Recent press releases

"Duluth Timber provides reclaimed wood for NBC's studio coverage of Vancouver Winter Games" 2/25/10 pdf

Kudos from TreeHugger.com about the reclaimed wood used in 2010 Vancouver Olympics! slink

"'Extreme Home' premiere to reveal built-in stories of Duluth Timber's antique wood" 9/21/09 pdf

"DuluthTimber provides key old wood for new Extreme Makeover home" 8/03/09 pdf

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Vancouver Winter Olympics

NBC broadcasts feature Duluth Timber reclaimed wood

  • NBC Olympics broadcast set
    Reclaimed Douglas fir and redwood wine tank staves featured in NBC set salvaged and custom milled by Duluth Timber at our yard in Edison, WA
  • NBC Olympics broadcast set
    NBC crew at work near the redwood wall
  • Redwood wall material
    Redwood was milled, planed, drum sanded and hand sanded, conditioned and Danish oiled
  • NBC Olympics broadcast set
    The 1,000-sq ft. redwood wall mimics original towering tanks,
    with corduroy texture
  • Redwood wine tanks
    Rows of redwood tanks at Blossom
    Hill Winery before decommissioning
  • NBC Olympics broadcast set
    Rock and roll scaffolding is ready to receive our slabs of reclaimed Doug fir
  • NBC Olympics broadcast set
    Finished product, all aglow
  • Douglas fir from Vancouver
    Delivered from Vancouver and stored in our Edison, WA yard,
    10- and 15-foot Doug fir timbers
  • Edison yard saw operation
    Dennis carefully cuts one granddaddy timber into 1/2" slices
  • Slices bundled for shipping
    Slices are stacked and bound in order, so the set shop in Vancouver can easily book-match the slabs
  • Reclaimed Douglas fir on NBC set
    NBC set crew installs one of the wafer-thin slices of reclaimed Douglas fir to a rock and roll truss
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NBC’s coverage of Vancouver Winter Games airs from a set featuring reclaimed old-growth wood. Duluth Timber Company provided NBC with redwood reclaimed from wine tanks and old-growth Douglas fir from a Vancouver warehouse. During the tight shots of off-slope interviews, the antique wood can be seen just over the shoulder of the ‘talent’.

One set piece is a 1,000-square foot wall of wine-barrel redwood Duluth Timber reclaimed from Blossom Hill Winery in Hollister, CA. Dreamer Productions’ Jesse Joslin and the NBC crew milled the old staves, darkened them, and applied them in perfect ribs. Like wide-wale corduroy, it forms a soft, rich surface on set.

Kim Jennings, a New York production designer who also works in films, has worked on eight other Olympics’ sets around the world. This year she’s enjoying her long-established relationships with NBC’s engineers, as well as working with such unique material.

“All three types of wood from Duluth Timber had just the character we wanted,” Jennings said. “The grains are fantastic, and the quality of the wood is so wonderful.”

In addition to premium tank stock, Duluth Timber provided Douglas fir reclaimed from a warehouse in Vancouver’s now-fashionable Yaletown neighborhood. Just one of these old-growth timbers yielded dozens of half-inch slices, milled paper-thin as cladding for NBC’s ‘rock and roll’ truss system.

“We have some amazing spans we did with that lumber,” Jennings said of the slices. “I think our longest one was 19 feet, and it’s 22 inches wide, all out of one piece.”

Reclaimed wood is sought after by architects, timber framers and homeowners for the same reason Olympic designers opt for it. The old wood is completely stable, so joinery holds tight and designs stay true—all while recycling the planet’s best old-growth wood.

View the news story, Brandin's Interview on Seattle's KING-5 TV

Learn more and view great photos:
• wine wood tank stock
• old-growth story from North America's virgin forests
• huge timbers reclaimed from deconstruction sites, our 'industrial forest'