Keeter Manufacturing "the kee to quality"

It's a good thing we wised up and became an environmentally conscious nation. Protecting old growth timber was essential for so many reasons. Most importantly it would have been gone by now. In woodworking this did have a dramatic affect on the quality of lumber. Especially in redwood my primary material.

I have established a standard process for all lumber that comes into my shop. Clear lumber simply is not available today. The old saying "you don't see trees without limbs) is a fact. More importantly regrowth timber is not on the stump nearly long enough to generate clear lumber. It take hundreds of years to achieve this (old growth timber). Today's forest is more like a farm with a long term crop of about 50 years. My solution is as follows:

First is the inspection of the raw material (standard dimensional lumber from the mill)
Glue loose knots if they have a proper appearance
Run all lumber on every side through a drum sander shown next

A double drum sander uses a coarse sanding on the
 front roll and a finer sanding on the second roll. The
result is consistent sizing and surface

Feed the Beast

    

Consistent sizing and surface

Every edge is sanded

Lumber ready to be custom cut. All unacceptable defects are cut out.
When lumber is prepared in this manner the stain penetrates to
achieve a superior finish.

We stain each piece individually to assure every square inch
of the part is coated. We then assomble the components.

This is the basic process within our shop. Having worked with hundreds of thousands of lineal feet I know that lumber just is not sized consistently. My process assures proper fit and finish of everything we do. Gazebos, Pavilions, Decks or even our small products like a portable table.

As I mentioned in the beginning, The Process makes all the Difference.