Celebrating 40 Years: Woody's Journey in Trucking and Shed Hauling PART 1

How do you balance personal milestones with professional triumphs? This week on the Shed Geek Podcast, we celebrate Woody's Transports in Pennsylvania, marking an incredible 40 years in the trucking and lumber industry. Host Sam Byler shares some heartfelt moments, including his daughter’s 28th birthday, and invites Woody to recount the past five years of his journey. Woody’s tales from the Tennessee and Utah Bashes and the story behind his stunning purple truck color scheme will keep you captivated as we explore the community spirit and passion fueling the industry.

Discover the power of storytelling as we reflect on an unforgettable narrative that sparked deep connections at a bash event. We discuss how a speaker’s journey from humble beginnings in 1984, moving from Ohio and starting a hauling business with the help of a friend, resonated with many attendees. The conversation touches on the challenges of balancing event schedules with personal time and the overwhelming response from an engaged audience, making this a must-listen for anyone seeking inspiration and understanding the significance of shared experiences.

Join us as we navigate the evolution of shed delivery logistics, from makeshift equipment to professional trailers. Hear firsthand accounts of moving sheds with PVC pipes and handyman jacks, and the ingenuity required to overcome early obstacles. We delve into vehicle modifications, the pros and cons of different brake systems, and the daily operations in shed hauling. Woody shares insights into the dedication and innovation that have driven his business to success, offering a fascinating glimpse into the complexities and triumphs of the shed hauling industry. Tune in next week for part two of this insightful series!

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This episodes Sponsors:
Studio Sponsor: Union Grove Lumber

Transcript

Sam Byler: 0:07

So welcome back to another episode of the Shed Geek podcast, Sambassador Friday Funday style. This is still kind of new to me. I've done a couple, but I'm still working on this and I couldn't have better guests to get started out with than what I had. And today we are in Pennsylvania at Woody's Place, celebrating 40 years.

Woody Stoltzfoos: 0:36

Do you feel that old? No, no, not at all.

Sam Byler: 0:39

Do you ever wonder? So we were talking about my daughter. Megan's birthday is today and she's 28. Shane's getting ready to turn 32. I don't feel old enough to have kids that old. And then you said that your son's turning 42. And I'm like that's starting to show your age a little bit. So how do you keep? You're still driving, right, you're still trucking. Yes, I am. You build a beautiful truck, had it down at the bash. Um, I was, I was so happy to see you. Um, I don't really think that you crawled out of a shell, but so I've known you. What? Five years now?

Sam Byler: 1:21

um, four or five five years or what five personally knowing you like we've known each other on facebook for longer than that, but um in uh.

Woody Stoltzfoos: 1:31

Tennessee bash was the first we actually met facebook yeah, that was 2019 and so that it's five years, it feels like forever does it not? I mean, it feels like a long time ago yeah, and you know the bash is really amazing on what's doing that. It took a little time to actually filter through, but there's more and more people. Oh, I got to go back to the bash because they want to make that connection with other people that they met and so forth. That's going on.

Sam Byler: 1:58

The other part of that is they seem to do pretty good at telling other people you have to be there, like it keeps growing. They seem to do pretty good at telling other people you have to be there, like it keeps growing, jason, and I keep thinking it's going to cap out. Obviously, the Utah one was smaller because we were out in the middle of nowhere but that was fun, like we had less people but we had a good time. We did.

Woody Stoltzfoos: 2:15

We had an absolute blast.

Sam Byler: 2:17

You drug that big toolbox all the way out there and put it all together and we raised money with that. I see you have a nice one. You have one down there in your shop, that's I do.

Woody Stoltzfoos: 2:27

Yeah, it's pretty much exactly the same thing that we had out in the utah bash couldn't get it in purple, no.

Sam Byler: 2:35

So what happened yesterday?

Woody Stoltzfoos: 2:38

I was 10 minutes too late. I went to harbor freight to get this purple. It was on sale and it was a deal five. They had 10 days of deals and this was deal five and the Lancaster Harbor Freight didn't have any. So I called around. Yeah, yeah, they already had one. That's 30 miles away. I'm like, hey, I'll be there at 8 o'clock. I was 10 minutes late and I walk in. I lay my phone down, I said I want this, and down I said I want this, and they said, well, we don't have any. I said, yeah, you do you told me yesterday you had one.

Sam Byler: 3:08

They said, oh, it's sold. That's all my word.

Woody Stoltzfoos: 3:09

10 minutes obviously going to be a hot item already is well, I have a purple chair.

Sam Byler: 3:15

I think that should count for something. I actually brought it. You seen it and you're like what? What is this? I'm like? Well, I do have a purple chair, so I have to be careful with purple where I live because there's a football team down there that everybody seems to like. I'm not even going to give them the honor of putting their name on there, it's just there's a college football team down there and their colors are orange and purple, so there's a lot of purple chairs around there.

