By Peter Lindblad, HNG News Reporter, PLindblad@hngnews.com

Reprinted with the author’s permission.

The price of wood is soaring. To save a little money, the technology education department at McFarland High School has devised an ingenuous DIY cost-saving scheme.

Since 2019, Steve Pennekamp’s woodworking classes have been milling their own lumber. The village, in a partnership with the students, provides the logs, removed from projects around town.

And they get all the wood they need for student projects throughout the year.

“It’s cool to watch the projects in our woodshop go from a log. We mill it down and take it into the shop and actually turn it into tables and other things like that,” said Joel Karls, a junior at McFarland High School.

A lumber milling event was held on Thursday, Sept. 26, from 8 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. in the technology education parking lot. Karls has been involved in these lumber milling exercises for three years.

Anthony Kuehl, a senior at McFarland, always enjoys the experience. He’s been participating all four years.

“It’s a break from all the sitting at your desk schooling,” said Kuehl. “You get out there and get to work with your hands. I think that’s super awesome.”

A conservative estimate of the savings is around $30,000. Word of McFarland’s success has spread. At the event on Thursday, about 20 DeForest students from Tyler Tietyen’s woodworking class observed the activities and joined in the labor.

Tietyen, a technology education/STEAM teacher, was impressed. He said that since McFarland rents the machine, that would make it possible for DeForest to follow suit.

As for Pennekamp, he’s proud of how the village and the school district have been able to collaborate on such a dynamic project.

“It has truly been a team effort from many groups, and it has resulted in an amazing learning experience for hundreds of students over many years,” said Pennekamp. “Sayer Larson (from the public works department), Jeff Mahoney (the school district’s director of business) and Matt Schuenke (village administrator) have been influential in developing a method for getting us logs in a responsible way.

Others have helped, too. Pennekamp singled out Ben Snyder, the school district’s director of building and grounds, and Jason Hare, from grounds and maintenance, for determining how to dispose of scraps from the milling. Pennekamp also said that Travis Ray, a technology education teacher, has been active the last five years in the entire process.

“He has made the milling process faster, safer and better each year we have milled,” said Pennekamp.

The lumber is also used by the adult night woodworking class that’s offered to community members.

Pennekamp explained the whole process.

“We have been partnering with the Village of McFarland to acquire local trees that are being discarded because of development or the trees are dead or a hazard,” said Pennekamp. “These logs are then cut into lumber that have specific thicknesses and widths to be used in our Intro to Tech, Woods 1, Woods 2, Woods 3, Spartan Manufacturing, and adult woodworking course offered at night to our community members. The scraps that are created from the milling process are used in a wood boiler that generates heat for two houses. So, even the waste from the process is being used.”

The only stuff that gets thrown away is the sawdust.

“After milling the wood to thickness, it is stacked and stickered,” continued Pennekamp. “This process will allow air flow to help in the drying process. The wood will need to air dry outside under a roof for about three months. This will take the moisture content of the wood from about 50% down to about 14%. In order for the lumber to be used in projects that go into a house we need to place the wood in a kiln that will take the temperature down to 6-8%. The kiln process takes about three to four weeks to complete the drying process. Once the wood is dried it can then be moved into the shop and used in projects during the school year.”

Pennekamp said the idea came from the philosophy that students learn more by doing.

“By having the students produce their own lumber they understand and can feel the process of taking a log and turning it into a finished product,” said Pennekamp. “Not only do students see the entire process, but they are paying it forward to future students by producing next year’s lumber.”

On lumber milling days, the students must be on their toes. That includes cleaning the sawdust off the milled lumber is important so there’s no uneven spots, according to Kuehl.

“Our sawmill guy, he’s got a process,” said Kuehl. “We got to kind of figure out when to move the logs and where to move them. Sometimes, he’ll flash you a look, and you kind of got to know what it means or what you’ve got to do. There’s a lot of clean up and break down at the end. It’s kind of a huge learning process throughout the day.”

Knowing where the logs come from adds more educational layers to the instruction.

“When I teach students about where the logs come from it has purpose and meaning,” said Pennekamp. “Some of the logs have come from the disc golf course or Exchange Street. This has meaning to the students that live in those areas or have walked down a sidewalk where a tree once grew. This creates unique conversations and buy-in for the students when it comes to teaching a class.”

And then there’s the budget savings, which allows the more funds for purchasing equipment.

When the wood is ready, the fun begins for the students. Karls said they’ve made butcher blocks, small end tables and chairs out of it. Kuehl made what’s called a Kode III chair for a Woods 2 class, which Kuehl said had a lot of angles.

“It’s a super awesome chair, super comfortable to sit in,” said Kuehl. “It took probably four months to make, and it was wood that we used from the sawmill.”

With Kuehl and Karls, and other upperclassmen, showing the freshmen the lumber milling ropes, there’s sure to be more projects like that coming out of the program in the future.