— aka Beetle Kill

Lodgepole logs are on the smaller size of log when it comes to sawlogs.  The dead standing Beetle Kill logs are harvested by the loggers we work with mainly from the Grand County and Route County area in Colorado. 

These trees have been standing dead for up to 20 years and many of the logs we get are harvested from blow down area’s.  The logs that come into are yard are very dry and the lumber we mill is typically ready to go straight to our moulder/planer to make T&G and the other material we produce.  If the moisture in the lumber is not where we need it we can air dry the material for a short time to get the desired moisture content needed with out having to put the material in our Kiln’s. 

The Blue Stain in these logs are in the sapwood of the log (the outer ring) and the heartwood is what we call White Pine. Because these are dead standing salvaged logs they have developed cracks in the logs.  Large commercial mills reject these logs because of this reason.  After 15 years of milling these logs we’ve become very efficient at mining the good material out of the log and producing useable material. 

There’s a misconception that Beetle Kill Pine is a very low cost material but because of the tremendous amount of waste in milling this material and the difficulty of harvesting these logs that is not the case.

Blue Stain makes great Tongue & Groove flooring, paneling, ceilings, and siding.