Woody Stoltzfoos: 3:38

Well, we have the Ravens here at Baltimore. Oh well, that's true, they're black and purple, aren't they? They have tan. Yeah, oh, they have tan too, maybe they do Well, maybe it's black and purple, I'm not sure, but they have purple in some way.

Sam Byler: 3:48

Yeah, they used to have some football players I really liked back in the day. They were beasts. But why purple? Where did purple come from?

Woody Stoltzfoos: 3:58

I don't know Back when I I bought my first truck as Woody's Transport in 2000. It was already. The truck was already set up. It was a truck that was ordered from the company I was driving for, King Transport, and the Megalongs were short. They sold the company before they ever took possession of the truck. So the truck was sitting in Lancaster at the Peterborough Theater and I had no idea I was going to buy that truck at the time.

Sam Byler: 4:29

So you went and looked at it though oh yeah, oh okay.

Woody Stoltzfoos: 4:33

It was for me.

Sam Byler: 4:33

The truck was for me. I thought so.

Woody Stoltzfoos: 4:36

Either way, that was a Burgundy and that was all King's Colors Burgundy with gray interiors. That's what he wanted it was burgundy with gray interiors.

Woody Stoltzfoos: 4:44

That's what he wanted, and this one had gray and red on the inside, which was really nice with the American class interior and so forth. But I always had my mind focused towards I want to steer towards the purple somehow. I didn't know how to do that and I kept watching and looking online. Well, the online wasn't so popular then, but I found a calendar that struck my eye with a picture of a Pete from Texas. I believe it was. I think it was in Texas, and I said I like that and it was the way it was. The tan and the purple was put together.

Woody Stoltzfoos: 5:18

It broke the color up a little bit as far as not too much purple, and I was going to be careful not to look feminist. And well, esther, my wife, she's very good with colors.

Sam Byler: 5:30

Like if you look around, you basically hear all these colors. It's absolutely beautiful.

Woody Stoltzfoos: 5:33

She blends them together and everything looks right, and so she helped me with that and choosing the right tan, as light as possible, and the purple has to be plum, which we did. That Okay. And that's been pretty much the color that we kept.

Sam Byler: 5:49

That's what you stuck with.

Woody Stoltzfoos: 5:49

Since let me think a little bit 2002 was the first tan in purple peat. Okay, that was what we called our second chance.

Sam Byler: 5:57

Okay, yeah, I was going to ask you about that. So it's just kind of like blue for me, like I'm a white and blue guy. If I have to, I'll do gray and blue, but I just now I have a reason. I grew up in Kentucky and I'm a diehard Kentucky basketball fan, uk fan, and their colors are white and blue and occasionally they put a silver in with it, and I've been gone there for, oh, my 35 years and I still have that problem.

Sam Byler: 6:30

I get away from it for a couple years and then they play good again and then I'm back in. So yours isn't really tied to anything, you just like the color.

Woody Stoltzfoos: 6:37

Not really. It's just basically what Esther and I, we came together and pulled together. And the driver's appreciation was really big on that.

Sam Byler: 6:47

Okay.

Woody Stoltzfoos: 6:48

I bought a used truck in 2004. That one was green. I had a brand new trailer built for that.

Sam Byler: 6:56

Green trailer.

Woody Stoltzfoos: 6:57

I asked him. I said do you want the trailer to match the trailer? He goes. No, he goes. You make the trailer purple. So it was a purple trailer with a green like a hunter green, it was a darker green. And we didn't. It didn't match. It was a little bit of a clash, but he didn't care. I want that purple trailer. He wanted a purple trailer, so we did end up painting that truck maybe three years down the road and made it tan and purple and people thought, oh you got two new trucks and five.

Woody Stoltzfoos: 7:30

I got the one I'm currently driving that was tan and purple from the factory and then it was right over that time and it looked like two new trucks.

Sam Byler: 7:42

It was just repainted so would the green have been like? Similar to some of what the LG trucks look like it was darker.

Woody Stoltzfoos: 7:49

Oh, it was darker than that. It was darker, yeah, oh wow, it was a hunter green. It was a pretty dark green All right, that's cool.

Sam Byler: 7:56

So, yeah, you came to the bash, you made up all these shirts, you wanted to do a thing. You actually sponsored the bash. I did. I was like, wow, I'm getting back to where I was when I said, woody, you seem to have crawled out of a shell a little bit. Not that you wouldn't talk, you just didn't freely give away information, and we've had conversations about that. But us old guys, we don't come across the way some of the young guys do, and so it's hard to know when to say something and when not to say something, because you don't know how people are going to take anything. Well, I just quit giving, I don't care anymore, I just give it anyway. But all of a sudden it seemed like, well, this 40th anniversary probably, I guess, is what pushed you over the edge or what all of a sudden happened.

Woody Stoltzfoos: 8:36

I began to realize that a lot of things happened in my life that it seemed like the younger generation should or would like to hear it, and I guess it was probably they like to hear it. They really do.

Sam Byler: 8:51

See, that's it. It amazed me why do we get stuck thinking that people don't want to hear our stories?

Woody Stoltzfoos: 8:58

Well, I look at it as the same old thing, but it's not.

Sam Byler: 9:01

No, it's not, it's like. For us it's the same old thing big years to them yeah they really soaked it in, they did yeah.

Sam Byler: 9:10

So you, you came to the bash, you had your table set up and all your t-shirts and stuff, and then then you know, you got to tell your story and the place got quiet like when I get up there and yabber away, you can hear people talking everywhere. You got up there and started talking and it went quiet. Everybody was paying attention. You have a very intriguing and riveting story, yeah, and the thing that is amazing I was talking to my wife this morning. I said and the thing that's amazing to me, the more you tell it, the more it grows, because people become involved in your story. And you're like hey, that's so-and-so, and I mean like last night we were talking with the cook and all of a sudden there's more connections. Did you ever think it would grow like that?

Woody Stoltzfoos: 9:54

No, no, I didn't see that, but no.

Sam Byler: 9:56

I didn't see that.

Woody Stoltzfoos: 9:56

But even after the bash, guys would text me or message me on hey, can we talk? I want to talk to you on the phone and we did that and it's been really amazing and a blessing to me to hear other people bring maybe like one sentence that I said and it struck to them. It's like that's me.

Sam Byler: 10:18

Or that was them at that person, or that person at that time.

Woody Stoltzfoos: 10:21

Yeah, in a different time of life, but it was. It was just amazing to me how many people called me, text me, message me on Facebook, said hey, I love that story that's cool.

Sam Byler: 10:32

So so can we walk through this a little bit? Um, you, you did a fantastic job there at the at the bash, but we didn't give you enough time. It was a little bit um, you, you did a fantastic job there at the at the bash, but we didn't give you enough time. It was a little bit short, and I get that, because everything gets jam packed together so bad. I really want to add the third day, but there's no way to do it because people just can't. It's bad enough to have to take off two days. I don't want to do it on a weekend because I want people to have their weekends. You, you know, and I consider it, I consider the bash part of our work. It's part of our job. So work is my ministry, so it's doing ministry for me, but I like to do it during the week so that nobody, you know, gets messed up for the weekend or whatever.

Woody Stoltzfoos: 11:14

Well, it's not done really soon. People figure it in, put it in their schedules, yeah, and they do.

Sam Byler: 11:19

And then, you know, like I said, it seems like we're constantly building a couple more, more and more people become involved. And man, I can't. I was burned out for two weeks afterwards, because I always do, but I was excited because we're going to Texas, like I'm ready to go again because Texas is just going to be great. So, yeah, I want to give you an opportunity to do that and I think Shannon has a tremendous amount of listeners that would never hear this story, that need to hear it. So I'm just I'll interrupt you occasionally, but I want you to just do what you did at the batch and just walk through the story and, uh, tell you what you want to, um, tell you what you want to say. And then today you're having this big party here and you're expecting 200 people. I am that's, it's crazy. And they're coming from canada and florida and who knows?

Woody Stoltzfoos: 12:10

florida to canada, every state, every state in between? Are we going to give a shout out to martin for not?

Sam Byler: 12:16

making it, martin hostetler, where you at buddy?

Woody Stoltzfoos: 12:19

he uh, he was thinking they wanted to come and they have family here. He has a daughter here yes, he does so, however, whatever else was going on, yeah in their lives.

Sam Byler: 12:29

That didn't work yeah, well, he's got a new truck now, you know, so I'm sure he's probably got to work harder, um, so, yeah, just take it away. I'll. Uh, if I have a question, I'll interrupt you for a second, but um, it was in 1984.

Woody Stoltzfoos: 12:43

Um, I wanted to change. Uh, I was working for immediately nine per hour and and, uh, I remember there was a day that I said, look, I'm not gonna work like this, I'm gonna have to do something, something's going to change. I didn't know how to do that. I was only 22, 23 years, probably 22 at that time.

Sam Byler: 13:05

Uh-oh, we're going to figure out how old you are.

Woody Stoltzfoos: 13:07

Yeah, and so I spent some time in Ohio after we were married. That's where Esther, my wife, was from and we were not firmly planted in Ohio. We just kind of like, well, you know, we'll stay here, and we didn't really talk about it very much. And at some point we decided. We kind of decided that we was going to pursue the plans and talk to my parents and what are the options for us to move in. I had no job, nothing lined up, and I had a friend named JB and he's going to be here at the party today.

