- Hey, everyone, my name is Matt. Welcome to my backyard, it's a beautiful fall day, we're starting to see some
colors change out here, and I have something special and a little unique for you today, the folks over at iDry,
they make vacuum kilns, they reached out and asked if I wanted to do a feature or a highlight on one of their owners, so today we're gonna visit Matt Ruben, and he's going to tell
us about his journey of how he got from the
beginning to where he is now. Matt does custom sawing,
drying, and furniture, so the whole spectrum of things. So we're going to see
how that all progressed, we're gonna check out his vacuum kiln and see how that kinda works, and he's actually loading it today, so I'm bringing over some slabs. This is the silver maple with a hole, and we're gonna dry some of these to fill out his load,
which is gonna go in there. So, let's head over there now, it's actually not that far. Matt is only about 15 miles south of me, so I have been actually meaning to go visit him for a long
time, so this is perfect. Let's go for a drive. All right, so it's the
other end of the county, I'm here with Matt. Matt, thanks for having us today. - Appreciate you coming out. - Its really nice of you to make the time to show us around and humor me with all the giddiness I'm gonna have, looking around all your toys. - Great, yeah. - So I want you to tell
us about who you are and what you do. - Yeah, my name's Matt Ruben, we're here in Denmark township, Minnesota, which is where the St.
Croix and Mississippi meet. And three years ago, I started a saw mill
business from scratch, so that's what we're
gonna talk about today and see where the business is at. So I do, portable
milling, custom projects, and then I have a vacuum kiln from iDry. So, that's the main thing of the business is selling slabs, its projects, and milling for people. So, I guess we'll just talk about that and look around, right? - Yeah, so basically,
doing the whole thing. - The whole thing from tree to whatever. - That's really cool, so how did you get started with this? What made you say like, "Oh, I should start doing stuff with logs and trees and stuff?" - Yeah, I wanted to start a business, so we have a five acre,
probably farm here, it's all old buildings, and we have an old house that we think we're gonna fix it up. So I had this thought of, okay, I need to start a business to get some extra income for my family and all these projects that I wanna do. I thought about selling chickens, I thought about doing
a Christmas tree farm, and then one day I was on YouTube and found a one-man saw mill operation with Nathan of Out of The Woods, and just started watching his videos, and I said, "Okay, that's
what I'm gonna do." - Okay. - That's what I'm gonna do. I'd never sawed a log before, I'd taken woodworking
class in high school, and at the time when I bought my sawmill, the only other tool I had for woodworking was a Bosch jigsaw and a
really crappy table saw that has now been junked. - What sawmill did you buy, to start with? - I bought the Wood-Mizer LT40. - [Matt] You got like a real one? - [Ruben] Yeah, yeah, my
wife said get a good one, otherwise, it's not gonna be worth it. - [Matt] Its a good answer. - [Ruben] Yeah, so she
helped me with that a lot. She just said go for it,
so that's how it started. - [Matt] And then did you have any way to get logs or how were you doing that? Or that happened before... Did you go find a bunch of logs first and be like, "I gotta cut these things." Or did you get a sawmill first, and then go find logs? - [Ruben] Like I said, I just jumped in, so I got the sawmill first. Didn't have a single log. The first piece of wood that I ever cut was off a branch on my tree
over there by the saw mill. And after that, I started cutting down some of my dead trees on my property, though I'd never cut down tree before, so I had to go back on
YouTube to figure that out. The first big tree I cut down was about 30 feet from my house. And I said, okay, well, if it falls on the house, no big deal. So I cut it down, I landed it where it should have went, but that's how that started, and then I just spent the
entire summer of 2018, collecting logs and finding people that would get me logs. - [Matt] So that's been what, three years? - [Ruben] Little over three years. Yep. - [Matt] Okay, that's quite impressive, to come that far in three years. - [Ruben] Yeah, and it
was all just on a whim and then just kind of winging it as I go, and then part-time, so for three years I was
just doing whatever I could, in the spare time that I
had to get things in place. - [Matt] Yeah, so then, you
just went to be full time, three months ago? - [Ruben] Three months ago. - [Matt] Yeah, so tell us about that jump. How'd that feel? - Yeah, going full time, it was a thought that I had actually exactly one year ago. The reason for that one
year ago in October, I had probably the best
sales month that I've had up until now, and that's when I thought, okay, now I think I can
actually do this full-time and be sustainable because of all the equipment that I had, the only missing piece was
having the big router table, which I got in June of this year. So, once I got that in place, it was pretty much just... I just had a feeling one
day when I went into work, that that was gonna be the day to quit. And the funny thing is,
