Our Story

Let’s start at the beginning:

Gary Spiegel created SAW Moulding in 1981. He graduated from the Culinary Institute of America in 1978. After working in New York City as a chef, Gary and his wife moved to the hills of Virginia. There weren't many restaurants there, so Gary found a job working for a fine furniture maker. Gary worked in the sanding department for six months and decided that he could do this on his own. With just a chain saw and a few hand tools he went into the woods to look for twigs and branches that looked like parts of chairs that he wanted to make. After making the chairs he entered them in the crafts division of the art show in the Virginia museum of fine arts. The chairs took first prize!  Visit sawmoulding.com to see his work.

After a couple of years in Virginia, Gary and his family moved to Kingston, NY where he started Saw Moulding, a high end wood moulding company, which is still going strong.

Gary acquired his appreciation for mouldings and buildings when he was a young boy. When he went into New York City with his parents, his mother would always point out the mouldings on the buildings. Now, when Gary brings his children and grandchildren into the City, he points out the mouldings to them, but he can also point out buildings that have his mouldings in them.  This is a list of a few of them:  The Plaza Hotel, The Museum of Natural History, The Eldorado, Liberty Towers, and The New Yankee Stadium boxes.

Fast forward 38 years to 2019.  Can I talk in the first person now?

It was pretty much while Ulster County was banning plastic bags and straws when I walked into my granddaughter’s playroom.  I was knee high in plastic toys.  My wife had been asking me to make wooden toys for years, now was the time.  She thought of the name Wee Saw.  This fits what we do perfectly.  We are starting our company by making full unit size wooden blocks.  All our wood is from the Northern States and all our products are made in the USA.  We use hard white Maple with no toxic chemicals added.  These are the same trees that we get Maple syrup from.  Our blocks are sweet.

It is proven that building with blocks helps children with math and spatial thinking skills.  Wee Saw’s standard block is 1-3/8” x 2-3/4” x 5-1/2”.  You will notice that each dimension is double the other.  Every size block is made in relationship to the standard block size.  Even I have learned more math skills by building with them.  Doubles, halves, quarters, eighths, you start to memorize them while having fun.  I have designed new blocks that are not sold in other block sets.  My son Emmet has been working here for 9 years now.  He has learned how to use all of the basic machinery in a wood shop.  Apart from that, his special skills are programming our 4 axis CNC machines to cut the special blocks I design.  He is amazing.

I enjoy trying to use Classical Architectural teachings in my models, but children and adults will use their imagination to build whatever they want.

Buy a set of wooden blocks and watch their creativity power grow!

We hope you love our blocks as much as we do.

Thank you, Gary