Rudd Montgomery on the job. Click to enlarge all our photos.
photo by John Shearer
Rudd Montgomery is keeping an Appalachian craft alive and depending on it for his livelihood as well.
Since 1997, the Signal Mountain resident has been operating his own old-fashioned sawmilling business, doing work that ranges from converting old boards and beams into mantels, to making picnic tables and benches out of cedar wood. Called Push Hard Lumber Co., which was named for a wood lumber business his great-grandfather operated in Quincy, Fla., in the 1930s, Mr. Montgomery’s business operates on 18 acres of land on which he resides at 4635 N. Fairmount Road.
Although he uses a more modern and safer band saw instead of a vintage circular saw depicted on the old Waltons’ television show, the rest of his operation is old fashioned, right down to the Appalachian-style beards he and workers Joe Stewart, Philip Miller and Charlie Reed sport.
“People always say, ‘Do you have to have a beard to work here?’” said a smiling and amicable Mr. Montgomery, who began wearing his when the new millenium dawned in 2000. “The answer is no, but I do hate to shave.”
Although the staff has not been cutting their beards, they have been cutting plenty of wood, making custom flooring and a variety of mantels, benches, tables, gates, trellises and other wooden decorative accessories.
Some of the wood they use comes from old buildings that are being dismantled, such as the 1880s’ Chris-Craft boat factory building on Dodds Avenue, which was recently gutted and remodeled by Cherokee Warehouses.
But much of the rest of the wood comes from trees that are being cut down anyway by tree trimmers for residents on the mountain and elsewhere. “We don’t have to buy any lumber, although sometimes I’ll have to buy cedar,” he said. “There are several (tree trimmers) who call me up. They know what we are looking for.”
Mr. Montgomery works with a variety of wood, including cedar, antique
heart pine, oak, cherry, poplar and maple. Cedar and heart pine (from old-growth pine trees) are probably his favorites, he said. “They are both really stable, especially heart pine, because it is older,” he said.
Although some of the work Mr. Montgomery does, such as cutting and finishing wood flooring, is rather routine and somewhat simple to do, much of the rest lets him feel more like an artist. “The creative part is what I’m interested in,” he said. “I’d love to be an artist and make furniture and sell it like people selling their paintings.” He has begun displaying and selling some of his pieces at the Chattanooga Market in the Cricket Pavilion next to Finley Stadium on Sundays, he said.
Despite the fact that his line of work is from a simpler and more laid-back time, Mr. Montgomery is reminded occasionally that it can be dangerous. One time he was jiggling with part of the sawmill that had frozen during cold weather, and his coveralls were cut. Since then, he has made a rule that no one can get on the front side of the mill while it is running.
Like the patterns cut with the old circular saws, Mr. Montgomery took a rather circuitous route to his line of work. One who naturally likes to work with his hands, he did some construction work while in college at the University of Tennessee after graduating from Baylor School in 1981.
Even back then, having wood in his hand put an idea in his head that he might like to devote his career to working with wood. Also about the same time, he was working with an outdoors program in North Carolina, and the feel of artificial nylon rope in his hand did not compare to the natural feel of wood, he said.
He later worked with Chattanoogan Scott Kelley building log cabins before starting his current business. One he built was a two-story structure where he and his wife, Becky, and their two children, Tyler, 8, and Louisa Rhodes, 6, now live.
The home, its surrounding buildings, and the three structures used for his sawmilling business make the area look as if John Boy or Jim Bob Walton might live there. The all-natural aroma of scrap wood burning during a recent rain added to the appealing setting.
Mr. Montgomery said he likes working with wood because he knows his pieces do not have to be perfect to be good representations of this folk craft.
“Wood is one of those things that is perfect in itself,” he said.