Quist Road Lumber

“I enjoy working directly with customers who want lumber milled from resources on their own land. Having a portable band saw helps to make that possible.”

Michael Idoine enjoys identifying the species of a freshly sawn log by its smell. Favorite to his nose, both ash and white oak exude a distinct peppery smell, white pine when inhaled tends to smell faintly of resin, while red oak often gives off a sour wine-like aroma; black birch smells like birch beer. Of course, having one’s own portable band saw helps to cultivate this talent and custom sawing is what Michael specializes in. The thin-kerf band blades he uses reduce waste, and his portable mill easily saws logs as long as 24 feet and up to 30” in diameter. The hydraulic log-handling features of this mill save much of the physical effort for stacking boards and slabs.

Born in Toledo, Ohio, Michael has hung his hat in New England since 1967, and more locally in Wendell since 1971. His first experience working in a sawmill in 1969 was alongside Henry Sarafin of Chesterfield where he learned to run an edger and a lot about how a rough-sawn board should look. He also spent 6 years running surface planers,  radial arm drills, vertical and horizontal boring mills in area machine shops.

Since 1995, Michael has owned his own sawmill, and since May 2004 he has taken his business full-time. Occasionally logs are trucked to the Quist Road Lumber site, but typically it is the sawmill that travels from woodlot to woodlot and sawn lumber is left for the owner. Customers have used their lumber to build houses, barns, clapboards, flooring, and trim, among other projects. Michael also has several years experience resawing salvaged timbers for flooring and other uses.

Michael enjoys the mystery of sawing a log and not being sure what he’ll find inside. But the mystery is soon solved once the log face is opened and the experience can be spiced  by each logs unique aroma. 

Michael Idoine
Quist Road
Wendell, MA 01379

Phone: (978) 544-2623
Email: mikar65@earthlink.net