my boss asked me that day, "How's business going?" I said, "It's going really good, but I can't keep up." And then two hours later,
I went into his office and said, "I'm sorry, but I'm
done, I can't do it anymore." I knew it was coming, it
was just a matter of time, and I could just feel
it building up inside, it was pretty rough to know
that you can do it on your own, but you're not quite sure if it's the right decision. But it has been so far, it's been awesome for
these first three months. All right, so let's go on a tour, so when I first started collecting logs, all the logs would get
dumped in the driveway, I didn't have the skid steer, which I now have for two years, so I would collect logs,
dump them in the driveway and then chain 'em, and
drag them to the mill, and roll them up on the mill,
however way I could do it. So that's how that started. It's been all cleaned up now, if you come this way, we've got all these different buildings, there's like 11 different
billings on this property. None of them are in great shape, but we're working with it, so this actually used
to be an old pig barn from what I found out
from the previous owners, and this is my current workshop, It's not very big, but I've got enough space
to do some projects, I've got pretty much all the tools in here that I can handle. So it's about 13 foot
wide and 30 foot long, and so I have the biggest
piece of machinery in here is the 25 inch Helical Head planer, which has been awesome for me. And that's my way of planing slabs for customers to get them ready. So, I sold a lot of wood just
out of this little tiny shop. It used to be stacks and
stacks of wood in here, and this is where I'd had my sales, especially, in the winter, 'cause I can heat it with the old stove that we have from the house. So, that's the origin
story on how that worked. So for now, I'm trying
to keep all the wood out and have it in other sheds to keep this more of a work area, so that's that. The next funny story is this solar kiln that I started building
exactly three years ago in October. This is when I first started selling wood, I'd sell it wet, I'd have to tell people that, of course. And I'm like, I got to
figure out a way to dry wood, and I just started the business. So I started building this kiln and about a month later after
I had got it to this state, I found iDry. And I said, "Okay, I don't
want it that, I want an iDry." So for three years, that has just been like a storage shelter. We thought about converting
it into a greenhouse, but it's getting taken down very soon. So that's a story on that. So then over here, this is my sawmill shed and
I've done some modifications, it's just an old 36 by 24 shed. I took down the wall on the far side to have logs come into the sawmill, so that used to be a wall, and that also used to be
a wall on the front here, so that was all torn down. And that's where the sawmill sits, that's where I mill everything. And then if you come inside, it's a saw mill on one end, I got a little storage bay in the middle, and then on the left side here is my big slab flattening machine from Black Horse Designs. And this was the piece of equipment that set me into going full time. I had all these nice, big slabs dried, but I didn't have a way to plane them, and I wanted to start
doing custom projects, dining tables, whatever else, and this was the machine that
got me to being full time. So, it barely fits in here, but it's... - [Matt] It's pretty big. - It's pretty big, it's
17 feet long and 70 wide. It's almost like Josh made
it just for this space. - [Matt] There's not a whole
lot of extra room around it? - No, so I plane the slabs, they go up on the wall, and that's how I sell my stock right now. I don't have a lot of stock right now, it's been going pretty fast, but this is how I'm at right now with selling slabs and getting customers to pick out projects from them. So every single log that I saw for myself, I have gone out and got myself. I have not had a single
person drop off a log for me, I've had people deliver logs for their milling purposes, but everything that I've sawed up has been me going out and getting it. So as we go back here, I've got... - [Matt] A lot of buildings back here too. - I've got a lot of other stuff. (dog barking) That building is almost exclusively used just to park the Bobcat. (dog barking) That's the watchdog. (dog continues barking) This old building used to be a dog house. In there, I've got some
nice walnut cookies, air drying. You gotta get a shot of that. - [Matt] Is it like a bakery? - [Ruben] Yeah, that's
an old chicken coop. - [Matt] Oh, yeah, there's three of them. - [Ruben] There's three of them, yep. - [Matt] I thought it was gonna be full? - No, not yet, they all sell fast. So a lot of this has
just been getting logs and getting an inventory of logs here. So again, I can feel
comfortable of having enough, just in process stock to
keep the business going. That whole pile is walnut. This is a pile for some customers to saw. This is a pile of black
locust over here to my right, that's for a customer. - [Matt] Those are straight. - Nice straight black locust, yeah. This is all red Oak, I believe. And that's kind of a pile of random logs that I've collected, that I'll probably never get to. - [Matt] We all have those. - [Ruben] Yeah, there
