of oak and walnut with osage orange inlays.

"He surprised the daylights outta me," the judge said. Jerry uses the cabinet to store equipment for another hobby -- photography.

A woodworking dentist

Judge Hellmer said Jill, a dentist, used the dexterity she learned from woodworking in dental school.

"Many of the tools she uses in surgery are similar to those she used at home with me in the shop," Jerry Hellmer said. "Traci is a nurse. She gets to put the bandages on our injured fingers."

Ryan and his wife, Jessica, are expecting their first child in August, and the dad-to-be is planning a baby bed and other furniture. Long-range, Ryan intends to build a dining room table and chairs, and two dressers.

But flooring is first.

"Jessica put a May deadline on it," Ryan said. "I'm hoping to make it."

n Reporter Tim Unruh can be reached at 822-1419 or by e-mail at tunruh@salina.com.

---

Discuss This Story:

---