Sam Byler: 13:49

Really.

Woody Stoltzfoos: 13:51

He was in a hauling business locally. He did rollback hauling general freight for the Amish, mostly for the Amish, and he kept telling me there's a lot of work out there and he had a small account, could I say a customer that made sheds, a shed builder, and did some, moved some sheds for them. That was in 84, when we moved in from Ohio in probably March or April, I can't remember the exact date and I kind of did odds and ends and, yeah, I was pursuing to get a pickup and get some sort of a trailer, possibly a gooseneck trailer, and I didn't have any particular thing in mind that I was going to be hauling and I did some loads. In fact, sam, the first load I hauled out of Gordonville, where Pine Hill used to be, in that building was farm equipment.

Woody Stoltzfoos: 14:47

I hauled a load of hay tatters to Stanton, Virginia.

Sam Byler: 14:51

Stanton Virginia, which just happens to be where I'm from originally.

Woody Stoltzfoos: 14:54

Yes, that was in 84, so you were probably gone already, I'm sure.

Sam Byler: 14:58

Yeah, yeah we left in 76 or 7. Oh so yeah, we were gone. Yeah, but that's crazy together.

Woody Stoltzfoos: 15:06

So and then it kind of got started and they gave me more loads and some wagon loads like the hay baler, the thrower wagons with the big high sides yeah and those were heavy, I didn't really care for them. The hay tethers were clumsy, bulky, they were hard to tie down. Yet they all wanted everything for the best money.

Sam Byler: 15:29

Oh yeah, and I bought them on.

Woody Stoltzfoos: 15:31

And however it worked, it was nothing that great. But one day JB calls me and says hey, I got a shed that needs to go to Jersey for Johnny Boone, could you haul it for me? I said sure, and it was a pre-built, like it was a pre-fab or however you want to call it. So it was just partially built. Oh, okay, so there was no, it was not an assembled shed.

Sam Byler: 15:55

They just stacked it all together. Yes, it was the floor, and then the sides and the walls and stuff. Oh, that's interesting, they were doing that back then oh, yeah, yeah.

Woody Stoltzfoos: 16:05

So we went to Englishtown, New Jersey.

Sam Byler: 16:08

Were you oversized no. Okay.

Woody Stoltzfoos: 16:11

No, everything was.

Sam Byler: 16:12

Everything was in size.

Woody Stoltzfoos: 16:13

I don't think I was oversized. No, I don't think so. I don't think I was oversized. No, I don't think so. I don't know what, even size. You know what, I don't know. Maybe I was oversized.

Sam Byler: 16:21

That's interesting.

Woody Stoltzfoos: 16:22

I don't think so, but it's possible. That's a part. I would say it was not oversized. Okay, they had the floor broken down.

Sam Byler: 16:31

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Woody Stoltzfoos: 16:35

The old man Johnny Boom, and he had one guy named Sam. What was his last name?

Woody Stoltzfoos: 16:38

It was a young Amish guy went along and I was like man, this is going to take forever. Several hours later, the set was done, oh my. And so we came home and Johnny Boom and my parents were friends. Actually, I went to school with some of Johnny Boom's boys. Ephraim was a year a grade behind me, or in my grade at the Amish school right here in my area, so the third grade was the last that I would have attended the Amish school. However, we never forgot each other. We always knew each other.

Woody Stoltzfoos: 17:13

I can't remember my parents visiting after my parents left the Amish church in 70. But before that sometimes we'd go visit Johnny Booms on a Sunday night.

Sam Byler: 17:24

Yeah.

Woody Stoltzfoos: 17:25

And I know one particular time, whitey, which that's a nickname, mayor Lance was there from Lance Structures, from Lance Structures.

Sam Byler: 17:34

Way back then. Way back then, yeah, way back. So hold on a sec. So the first shed Way back then. Yeah, way back. This is. So hold on a sec. So the first shed you delivered. The builder actually went along with you, put the shed together and then y'all all came home together.

Woody Stoltzfoos: 17:47

Yeah, that's correct, a two-hour drive, but it was about a two-hour drive down to Ennistown, New Jersey.

Sam Byler: 17:53

That's pretty cool and they were so excited.

Woody Stoltzfoos: 17:55

Ephraim was like we're looking for a guy like you and right away we started talking about more. Yeah, I said absolutely. I was all over it. $2 a mile no, that was the numbers that they were using. I'm like this was big bucks to me back then.

Sam Byler: 18:12

Yeah, okay.

Woody Stoltzfoos: 18:17

We're back again. That feels better. Thank you, when was I Right away, Johnny Boom, Ephraim. Ephraim was the foreman of the shop and they were all over it. They wanted me in there to haul. We discussed three days a week. We discussed rates $35 a mile, no, $35 for the first 20 miles to set up any shed.