might be some good ones in there, still. - [Matt] You got some hackberry? - [Ruben] This is a
hackberry from the storm that came through a couple of weeks ago. - [Matt] These are always so cool, the bark on these things are unique. - [Ruben] I drove by it a few times and then the owner actually called me without me asking for it. And I knew from the street
as I was driving by it that it was a hackberry. So, we're gonna let this one sit and spalt for a couple of years, I believe. - [Matt] That'd be cool. - And we're hoping for some really awesome splatting in that log. So yeah, just keep moving back here, we got some random pine
logs that I've collected. Some of these logs I've
pulled out of burning piles. (Matt laughs) Got some poplar logs over
here from the neighbor, some more white oak, and just some more random logs, and then that's it for the log inventory. - [Matt] Well you got a lot of logs. - [Ruben] I got lots of
room to put them too, so that's nice. - [Matt] Oh yeah. - [Ruben] And they're shaded. - [Matt] Which is thus, nice, and my pile is not and super annoying. - [Ruben] Yeah. - [Matt] So is this the same saw you had bought three years? - Yeah, this is the same saw, if you come this way, I'll show you what I did do it. So, this was an originally a standard LT40 with a 28 inch cut width max. And I said that wasn't good enough, so I saw a Canadian Woodworks, they had modified their
mill to make it extendable, and I said, "Hmm, that's
a really good idea." So, I mentioned it to a
few local customers of mine who happened to be woodworkers, and they knew a guy just down the road about a mile and a half, and they said, you got
to go see Charlie Brown. So, he's a third generation welder. And I said, "Hey, can
you make this wider?" And he looked at it, he goes, "Oh yeah, no problem, 300 bucks." I'm like, "Okay." So he cut the mill right here, added in a 10 inch extension roughly, so I can cut 37 inches wide now. - [Matt] That's awesome. - And I can still trailer it. We modified this to go a little wider for the trailing stop. Yeah, you'd never know
that he did any work on it, it's never had a problem
since he's done it. Never had to make any sort of adjustment. So if you know a really good welder and you have a mill that you want wider, a Wood-Mizer, I would recommend it, it's not that crazy, just a piece of steel while then. And I don't know if
I'll keep this forever, I might want to upgrade in the future. Maybe get an electric one
once I have a nice shop and just stay here. But I do get a lot of portable requests, so it'd be tough to let that go. - [Matt] So with portable milling, how often do you do that, and how has that typically
worked for people? 'Cause I get a lot of questions about, how do I find someone to come
on and cut my logs for me? If I have a tree that
came down or whatever? I guess, I don't even
to know what I'm asking other than walk me through the process of how someone finds you and what it's like to go
up there and saw for them? - Yeah, so most of the
time people have never had a sawyer come out, they have no idea what the process is, they have no idea what they can
do with the tree or the log. So I have to educate them on, what's possible based on what they have. And then we have to figure out, I try to figure out a
drying plan for them, I can't drive for people 'cause I don't have the capacity, but I try to make them understand that that is part of the process. So it's not just cutting
the logs for them, it's really just educating them about the entire process. But I'll go out on site for every two or three times a week during the summer, during the busy season. And most of the times, it's just a few logs for people. So I do have a three hour minimum and then I charged for mileage, but people are just usually really happy to use the trees that
they had in their yard. And I was actually just
down in Iowa last week when I milled a five-foot Oak log. - [Matt] On this thing? - It was on this thing, five-foot
Oak log, 34 inches wide. Once the log was on the mill, it was 15 minutes of milling, and I drove eight hours and they were the happiest customers I've ever had. So, it's funny how that aspect
of the business works out, but it's been fun to
just get out on the road and meet people like that. So that's where I'm at with that. - [Matt] That's really cool. So a lot of the education side, that's kind of interesting 'cause, I guess, when people
would reach out to you, they don't really understand like, oh, I got a sticker, I
got to stack it nicely. - Right. - [Matt] They're like, "Oh, I just turned this
tree into something." (indistinct) - Most people are honestly
very much surprised that they have to dry it. - [Matt] Yeah, I can see that. - Yep, or the time that
it takes to air-dry it if that's their route. So, it's fun to talk about it and just understand people's
perspective on that. - [Matt] Yeah, that's really cool. - So the most important
part of the business, like I just said is drying. So I thought about solar drying, and thought that was
never gonna be good enough for the demand I was seeing. So that's back in 2018, the end of 2018, I decided I wanted an iDry, but at the time I wouldn't
get financed for it. So I had to wait another year, and this thing came last year, I went out to Vermont
