David Barmon: Epilogue LLC

August 12, 2021

Today on the Woodpreneur Podcast, our guest is David Barmon the author of Wood From the City and co-owner of Epilogue LLC based out of Charbonneau, Oregon. David explains that he had a serendipitous route into the wood industry. He worked as a flight attendant before getting interested in economics, politics, and resources, which led him to become a landscape construction laborer.

In 2007 David and his business partner found a job through Craigslist to do a landscaping project on a property that had been abandoned. There was a log laying in the backyard and David asked the realtor who hired them when they would be cutting it up and getting rid of it. The realtor told him that the cherry log wasn’t going to be firewood, it was going to be turned into furniture.
“A couple of days later, this guy Jeff Nelson showed up with a winch and an old truck and he put the log straight into the truck. I was like, ‘Well, what are you gonna do with that?’ And he’s like, ‘I got this bandsaw mill set up in my driveway and I’m going to mill it into boards and I’m going to turn it into furniture.’ I just had this epiphany realizing that’s the most interesting thing I think I’ve ever heard.”

David Barmon

The Potential of Urban Lumber

From that point forward, David was fascinated with the potential of urban lumber. He refers to himself as a tree nerd and a plant dork and someone who just loves being outside. David spent a lot of time learning from Jeff and a former business partner that he met through Jeff. A couple of years later he got some logs and a chainsaw mill set up in his friend’s driveway and just continued collecting logs for milling.

David adds that he picked up a good combination of equipment, willpower, and knowledge during his time in landscaping. After a while, he started working with a friend of his who was a metalworker and had worked as a wildland firefighter. Together they bought a mill, a skid steer, a larger truck, and a trailer, and started collecting logs and milling slabs.

“My interest has been not only the utilization of existing tree removals but how we could intentionally grow trees for lumber in cities. I was like, “Okay, we’ve got this kind of dysfunctional system where there are tree removals happening all the time, but people don’t necessarily know what to do with the wood or how to handle the material.

If we actually planned for this and we grew trees so they had fewer knots and better form and stuff like that, then we could actually scale the system where, instead of throwing all this wood in the garbage, we could actually put it to good use. And we could do it in a way that actually makes better economic sense.”

David Barmon

The Challenges Involved

David explains that as time has gone on and his business has developed and scaled he is no longer milling wood in his driveway. However, he notes that it’s challenging to get urban lumber from urban centers on any kind of regular schedule, due to the way that the market can differ and how different parts of the country have very different tree species available.

The Portland area offers a lot of excellent trees like black walnut and Oregon white oak which works well for flooring, cabinetry, and many other uses. David explains that there is a lot of this wood around, but it is largely ignored by the industrial logging system so it can be difficult for people to sell logs from these trees.

Over time David has perfected his sawmill skills through his years of practice. He notes that he was originally intimidated by sawing dimensional lumber, but learning the intricacies of individual species and thinking about the needs of the end-user has set him up for success over time now that he has been getting into that marketplace in earnest.

David adds that he doesn’t own a kiln of his own yet, as his current shop does not have access to three-phase power. However, he is a firm believer in getting help from people whenever needed. Steve agrees that just because you can do everything doesn’t mean that you need to.

Wood from the City

David explains that he has spent about four years working on his book Wood from the City and although it sometimes felt like a project that would never end, he felt there was an important gap in urban lumber information that he could provide. While there are a lot of excellent books on woodworking, he doesn’t believe that there is enough information available on the economics of forestry or how to simply remove a log from a yard and turn it into a product.

Seeing this opportunity, David realized he could tell a story of urban lumber through the lens of urban trees because many people live in these urban environments. By showcasing the story of an individual tree being taken down and turned into an actual product it allows the process to be shown and become relatable, which helps educate the general populace on the potential of urban lumber.

“There just isn’t much information about it. And I think most of the people buying the book now are really excited because they want to learn about how to work with urban lumber. While there’s a ton of information about that, I think a lot of other people will be really pleasantly surprised that it’s a book about forestry. It’s not just a how-to book.

Publishers want that kind of book, which is why I decided to self-publish. I understand that’s how their businesses work. But I want to write a book that’s actually transformational and really helps a lot of people. My goal is to really spark some real serious conversations about urban forestry and forestry in general.”

David Barmon

Kickstarting the Future

Wood from the City goes beyond a simple woodworking book. It provides information to people interested in learning about urban forestry but also inspiration on how to carve out a space in this industry. David believes that there are many tangled ideologies that are preventing people from solving the problem of the billions of dollars being spent to throw away billions of dollars of potential material.

From now until August 31st, 2021, David has a Kickstarter campaign for Wood from the City where people can contribute to this project. By going around publishers, David is able to create a book that will actually help people and actually raise awareness of what the urban wood and forestry communities are doing.

However, there are numerous costs involved with bypassing publishers, and David is incredibly thankful for all the backers he has currently and everyone who is interested and willing to support his work to allow Wood from the City to be the transformational work that it needs to be.
“It’s really important for me to say that I’m really passionate about this. I feel like this book can do good in the world and make the world a better place by planting trees and getting people connected with natural resources and wood in their communities.

We have an incentive to get trees planted in an area where maybe there’s not a very good tree cover because the public health benefits of trees are really important. The cancer rates go down birth rates go up. There’s just there’s a lot in there and I really think this book can help improve people’s lives in a lot of ways.”