M2 Lumber: Matt Morgan
Hello Woodpreneurs! On the show today our guest is Matt from M2 Lumber. M2 Lumber is a sawmill and lumber yard that specializes in salvaging local trees that come down from storms or new development. They mill those into slabs and dimensional lumber but mostly live edge slabs, then dry those in one of their two kilns. M2 Lumber has a solar kiln that they built two years ago based on Virginia Tech’s design and also a new iDRY Standard vacuum kiln that came in February. M2 sells directly to the public, to other woodworkers, construction companies, contractors, interior designers, and even retail sales through that avenue. They also do a little bit of furniture building but that’s more of a guilty pleasure Matt says as he loves to build furniture.The Origin Story of M2 Lumber
Matt says it was not on purpose for sure. It was more of an accident. He grew up surrounded by woodworking as his dad is a very talented woodworker. Matt clarifies that his father isn’t a woodworker by trade, but just as a hobby, he has built almost everything. Everything that is extremely challenging you can imagine in the woodworking world, he’s built. Beautiful furniture, secretary desk, dining tables, corner cabinets, Matt recalls he built a grandfather clock, and even a violin once! In Matt’s college years, he naturally gravitated back to woodworking as a hobby. This continued after college. Looking to make some extra money on the side while also doing something he enjoyed, he started to do woodworking as a side business. Matt was building tables and small furniture as well as cutting boards trying to make a little extra money. Then, in 2015, he moved out to the country, as they discuss. “We have about five acres of land where we live now. My neighbor and I were talking one day, and we had a tree come down and I was like, “Well I don’t know what we’re gonna do with this. I guess I’ll burn it or whatever.” And he said, “Well, why don’t you take it over to the sawmill?” and my ears perked up when I was like “Sawmill what?” I didn’t know there was a sawmill around here and sure enough, there’s a sawmill run by name a guy named Terry Ellison, about two miles down the road. He milled it up for me and charged me like $60 or something ridiculously cheap. I was really hooked at that point because that was the first experience taking a tree getting it milled into lumber and then being able to do something with it.”
From Hobby to Company
Matt says part of the reason things have been so great is that his wife is very supportive. When turning your hobby into a business, it is so important to have that support, especially from your spouse! Matt notes he was definitely very careful about it as he didn’t want to go into debt and he actually waited a long time to jump in. A sawmill is not super cheap as we all know, but Matt took out a loan from his 401k to buy his sawmill. It ended up being the right choice, as he is now putting in 40 hours a week at least to his business, with a day job that is about 32 hours a week. “Mr. Bob, and I joke, we remember the first $40 that we made. We were so excited about that. I was like, wow, we made $40 we sold some wood, this is actually working.” They have come a long way since then, but it started with a couple of logs. At first, Matt recalls that sourcing logs was difficult and they spent a lot of time scouring the net but now fortunately because they have been in business for six years, enough people know about them and word of mouth is to the point where customers will tell someone when the tree comes down. “Oh, contact M2 Lumber they’ll buy that from you.” Matt’s day job is as a manufacturing engineer. He has a background in mechanical engineering from Clemson University.
Kiln Drying Experience
M2 has had their iDRY kiln running for eight weeks, but he’s already learned a couple of things and been on the phone with Brian, one of their engineers who is really awesome and really supportive when they have questions. Also, other iDRY owners and some friends have sawmills in lumber yards and Matt talks to them and asks them questions to get their feedback. On why Matt decided to go with a vacuum kiln, he says. “Well, one is because it’s been in my realm of understanding how they worked and I have some people that we know that I consider close friends in the northeast and I’ve talked to them about it and they like most people decided after only a year or two to go out and buy a second one. So any product that a company offers that is so good, they have to go out and buy another one, that’s a good sign.”Products and Services
Lately, M2 Lumber has been doing more custom milling. They weren’t doing so much before as people were interested in dry lumber. Now they are getting more phone calls and more requests for custom milling followed up by custom kiln drying. Matt suspects that some of it has to do with the popularity the lumber industry has gotten lately. People are just deciding with the prices as high as they are, they will cut their own trees down and pay someone to mill it up and kiln dry it for them.