to pick it up myself. So we'll just open up the doors and see what's inside. So this is a 40 foot shipping container, it's a high, so it's nine feet high. And then I insulated all the way around, the kilns, the base so that in the winter, it doesn't freeze up. And it's a little bit
more efficient that way. Viola, here we go. - [Matt] It's a box inside of a box. - It's a box inside of
a box, it's a hot box. So yeah, that's the front of the kiln, when we take it out, it's on a trolley, but I'll show you the backside of it too. So we cut a little hole here, I still got to put a door in, but same thing it's just hot box, I got two inch foam everywhere. So, this is a all electric, electric line comes in
from the weld house, which is right next door. And then the water line
comes in the bottom. And there's the vacuum pump, and that's how everything runs off of the control panel here. So right now this charge
has been in here . for a little over a week. What we're gonna do now is we're gonna decompress the vacuum. So, we're just gonna hit back and release. We got some wood to put in there. (air flushing) So this process of releasing the vacuum and draining the kiln is
about 15 to 20 minutes. Maybe we should check
out the water release. - [Matt] Oh, fun. - Yeah, you can't miss that. - [Matt] This is all
the water that came out? - [Ruben] The big one is
the vacuum pump water. The green bucket is for
the daily discharge, so I get to kind of
monitor how much comes out. When it starts to be a trickle, I know that the load is
probably getting close. - [Matt] Oh sure, that's a good way, of indicate how much water is
coming out of the wood, right? - [Ruben] Yeah, so on a
full charge, wet wood, I'm willing to bet, we're
getting like 10, 15 gallons a day right away, come out. (Matt laughs) - [Matt] I don't think people understand how much water is inside of wood, - [Ruben] Tremendous amount. (chicken clucking) - [Ruben] So this is the
winter water watering hole for all the chickens and ducks, they like to come over
here during the winter and drink the warm water, works all good. Well, that's a lot of water. - [Matt] So this is all since when? - [Ruben] This is from last night at six. - [Matt] So what like 18 hours? - [Ruben] 18 hours, yeah. - [Matt] All the wood? - [Ruben] Yup. (metal clanking) (engine reaving) (engine continues reaving) - Okay, we've got some maple
for Duck Hill saw mill. - [Matt] Those are cool. - We've got these awesome
burl for Denali Woodworks. And then this whole stack is all mine. Charcuterie board stock. This is a big seller in the fall time, so I had to get this load through. Yeah, so let's check the
moisture on these maple burls, we've got to get that. - [Matt] This is crazy. - Yeah. We're really hoping this is dry 'cause we wanna change
this load out today. But I think if these aren't dry, we'll find a way to get
them in the next load. Nine, 10. I'd say we're pretty good. I wouldn't wanna go too
much lower with those. It looks like they dried pretty nice too. I don't see any major cracks anywhere. I think they came in at
like 25% moisture roughly. - [Matt] And how long
have they been in for? - [Ruben] Seven days. - [Matt] That was pretty good. - [Ruben] The first day is
pretty much a wasted day, so it's just ramp up time. - [Matt] Yeah. - And then today's like half a day, 'cause we didn't have the full day. So more like actual five days of drying. We're gonna pull this out,
that'll be good to go. That's gonna need some more time, I already know that that was fresh cut. But then these will be good
to get an inventory too, so time to unload. (engine reaving) (engine continues reaving) (wood clanking) (wood clanking) (metal clanking) (engine reaving) (metal clanking) (engine reaving) (engine continues reaving) (chainsaw snarling) (engine reaving) - Will it hold? - [Matt] I don't know, we'll find out, but it seems like it's holding. (engine reaving) (wood clanking) - [Matt] That works,
well, It's closer now. - So that was our excitement for the day, we gonna get a moisture reading on these before they go in, and then we'll start
throwing them in there. - So I'd say anywhere from 14 to 20, somewhere in that range,
on the wetter stuff. (wood clanking) (wood clanking) (wood clanking) (wood clanking) (wood clanking) - That was showing off. - Yup, smallest slab in the stack. Here, I'll throw it up there. (cock crows) (wood clanking) - Perfect, good landing, yeah. (chainsaw snarling) (wood clanking) - Are you satisfied? - I'm very satisfied too. - Me too. - That's awesome. - Let's push it in. (engine reaving) (metal clanking) - Just snug. (vacuum blowing) (cock crowing) (metal clanking) - As far as drying time like this maple, I think it'd be like four
or five days to get it dry. I'm gonna keep it in there longer just because I don't wanna take it out. So it'll actually equalize
a little bit and who knows? It might take longer. And then the cost to run the kiln, it's electric... Between the summer and winter, it's four to 500 somewhere in that range. For per month, per month. So if you can get anywhere from two to 4,000 board
feet through it in a month, it's really, really not much at all. - Yeah, it's pretty cool, it's quick. - It's quick, it's not bad. - Yeah. - Loading and unloading is pretty easy. - So we'll be back in
whenever you let me know and we'll see how
everything looks, I guess. - Yep. - So thanks for showing us around today and we'll see you in like a week-ish. - Yeah, week or so. - Yeah, maybe a little
