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Photo by Bob Pennell Rocky Risser puts planks of maple in what will be the front room of the home he's building for his family along Griffin Creek. He salvaged the maple from the fireplace after it fell nine years ago. Out of the fire, onto the floor Woodworker saves fallen maple from flames, uses it in his home BY PAUL FATTIG When a huge broadleaf maple crashed across Griffin Creek Road on Feb. 14, 1990, pulling down power lines and blocking traffic, Rocky Reeser didn't see an inconvenience. He saw an opportunity. "As soon as I see maple or oak, I see either furniture or flooring," he explained. "It's beautiful wood." Reeser, 48, a U.S. Postal Service employee who likes to work with wood in his spare time, joined other neighbors helping to clean up the mess. Given the go-ahead from the county road department, most were bucking chunks of the tree into firewood. Not Reeser. Rocky Reeser's hardwood floor came from this tree, which fell across Griffin Creek Road during a snowstorm in 1990. "Some people get excited about gold panning and other things," he said. "When I see a beautiful grain in wood like that, I have to make something out of it instead of just burning it for firewood." The old tree, which had toppled during a snowstorm, had a conky core and root rot. "But when I started running my chainsaw through some of that outer wood, I saw it was solid -- just gorgeous," he said. "There were blood-red grains going through it. I knew this was a special tree." It was also a big tree. Reeser, a rangy fellow with long arms, stretched out his hands to show the tree's diameter. "It was just huge," he said. Since the tree was only about a half-mile from his property, he used a backhoe to haul chunks of the wood to his property. Reeser hired a local resident who owns a bandsaw to cut the wood into lumber. "Even though the center was rotted out, we still got planks that were 18 inches wide and 3 inches thick," he said. "Yeah, that tree was a monster. "I was going to make a medieval table for the house we had at the time," he added. "Well, we sold that house." The maple lumber was stored for several years. Reeser didn't know what he would do with it. Until he began building another home -- the third and last one he ever plans to build, he vows -- for his family, which includes his wife, Pam, two teenage sons, a dog and two cats. A portion of that storm-blown maple, which would have been cut into firewood, is being used to make a hardwood floor covering some 500 square feet in the great room of the two-story home Reeser is finishing on 10 acres the family owns along Griffin Creek. "It has to be tough -- it'll get a lot of use," he said. The large lumber was cut down to nearly an inch thick. A worn tablesaw, circa 1950s, one he bought at a garage sale, was employed to cut the boards down to 5 1/2 inches wide. Finally, the edges were cut into a tongue-and-groove pattern. Reeser, who has finished more than two-thirds of the floor, learned as a youngster how to lay hardwood floors at the hands of an expert. "My dad was a professional floor layer years ago," he said, although he doesn't claim to be an expert. "I know I'm not going to get perfection here," he said. "I want it to look almost like ship planking. "But when this is done, you won't see any cracks," he added. "You'll just see the big picture, no cracks or anything." As he works, he snugs up each board with few blows of a hammer, using a piece of scrap wood to avoid damaging the boards. Then he drills a hole in the tongue and drives home a nail. The groove in the next board covers the nail head. "The nice thing about tongue and groove is that it locks together, makes it real solid," he said. As a longtime woodworker, he marvels at the maple as he works. "I've seen a lot of oak, but this was really different wood," he said. "You have a lot of swirls, a lot of different patterns.'' Woven into the floor are pieces of oak from a tree that fell on his property. "It had all the worm holes and everything," he said. "I tried to save that. I like all the different patterns." Several windowsills in the home are from the same maple tree. Boards from fallen oaks on his property were used for his baseboards. "The whole bottom floor framing lumber are from beetle-killed Douglas fir from here," he said, adding, "There is a lot of Griffin Creek in this house." But it all started when the giant maple fell nearly nine years ago. "This floor will last my lifetime," he said. Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA