The Picture Man goes to the Woodshed in Butler County

Thu, 01/08/2015 - 10:00am — Diane Dyer

Surrounded by Sycamore trees, the Picture Man stood next to the only Beech tree visible in Bill Reek's (a.k.a. Lumber Jack) back yard. He thought to himself that the gray bark of the lone Beech matched the color of the sky almost to a t. Bill Reek's homestead and wood lot are located on 231 on the edge of Butler County about a two by four's throw away from Ohio County. What had brought the Picture Man here were rumors of a sawmill cobbled together out of leftovers, spare parts and ingenuity.

After meeting Bill next to his woodshed the two men moved inside. Talking at the dining table in Bill's kitchen several parts of the conversation stood out. Bill spoke in a friendly but direct way someone talks that has been around a while and occasionally needs a little prodding to get at the story. Bill said to the Picture Man "In my day there was no recycling, we called it make do with what you've got." "My Granddaddy was a blacksmith, my daddy was a woodworker
and I was born with sawdust in my veins so I just had to follow the way."

Bill and his log peavey.
He went on to say "I was a carpenter in Illinois until I retired in 1984 and moved here, one day we had a straight winds that blew down trees in a swath about two hundred feet wide. I couldn't see all that good wood going to waste and not having the money to buy lumbering equipment, I built my own. My first band saw cost me $93.40. I used a chain from a washing machine, bought the pipes and pulley at an auction, the angle iron came from a boat trailer and the engine is from an old Roto Tiller. The wheels for the band saw came from a Rambler American."

Bill and the Thriftwood
Hearing all this got the Picture Man excited about the possibility of a real picture story and asked Bill if they could go out back and look over this unusual contraption squirreled away out in the woodshed. The path to the band saw took the men past an old rusty Rambler American, a few Chevy Suburbans saved for spare parts and some other mechanical pieces of what used to be something else. When Bill opened the door to the shed the men were greeted with an wide
assortment of markers from a handyman's history. With parts of trees stacked against the walls and the corners hiding old bicycles, pipes, buckets, tubing, pieces of metal and a blacksmith's anvil the shed was a true handyman's paradise. The smell of oil and scorched wood surrounded the masterpiece of ingenuity, the hand built recycled parts Yellow-Jack-It band saw with its smaller electric Thriftwood behind it.

Bill's log lofter and hauler

The Yellow-Jack-It Band Sawmill is powered by a 10 h.p. gas operated engine, uses a custom ordered saw blade, is one person operated and can cut logs up to 36" in diameter. With a smile on his face and practiced hands Bill fired up the Yellow- Jack-It and gave a quick demonstration of what a precision band saw can do to a Sycamore log.
Quicker than a person could say "Those are some sharp teeth," Bill had sliced a quarter inch piece of veneer from the fat log. He could just as easily cut out a 4x4 timber. Bill still hauls a log or two but his main order of business is to sell plans for the band saws so anybody can have a band saw mill. He has customers from all over North America and at least 13 countries.

Handyman's paradise