Falco Building and Sawmill Company

05/21/2026

I get calls from people looking for slabs for countertops, feature walls, and statement pieces, and I'm glad for it. This is where some of the most interesting wood I mill ends up. Every slab I have came from a tree that was already coming down somewhere in central NC. No two are alike and that's the point.

If you're working on a project that calls for something specific, reach out early. It takes well over a year to dry thicker slabs even using the kiln to finish them off. Most of the time if you're looking for a slab, you are at the mercy of what was cut years ago. Otherwise, I hope you have a lot of patience!

I have a rotating inventory of walnut, oak, cherry, hickory, and whatever else surprises me, so if you're looking for something now, send me a message.

05/19/2026

Buckle up! I added a pricing page to the website. You can check it out in all its glory at: falcosawmill.com/pricing

On-site milling, mill yard milling, blade charges, the whole picture. No more guessing or waiting for a quote just to find out if it makes sense for your project.

Questions beyond what's on the page, send a DM.

05/05/2026

05/04/2026

If you're new here, hi! I'm Pete.

I run Falco Building & Sawmill Co. out of Durham, NC. I bring a portable sawmill to your property and turn your logs into lumber, or you can drop logs at my yard and I'll mill them to your cut list. I also sell lumber and slabs direct if you need wood for a project.

I've been at this since 2019. Started out of a love for woodworking and a pretty strong opinion that good trees shouldn't end up in a landfill. And that hasn't changed.

Most of the wood I mill comes from trees somewhere in the Triangle. Storm damage, land clearing, and hazard removals bring a lot of trees down. I try to make sure as little as possible goes to waste. Low-grade lumber that doesn't make retail goes to community building projects. Sawdust and offcuts become animal bedding and firewood.

If you've got logs, a project, or just a question, send me a message!

05/02/2026

Every log that comes off the mill is basically a diary. Looking at the cross-section, the wide rings mean good years: plenty of rain, good growing conditions. Narrow rings mean the tree was stressed: drought, competition, a bad season.

You can read decades of weather history in the end grain of a single log if you know what you're looking for.There's a whole science built around this called dendrochronology.

Researchers use tree ring patterns to reconstruct climate records going back thousands of years. Old-growth wood has filled in gaps in the historical record that no other source could provide.

I'm not doing climate research out here, but I do think about this every time I look at an end grain. This tree lived through something... probably a lot of somethings. The rings are the record.

Just another reason to respect them by extending their value after they come down.

You can read more about my thoughts on sustainability and the responsible use of natural resources on my website: falcosawmill.com/about

04/26/2026

I've written about ash before, and I'll probably keep writing about it as long as I'm milling it.

A while back I posted about a curly ash job that stopped me in my tracks. That post came from a real place. I said at the time that as a sawyer dealing with a dying species, I feel a burden of stewardship to maximize the usefulness of every ash log I get to mill. I still feel that way. Maybe more so now.

The emerald ash borer has been moving through NC for years and the damage is real. A lot of ash is coming down whether we want it to or not.

The upside, if there is one, is that I'm getting to work with wood that's genuinely beautiful. Ash is light, strong, clean-grained, and excellent for flooring, furniture, and trim. While the borer does kill the tree, I have never noticed significant defects or any real noticable affects to the lumber quality. As long as the tree hasn't been standing dead or begun to rot, it will still yield good lumber.

I try to treat every ash log like it might be one of the last good ones, although we have learned a lot from the past and there are numerous active conservation efforts in place that have my hopes up!

If you want some ash lumber, now is a good time to ask. I've got limited amounts of ash in stock and I'd rather it go to something that lasts!

04/23/2026

See that black streak running through the boards? That's what happens when oak meets iron. The tannins in the wood react with the metal and leave a stain that travels through the wood over the tree's lifetime. The reaction is called iron tannate formation. It's the same reason old oak furniture goes dark around iron hinges and nails, and why winemakers have to be careful about iron contact with oak barrels.

Finding metal in a log is one of the less fun parts of being a sawyer. But it's also one of the most common. It's crazy what grows into trees: fences, signposts, old nails. Could be from a structure that hasn't existed in 40 years, or because people hang things on trees and the tree just keeps growing around it. It's cool if you think about it but not that cool if you're the one running the mill.

The stain doesn't affect the structural integrity of the board. Feelings are mixed, but personally I think it's part of the story of the log and there's nothing wrong with a little character.

My blades, on the other hand, have feelings about it.

Think that character would work for one of your projects? This wood is available, just shoot me a DM to ask about pricing.

04/23/2026

Meet Chuck!
He's a a rad local contractor who asked me to mill up some really nice quality red oak logs here at the mill yard. These logs yielded some great 4/4 and 5/4 quartersawn boards, some 7/4 for door stiles, and a couple of mantle pieces to boot!
If you need logs milled, call Falco Sawmill and I'll cut to order!
And if you are looking into local contractors, check out Triangle Home Solutions, LLC and see what Chuck can do for you!

04/21/2026

Newly arrived at the toy shop... Erm, "work shop" is the Grizzly 20" Helical head planer. Most of my tools and equipment are " ol reliable" type models, but after going through roughly 5 bench top planers in as many years, the time has come. Upgrades, people!

Here are some beautiful walnut slabs for my buddy Al's river table. If you want surfaced hardwoods to save yourself time get some quality S2S, that is now a service I can offer!

04/20/2026

If you know me, you know I hate waste, especially from the trees I mill. You can call it sustainability, or maybe I'm a weird kind of tree hugger, but it's more a mindset of seeing value in the waste... "One man's trash is another man's treasure"

Recently I got to thinking about how I was handling the "waste" and off-cuts. This is not great wood for anything structural, but I have had a lot of people tell me they use these kinds of mill ends for corrals or even barn or rustic cabin siding.

If you have a project where you could use this wood, shoot me a DM, lets talk and arrange pickup. And while you're at the millyard I can show you what we have in inventory for other projects!