Dufur Man Joins Sawmill Trade Before Heading Into Retirement
By Andrew Cutler
For many people, retirement offers the opportunity to slow down—perhaps travel and enjoy new vistas.
For Vince Cobb, though, his approaching retirement from the city of The Dalles has sparked a new business venture renovating his old sawmill in Dufur and turning it into a thriving side business.
In 2023, Vince’s son, Josh, made an unexpected offer. Josh asked Vince if he wanted to take over an old mill in Dufur. Josh offered some cautious advice first.
“He called me and said, ‘Dad, you don’t really want this mill,’” Vince says. “‘If you’re going to do this when you retire, you need to get a hydraulic mill that automatically turns the logs.’”
The advice was key and invaluable. Vince invested in a computerized hydraulic mill capable of handling logs up to 36 inches in diameter and 24 feet long. He then turned a hobby into a thriving sawmill business named Straight Log Milling.
“Being a senior, turning logs by hand would have been quite a challenge,” Vince says. “It was definitely money well spent.”
Learning the Trade
An Alameda, California, native, Vince spent most of his adult life in Dufur. His job with the city of The Dalles—where he began in the street department—furnishes enough flexibility for him to practice his millwork. His mill can create boards up to 33 inches wide. The computerized hydraulic mill guarantees precise dimensions when cutting raw timber into lumber.
Vince says the learning curve was steep. He found out how simple it is to damage an expensive cutting blade by slicing the log stops that ensure timber does not roll off the mill.
“Anybody that’s running a sawmill tells you that you’re going to ruin a sawmill blade by running into the log stops,” he says. “Me being the kind of fella that I am, I’m thinking, ‘No, that’s not going to happen to me.’ I’m here to tell you it’s happened to me multiple times.”
Vince also learned how to slice boards without waviness and increase the yield from each log.
“Probably 1 of the biggest challenges is learning how to get the most efficient use out of a log,” he says. “It’s pretty easy to just make the board you want and throw away the excess, but it’s not very efficient when you have to pay for the logs.”
Building a Business
Vince’s mill is smaller than most other commercial ventures, but he has whittled out a niche, helping potential customers searching for specific cuts for custom projects. He handles mostly Douglas fir, creating what he calls high-quality pieces of lumber that ensure customers' return.
His business has also swelled beyond lumber.
Vince has grown the business by investing in a self-loader log truck. The truck can move logs to his mill for custom cut jobs, and it serves as a contract hauler for other logging operations. Vince also used remnants from his millwork to leverage a successful firewood operation.
Vince’s wood products have been used for a variety of projects, including siding, bridges, fencing, and truck decks for flatbed vehicles. Most of his customers are local, but he has shipped products to Washington state.
1 of Vince’s most popular products is blue pine siding, built from pine trees affected by beetles. The destruction the beetles inflict produces the distinctive blue color of the wood.
He also works with people who want lumber milled from their own trees.
The work isn’t easy. “You’re tired at the end of the day,” Vince says.
Yet he says it is also deeply rewarding. He often ends up in long conversations with other sawmill operators, sharing techniques and views about the business.
“It’s all associated with grins and happiness,” Vince says. “It is so addictive.” While Josh operates his own separate milling business, father and son often share ideas and advice.
“We talk often of it,” Vince says. “It’s actually probably pretty close to a topic of discussion almost every time we talk because it’s interesting and cool.”
As his retirement looms, Vince says he wants to expand his millwork, though he wants to continue the small business, boutique nature of his work. He doesn’t want to compete with big commercial mills.
Throughout the years, Vince has slowly added features to his equipment, including a computerized dimensioning system, to enhance the efficiency and the quality of his products.
Vince says his hobby-turned-business is fully supported by his wife, Terry.
“She pretty much supports anything I want to do,” he says. “That’s just kind of the way she is.”
Vince says his only regret is not beginning his business earlier. He acknowledges, though, that starting earlier would have been difficult because of other commitments.
He says he is content knowing his business allows him to stay active in retirement while also producing cash.
“It’s not something that we set out to do,” Vince says. “It just kind of snowballed into that. But it’s fun. I enjoy the heck out of it.”