Sam Byler: 18:39

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, you had a minimum Any area, yeah.

Woody Stoltzfoos: 18:42

There were several times. I took two sheds out and got paid $35. And I'm like oh this is not quite the way it should be, so I said I'd like to have another $15 to set the second shed within the 20 miles. Yeah, and they agreed to that. How to set the second shed within the 20 miles? Yeah, and they agreed to that.

Sam Byler: 19:01

How was that?

Woody Stoltzfoos: 19:01

Anyway, we did that for a little while and as reality starts breaking down, I realized that I have costs and I had to do some mods to my trailer. My trailer was not designed for sheds at all.

Sam Byler: 19:16

Okay.

Woody Stoltzfoos: 19:16

It was pretty prettyful. I'm going to use the word prettyful, but I made it work and I went to the local welding shop up here and they were very helpful and we laid some channel irons down on the trailer, on the flatbed gooseneck trailer, to use for the runners for the sheds and that was very helpful and on the end of that we had a roller so that when the shed did tilt but there was no dump.

Sam Byler: 19:44

Oh, yeah, yeah no.

Woody Stoltzfoos: 19:46

I put a little wrench back there and pulled him to the back and just pulled until the shed went over there you go. So that worked out. But before that it was Johnny Boom's boys, daniel and Ephraim, that introduced me to the PVC pipes and the handyman jacks.

Sam Byler: 20:04

Oh yeah. Tools of torture.

Woody Stoltzfoos: 20:08

Yeah, they were. So we actually jacked the shed up on the trailer before the rails and rolled it back, and then we tried to figure out where that last roller was going to be, so that when the shed goes over center that the roller doesn't drop out before the shed's not ready to drop out because you'd get stuck?

Sam Byler: 20:29

Yeah, you would. It was not. It took some finagling.

Woody Stoltzfoos: 20:32

Yes, it was. It was finagling to the max, to the fullest. It was finagulating to the max, to the fullest. However, once that was done, things went quite a bit better, but it was still. The trailer was not designed However. I made do and I worked with it. The trailer came from Missouri. It was a homemade trailer by a farmer that probably used it the whole. Hey, it was 27 feet long. The axles were actual pickup axles from a dually. No, the pumpkins and everything were Still in there.

Sam Byler: 21:08

Well, I mean, they were there, yeah, but nothing inside.

Woody Stoltzfoos: 21:11

He cut the pumpkin out on the one axle and put a pipe in. Well, the springs from the pickup truck axle was. Everything was still intact and uh, the leveling or the equalizer yeah was bad design so I went in the standard wheel and rim which is here at lancaster, which those are long gone now, because I guess with the auto competition with the amish guys yeah, put them out yeah, out of business.

Woody Stoltzfoos: 21:36

So anyway, I bought a spring kit from them hangers and a spring kit and I had the the welding shop I was talking about earlier put them in they, they, they put it in, and then we cut the one, the other pumpkin out and put a pipe in, and that's the way that trailer still is still still.

Sam Byler: 21:53

Is that trailer's still around? That's like my little 82 model trailer that's still floating around somewhere. It's in florida. Yeah, he still around. That's like my little 82 model trailer, that's still floating around somewhere.

Woody Stoltzfoos: 22:00

It's in Florida. It's in Florida. Yeah, he still uses it.

Sam Byler: 22:02

It's crazy, yeah. So what were you pulling this with?

Woody Stoltzfoos: 22:08

Again, this pickup was not designed to haul sheds with. It was an F-350 single wheel.

Sam Byler: 22:14

Okay.

Woody Stoltzfoos: 22:14

Four wheel, yeah, single wheel drive.

Sam Byler: 22:16

Yeah.

Woody Stoltzfoos: 22:16

And it was not four wheel drive, and I wanted a four-wheel drive with a 460. That's what I was looking for, but we didn't have the internet.

Sam Byler: 22:26

We couldn't find stuff we had to look through papers.

Woody Stoltzfoos: 22:29

I found this in Lancaster. It was a nice-looking truck, but it was not the right truck for us and plus my trailer was a little on the heavy side and going to people's yards it was not ideal at all, yeah. So there was times that I simply couldn't back in. So we'd get the old, come along and change out and spend a couple of hours oh yeah, wrenching them up, yep till.

Sam Byler: 22:53

We got it there done and it was just the way it was and then one day I got mad at the come along and I put a winch on the front of the truck. So then I'd have to unload the shed, go out and turn around and pull in, and then I'd run my winch to a block and tackle and we would drag sheds everywhere. That way.

Woody Stoltzfoos: 23:09

So we did a lot of that. There was times when you spent hours just to get a shed in place, but today, with the equipment we have, I mean yeah, and they still fuss about the equipment.

Sam Byler: 23:22

Ain't that true? It's all good.

