RUMFORD - A Sabattus businessman and a Rumford entrepreneur have partnered to better get their wares to potential customers across the state and beyond.

Greg Provost, owner of Thick-N-Thin Lumber and Sales of Sabattus, and Clinton Bradbury, owner of Premium Specialty Hardwoods, will be selling each other's goods at their prospective businesses, Provost said Friday afternoon during the first day of a two-day show at Bradbury's business on Route 2 in Rumford.

The first joint open house features demonstrations with portable sawmills of varying size, log scaling, lumber grading, chair-making, wood turning, wood processing equipment, outdoor wood stoves, and more.

"We're trying to think outside the box," Bradbury said inside his business.

Both Bradbury and Provost said the open house was their idea to get people suffering from cabin fever outdoors during the middle of winter.

"We do more than just sell lumber. We're promoting equipment and showing where the product comes from, from raw tree form to the finished product. It's very important that people learn how this furniture is built and where it comes from. If we don't educate people, they'll keep buying that (stuff) from China," Bradbury said.

Every six months - the amount of time it takes Bradbury and Provost and their employees to brainstorm ideas, then engineer them into reality - they intend to have something new going on at the manufacturing/retail sales center.

In addition to a manufacturing facility, Maine Made Furniture Co., the 74,000-square-foot building, located a couple of miles west of town, features two large showrooms displaying partially and fully completed wood products in Wood Workers Paradise and Maine Artisans Wood Gallery.

More than 200 people attended Friday's show, and another 600 to 700 are expected Today during the 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. event, Bradbury said.

"For a Friday, we're pretty pleased," he added. Both men said that if they didn't diversify, their businesses would have suffered.

"I want to move his product down there, and he wants to move my stuff up here," Provost said. "This is my ninth show, but my first time in Rumford, because his facility is so big here, he has the wood, and, this is a great way for us to team up and promote his furniture line."

Provost said he's been in the lumber and building products business for 13 years, but had to start selling wood processing equipment to keep it going.

"His furniture line in the Lewiston-Auburn area will do very well," he said.

By partnering, Provost hopes to reach customers in the River Valley and Bethel areas, while giving Bradbury access to Down East markets, and Brunswick, Freeport, and Topsham.

For more information, visit http://www.premiumspecialtyhardwoods.com/.