If you have driven through the lumber yard at Akron in the past couple of years, you may have seen a strange sight… logs sawn into 10/4 lumber (well, almost lumber- lacking square edges and ends) on air drying sticks and banded back together to log form.  These strange products are known in the wood products industry as boules.  The word “boules” alone is strange.  If you look it up in the dictionary, you will find that it is French for “ball” or referring to the traditional shape of French bread.  If you ask a salesperson at Pike Lumber Company what it means, they’ll tell you it’s a log sawn into natural-edge slabs, stickered and assembled sequentially back to log form.  The boule is then seasoned by our professional kiln operators and inventoried for sale.

 

Pike Lumber Company’s customers for boules are primarily distributors (domestic and international) that operate retail facilities. In these retail facilities, woodworkers can select a slab(s) from the boule or the entire boule.  The woodworker then has the raw material to make a natural edge table top for a beautiful wood table and perhaps some accompanying benches for the table.  This natural edge furniture product is rapidly growing in popularity- as evidenced by the company’s sales of these products.  To give some idea of how popular this style of furniture has become, on a recent sales trip into a northern Indiana woodworking shop, Jeff Irwin spotted natural edge tables and bench seats made from Walnut and wormy Soft Maple.

 

Why is Pike Lumber Company producing these strange boules?  The answer is simple.  These products are very unique and complement our product line quite well.  Because Pike is heavily involved in the raw material side of the business, we are able to grow and procure the large diameter logs necessary to produce boules.  The largest diameter logs produce the biggest boules.  These larger boules tend to be the most desired by the woodworker.  The most popular species in boules are Walnut and Cherry.

 

Now you know what these strange products in our lumberyard are.  While they are in indeed strange, difficult to move and difficult to warehouse, you can rest assured they are helping our profitability and continuing to keep Pike Lumber Company on the leading edge of the industry.