Woody Stoltzfoos: 23:25

So, anyway, I didn't complain, it was the way it was and we just figured well, this is part of it.

Sam Byler: 23:32

It beat swinging a hammer, didn't it?

Woody Stoltzfoos: 23:34

It did so anyway. In 86, I believe it was 86, I went to David Fisher Traders and ordered a trailer from them, and I did not wait on that trailer long at all. David Fisher Traders was in intercourse right along 772. It's no longer a riding shop.

Woody Stoltzfoos: 23:53

They make some swing sets and that kind of stuff in there which their DNS machine was in there for a little bit and then it was jumping around. But either of us David Fisher Trailers, they made the trailer. It was a 24-foot, very basic design. What they have today as far as the dump the extendable tongue, you know, with the tubing into each other. Very basic design.

Sam Byler: 24:17

Did you have rollers or skids? It was skids, yeah. Slides, slides, yes skids. Roller trailers aren't that big a deal up here, are they?

Woody Stoltzfoos: 24:26

or are they likes them?

Sam Byler: 24:27

okay they uh have you noticed on the page how much people. There's no middle area. I'm the only guy like. I'm the only guy I really know. That doesn't care, I'll run either one of them I could, but I like, I like the on a skid trailer. You have so much other stuff you can do, the versatility of it. There's so much more you can do with it. Roller trailer well, I got to get me some tuba, tans or something if I want to haul escort vehicle or anyway.

Woody Stoltzfoos: 24:52

So yeah, the skid trailer. Uh, I wouldn't want the rollers yeah, for the home delivery. That's, yeah, the trailer, you can push it. Yeah, letting the bed down and, oh yeah, push the shed around a little bit, did you?

Sam Byler: 25:05

grease up your rails like we do. You did. You just pushed and pulled whatever you didn't, I didn't want the grease.

Woody Stoltzfoos: 25:12

That was the biggest problem, I know. One time in my old trailer I used grease to get it to slide and I had to put the shed down and roll it under a carport.

Sam Byler: 25:24

Oh, yeah, and.

Woody Stoltzfoos: 25:24

I had that motor oil used motor oil on the rollers and it got it on the concrete. On the concrete the customer was not exactly impressed. However, he was like well, I can clean it.

Sam Byler: 25:35

But, it was not really what he wanted to see and on concrete to use.

Woody Stoltzfoos: 25:42

motor oil is hard to clean up.

Sam Byler: 25:43

So you're an old school guy. Have you ever heard of Dawn dish detergent?

Woody Stoltzfoos: 25:47

using that.

Sam Byler: 25:47

Yeah, so we had the same issue. I used to use whatever I could find to dump on there and then people get more picky. You start setting them in places. You know, in the grass it didn't matter so much, but then you set them somewhere and you get a little oil on. So we actually switched to dawn and we started using that and that kind of eliminated that. Now they have this stuff called slip deck. You ever heard of that stuff?

Woody Stoltzfoos: 26:10

Yes, I did so anyway, I never used it. So, anyway, david Fisher Traders built this trailer and my invoice for that trailer was just a little over $3,000.

Sam Byler: 26:20

$3,000. In 86 or somewhere around there.

Woody Stoltzfoos: 26:24

It was in 86. Yeah 24-foot extendable tongue and dump. No chain, no side-wheel wheels Well, nobody had side-wheel wheels and the slider in the back.

Sam Byler: 26:34

You can't even buy the hydraulic system for that anymore. I guess it was a 12-volt over hydraulic.

Woody Stoltzfoos: 26:41

It was a 12-volt.

Sam Byler: 26:41

Yes, yes, I don't think. Maybe I could, but I'd spend about three grand on putting just the hydraulic system together Well, and we used the select revolve.

Woody Stoltzfoos: 26:50

That was much cheaper than what the Nazi valves are that is true. So that cut out a big part at some cost, yeah, but either way, David Fisher Traders was very down to earth. I don't think there's very many guys around that worked as cheap as he did. It was pretty much the way it was. David Fisher built a decent trailer shop or trailer business and that's when Dan Petersheim, which is now Pine Hill- bought David Fisher's trailer.

Sam Byler: 27:20

Yes, I was going to ask you about that. I thought that's who it was.

Woody Stoltzfoos: 27:23

I think that was in 99 or in 2000. I'm not sure which year that was.

Sam Byler: 27:28

Well, they had their 20th anniversary scheduled, you know, for 2020 when the bash got canceled. So I'm guessing something the majority of it. It probably started before that, but 2020, I think, is when that.

Woody Stoltzfoos: 27:40

That sounds right, yeah, so yeah, time moved on and Johnny Boom was producing more and more and they had a guy from New Jersey pour in. He drove up from New Jersey, ordered a load of sheds, paid cash, went home and he was like man, I should have ordered two loads. He drove back up again with cash and ordered another load of sheds and paid cash.