bit cooler, we'll see. It's still a little warm. - Maybe snowing by then. - It probably will be,
in mid-October snowfall. So one of the awesome things
about the vacuum kilns is that they're able to dry things a lot faster than any type
of conventional way of drying with air. A conventional kiln, DH
kiln, or a solar kiln, even just air drying. Those have a certain speed limit that you really can't exceed or else you'll degrade
the quality of the wood. But the vacuum kilns, you can go quite a bit faster without any kind of degradation because of the magic of
lowering that boiling point. So my slabs will probably
be done in a few days, so we're gonna head over
there next week and unload and take a look at those. This was too big for Matt's saw. So, it came home with me. (Matt laughs) It's a big Walnut crotch log, which we'll cut in the future, but for now I will see
you next week some time, back at Matt's place. (engine reaving) (metal clanking) (engine continues reaving) - All right, so I'm back. It's been a little longer than I had hoped because I have been
tearing apart my house. So there's, there's that. So these have been out for
two or three weeks now? - Two or three weeks they've
been sitting outside, yeah. - Yeah, so we're gonna take a quick look at the moisture content, and see where things are at. With this cycle because you were trynna get some moisture out
of this big thick stuff. You weren't trynna go super crazy. - Right. - On pulling all the moisture out of here, just to bring them down to a
little more in-doors level. So what'd you end up
running for four weeks? Is that what that cycle was? - Little over four weeks, yeah. - All right, and you had a lot of moisture in these big chunky things. - Yeah, It was about 10 gallons coming out in the first couple of days, and then towards the end there was just a very small trickle, almost nothing in the last few days, so that's when I knew
when to pull the load out. - You should maybe bottle that and like... - I've heard of that. - [Matt] Wood water, the newest thing. All right, so what we got? We're down around six, seven percent, which is pretty good
for this time of year, as we jumped into the dry winter months. - [Ruben] Pretty consistent six to seven. - So now last time we
talked a bit about the, I guess, the business side of having, the Kiln and the house impact of things. And I think the gist of it is that it's really allowed you to produce product quicker, or get things out the door quicker, 'cause the dry time goes down, but you're not sacrificing drying quality? - Right. - Because it's faster,
the magic of the vacuum. - Right. - So, I guess, would you do it again? Would you do something
differently with the setup? - Right away, I found out that once I had kiln dried wood that I would need more capacity. So, I actually wish it would have bought the bigger model of the iDry, but I didn't really know at the time, and I wanted to buy some other equipment along with the iDry. So it was just like, I don't wanna spend that much that soon, but a few months of having the iDry, I was like, "Okay, I wish I
would have more capacity." - I guess the payback
on it is pretty quicker, reasonable, depending on how much volume, you do, I guess? - Yeah, it all depends on
how much volume you wanna do. So for me, it's almost tough
to keep up with the demand, towards the middle of this past summer, I was basically pre-selling slabs wet. So people would come
over wanting something, I wouldn't have it dry, but I'd already have it cut. And they would pick out that slab and then they'd say,
"Okay, well I'll get it in kiln when I can. - Sure. - And it worked that way. So I actually, pre-sold
a lot of my inventory over the course of the summer, and I'm now actually getting
it dry and out the door. So it helps with that too. So you can do things a little
bit faster that way too, and you can increase
your cashflow right away, by selling half of the slab really, half down early. So, a lot of different ways to work it, but yeah, ultimately, I
just wish I had more volume. - It sounds like the volume matches whatever capacity you have. So does it even matter,
if you had a bigger one, you probably still want another one. - Probably, yup. And at that point I might
actually wanna hire somebody. - Thank you so much, Matt, for taking the time and showing us around and telling us about your business. I know I really enjoyed
hearing about it all and I get to geek out and
see what everybody else is doing out in the world. So, thank you again for taking the time to show everything and being
so open with everything. - Yeah, no problem. If anybody has any questions, they can always reach out to me too. - Thank you, and also
big thank you to iDry for making this possible. If you wanna check out their kilns and learn more about their stuff, you can check out their website, I'll have a link to that down in the video description. And I think that's gonna
do it for this one. - All right. - So thank you as always for watching. I really appreciate it, if you have any questions or comments about Matt sawmill operation,
you can bother him. - Don't go to him. (Matt laughs) - Please feel free to leave a comment and we'd be happy to answer
any questions you might have. And until next time, happy working.
