Ron Dyrcz: Ronders

"People will come to me and say, 'Well, do you think you could like make a bowl out of that?' We can make like 15 tables; we could make your entire hardwood flooring. Showing people how much wood is actually in a tree's trunk is eye-opening for many people."

• Ron Dyrcz

Welcome to a brand new episode of the Woodpreneur Podcast. Today your host Steve Larosiliere sits down with Ron Dyrcz from Ronders wood and metal works in Illinois. Ron is a rare type of Woodpreneur, A chainsaw miller. Steve is fascinated with chainsaw milling because it is a very accessible form of milling but requires a lot of hard work. 

"It all started with being in the art world all my life, lots of family members, carpenters, trade people, you name it. So I've always been in the industry, but I never really saw the tree or the arborist industry. Then I got diagnosed with Crohn's, got sick, and lost my way. I didn't know where I would head or what job I would do. 

I started taking down trees in my own yard because they were old and dead trees and garbage. So I started cutting that stuff down and realizing we could do something more with this. From there, it just snowballed, I kept going more and more with the arborists and realized that here in Chicagoland, there's a crazy market for firewood and mulch, and that's the only thing the arborists in the area can afford to do. 

Since their overhead is so high, they can't spend time wondering what they will do with these logs. They have to chip it, dump that truck, and get onto the next job. Suddenly, I realized there was a little market for someone to come take those logs from these arborists, and that's when I started cutting my own lumber by just taking the logs from them. It's now to the point where I have more logs than I have time to cut."

• Ron Dyrcz

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