Sam Byler: 28:09

That's pretty cool.

Woody Stoltzfoos: 28:10

And so now I didn't have my 48-foot trailer and I worked on that. Wait a minute, maybe I had it in place already, I'm not sure. Either way, it was right over the time and the long trailer thing was just getting started because at that time they all had what 30, 32-foot trailers, fifth-foot trailers, fifth-wheel style and the home deliveries was very much on the picture. Yet.

Woody Stoltzfoos: 28:37

There was nobody doing just the inventory or whatever you want to call it. So I made my truck universal, my little GMC, to go between the two trailers. So that worked out very nice, so you could do either one then.

Sam Byler: 28:50

So you had a 48-foot trailer behind your little GMC to go between the two trailers. Okay, so that worked out very nice. Yeah, so you could do either one then. So you had a 48-foot trailer behind your little GMC. I did 48-foot with air brakes. No way.

Woody Stoltzfoos: 29:00

I put a little compressor in it.

Sam Byler: 29:01

Yeah.

Woody Stoltzfoos: 29:02

And then it was the whole air system, the popper button and the Johnny bar. All that was rigged up in the cab and it worked out really nice. It All that was rigged up in the cab and it worked out really nice. It plugged with a T into the hydraulic to activate the air brakes. It was a smooth system and it would kind of like surprise people when you pull in and pull that button.

Woody Stoltzfoos: 29:25

Yeah, they're like what? What? You got air brakes, yeah. Yeah, I did that because I was already thinking I was going to be upgrading to a larger, bigger truck in the future.

Sam Byler: 29:35

So you saw that coming.

Woody Stoltzfoos: 29:37

I did yeah. Okay, I think it was in, probably in. Let me think of dates here 88 or 89. I was over here at Ephrata there was a GMC ball ball dealer. And they had a GMC General. I think it was a 78 GMC General. I can picture that Probably about a 48-inch sleeper and a 400 Cummins.

Sam Byler: 30:05

Oh, my word, and they wanted $27,000 for the truck. And I'm like man, I can't afford that.

Woody Stoltzfoos: 30:10

But looking back I probably should have for the truck. And I'm like man, I can't afford that. But looking back I probably should have bought the truck Because that truck would have made me more money than what I did with my little pickup. I spent too much money in fixing it and gas Gas was ridiculous. The gas mileage was not even how much gas mileage, how many miles per gallon?

Sam Byler: 30:30

did you get? No, you just didn't. No, you don't do it. I still don't, to this day. You know running diesel pickup trucks or semis. So when I was over the road I paid attention to my mileage, but when I'm hauling sheds, I don't even look at it. I don't want to know. It's heartbreaking.

Woody Stoltzfoos: 30:46

Well, you couldn't do anything.

Sam Byler: 30:47

No, you couldn't, you couldn't.

Woody Stoltzfoos: 30:49

You're always maxed out, even with the 454.

Sam Byler: 30:51

Bessie out there, she has 37-inch mud tires on her and coming up yesterday from home, coming up 81, and I mean you know 81, you're running zero or you're running 90. It's stop and go, people drive like crazy. It's just a mess. And I still averaged 18 miles per gallon. Oh, with 35, I mean 37 inch now mud tires on it and it's actually a hair over 18, but I'm like I'm gonna leave it at that because you're in a pretty high ratio gear yeah, well, and the tires I didn't downgrade.

Sam Byler: 31:21

So most guys if they put bigger tires on they change their gear ratio. I don't, because I like being able to run one off of overdrive and be able to move pretty good. But when I haul sheds I don't pay any attention because it'll go. I've had it go down to five hauling sheds.

Woody Stoltzfoos: 31:36

So you, just you don't look at that that's not even so.

Sam Byler: 31:40

There's something you did. I want to touch on this just for a sec because it's interesting. There's something you did that I completely did backwards. Um, so you fixed up your pickup truck to be ready to have air brakes on your trailer. Because you saw that coming my first semi, I turned it over to where it wouldn't work on air brakes. It worked on the regular trailer. You know, because my trailer I want to be able to pull it between the pickup and the semi. So we put the brake controller in and everything you know. We run on electric brakes through there it's a lot guys do that.

Sam Byler: 32:10

Yeah, they do and I know, coming from trucking, you know you can't beat air brakes.

Woody Stoltzfoos: 32:18

So yeah, Better brakes and longer lasting.

Sam Byler: 32:21

Oh, longer lasting, yeah, big time.

Woody Stoltzfoos: 32:23

And the air brakes are easy to replace to swap out the pads or the landing.

Sam Byler: 32:28

I did not know that you changed your pickup truck over. I can only imagine you pull up on a job and pull that out and they're like what?

Woody Stoltzfoos: 32:36

So anyway, so that trailer was a very nice trailer and, um, let me think a little bit, that trailer was probably an 88. And now, by the time, uh, 1990 rolls around, I was coming down to a close with Johnny Booms and I did not see a long range with Johnny Booms anymore. Things was happening. We were not on the same page with the rates for the hauling and again, I'm not bashing or bad-mouthing them, it was what they wanted to do and the way they wanted to do business and we were okay with that. But where I went wrong, in 1991, the same dealer that drove up he happens to be a new jersey state trooper and, uh, he whipped out sheds to no end and, uh, whenever he was home, his favorite shift for working was from 11 to 7 at night, 11 at night.

Woody Stoltzfoos: 33:51

He came home 7 in the morning, then he had all day and he would deliver sheds and sell sheds. And it was crazy, this guy, whenever this guy was home, he could sell five sheds in the next couple hours. Oh, my word, it was just nuts and we just went, I think, load after load, load after load, two loads a day many times, and sometimes three loads a day. It was just crazy, I could not stay after.

Sam Byler: 34:13

Yeah.

Woody Stoltzfoos: 34:14

And yet he was always complaining about this and about that, and about this and about that. And the quality I don't want to say that too much, because Johnny Boom was a penny pincher. He used lower quality materials because he wanted to sell a lower priced shed.

Sam Byler: 34:31

Yeah.

Woody Stoltzfoos: 34:32

Which we still need.

Sam Byler: 34:34

I still talk about this.

Woody Stoltzfoos: 34:36

There was a market for that. Yeah there was yeah.

Sam Byler: 34:38

But, this guy wanted high quality sheds for low market price. The customer was dead, oh yeah.

Woody Stoltzfoos: 34:45

Sometimes he would have to go back and fix things to please the customer in order to keep the customer happy. That's when I saw a little window. Maybe if I can make a shed, I can make it a little bit nicer. That's where my thinking went to.

Sam Byler: 35:03

What could be better than woody built? I mean, like you think about that for a minute, I've never thought about that until right now, a woody-built shed. One of you guys needs to start a new shed company and call it woody-built.

Woody Stoltzfoos: 35:15

So that's when I talked to the door hand and I said would you be interested in buying my sheds if I made them? And he was like absolutely he goes, I'll buy your shed.

Sam Byler: 35:29

Yeah.

Woody Stoltzfoos: 35:29

And so we kind of kept it secret between the two of us, we just quiet. And when I made my announcement that I was going to give him two more, two more weeks to work, the question came what are you going to do? And yeah, I just simply told him I was going to do what he did six years ago.

Sam Byler: 35:50

You're going to leave and go build your own.

Woody Stoltzfoos: 35:53

Oh, who are you going to build for? And that conversation didn't end very nice.

Sam Byler: 35:58

No, I'm sure it didn't. So.

Woody Stoltzfoos: 36:00

I wish I could go back and redo that.

Sam Byler: 36:05

That's part of your story. It's part of the story today.

Woody Stoltzfoos: 36:09

And 1991, we leased the building. The building was in my favor. It was an older guy that owned the building, which was like an old lumber yard, and it was an old building. It had what? 100 posts in it and he goes. He doesn't care, you can cut a post out, as long as you put bridging in, something like that yeah yeah, it was fine with that, and he paved the center section of it to make a nice level area.

Sam Byler: 36:36

Oh, that's cool, yeah, he accommodated me in that way.

Woody Stoltzfoos: 36:40

The lease was not a five-year lease or nothing like that.

Sam Byler: 36:44

It was just a month-to-month.

Woody Stoltzfoos: 36:46

So he was fine. It was just an old building to him he was happy to have somebody like me in there and it had the overhangs on the outside for lumber storage and that kind of stuff. So it was good and I had every potential in that building to build a thriving business. However, in 1991, nothing went right.

Woody Stoltzfoos: 37:16

Everything went backward. It didn't matter what I did, even with your big dealer. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we, we made three, two and three loads a week, yeah, and I would haul all those loads down. I had about five, maybe sometimes six, guys building, so we had six guys building. So I had guys, we had work and, because of the pickup or the home delivery, I had a guy do some local work shed moves and there was a small dealer I think he was out of Hershey's, where we would pick up sheds from another Amish dealer, amish builder, and take them up to him and deliver them for him. It was a small guy. Mervyn Muller was the guy that did that. He was happy, he loved it.

Sam Byler: 38:00

That's where his introduction for the head shodder.

Woody Stoltzfoos: 38:04

I can't even talk. The shed hauling came in. He loved it. Then he would fill in in and shop wherever there was needed, whatever there was to do.

Sam Byler: 38:16

Thank you all for listening to today's episode. This was part one of a two-part episode, so be sure to listen next week to finish today's podcast.