Nagging question

[bandmiller2]

With my new found glut of time been watching swamp loggers and Maine loggers on TV.Seems they ship some small end logs off to the mills.Many only large enough to get a couple of 2x4's how do the mills handle these, dosen't seem to be worth their wile to mill.I'd not waste my time milling some of those logs.Frank C.

[Jeff]

When they say the word mill, it doesn't always mean Saw mill.

[DanG]

I recall reading a magazine article a couple of years ago about a big mill in Canada that was retooling to saw 5" logs.  I'm not sure just what they were going to cut out of them, but if it was 2x4s they wouldn't be very good ones with pith on the side of every one of'em. :

[bandmiller2]

That splains it Jeff,I wouldn't want to run bits through those muddy swamp logs.Thanks Frank C.

[Ron Wenrich]

They do it something like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHjot3O7U54&feature=related

Carolina Machinery has one for sale, and it seems to run even faster than that one.  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipRIjNDPZOY

And now you know why you can't compete with the big box stores.   ;)

[bandmiller2]

That machinery could make  sawyer americanus an endangered species,or a fat one, flip the switch and head for the donut shop.Frank C.

[jander3]

When I lived in Louisiana, the prime customer of the logging operations were the paper mills.  The used the wood  to make pulp.   Log size didn't matter, they got paid on weight and volume. The loggers just cut and hauled as much as they could as fast as they could.

[pineywoods]

Very impressive.. That explains why the big mills like plantation logs, all one uniform size.  Looks like they are getting 2 2X4's per log. Any of us could get 4  plus some 4/4 stuff.  I'm sure the waste is chipped and used for fuel or making paper. I'll bet the jams are something to behold. ;)
Guess I'll always be a maintenance guy at heart.

[Ron Wenrich]

A good number of years ago I read an article where they tried to do this in Michigan at an old Air Force base.  It was in the Northern Logger. 

If I recall, they were taking anything down to a 4" top.  About half of the material went to the chipper.  The biggest problem was the chip market.  They were hauling chips 500 miles.  I don't think there was a rail siding on site.  They were also using curve sawing that can utilize sweep, from my understanding.  Log costs were similar to pulp prices.

I was thinking that their chips were about 1/2 of the material they used.  Hardwood mills run about the same recovery.  We saw oversize to allow for shrinkage and get about 2 tons/Mbf in slabs and 1 ton/Mbf in sawdust.  Band mills will get a little better recovery.

Its nice to think that your recovery rates are so much higher than those rigs, but they aren't.  Raw materials is often the most expensive part of any operation.  Do you think that your technology is light years ahead of these guys?  They'll squeeze as much out of a log as anyone.  I remember when no one sawed a 2x3, yet they managed to make a market for that stuff.

Time those logs and you'll see they are eating up logs faster than you can load them on your mill.  Your mill expenses might be lower, but those fast mills will smoke you on costs. 

[ErikC]

  Also, as long as they can move the chips, there is no waste. It all gets sold--I doubt many of us can say that about our slabs and sawdust. So the key is moving it through, not sqeezing all the useable lumber at the expense of time.

[Cedarman]

About 10 to 15 years ago a fellow in northern Ky put in a chip and saw ERC mill.  His goal was to buy up all the cedar logs within 100 miles and run them through the mill as fast as he could making cants.  He thought he could sell all the cants he could make.  All the shavings went into the shaving market which can suck up all the cedar shavings you want to make.  In fact several mills in the country do nothing but shave  quite a few trailer loads of bagged shavings every day.  Some even run 2 shifts.  He did a good job of sucking up the cedar logs and causing other cedar mills a bit of a problem.  He forgot one little thing.  The company he was selling to had a vested interest in seeing that there was good competion from mills which kept the price low.  They refused to buy all his scants.  He went bankrupt.
Being the fastest and most efficient isn't all that is necessary to keep you in business.

We can square our 4" logs on our scragg and then run through our peeler making a beautiful cylindrical 3 1/4" round pole.  Takes 30 seconds per log, about 6 to 8 times slower than the chip and saw.

[Hilltop366]

Did you notice how long into the video you get before you see a person?

Seen a clip on tv of a sawmill a few years back where they ran all their slabs (first cuts) through a machine that had a planer type blade on top and then a set of edger blades to cut 1x strapping, using even more of the log for lumber before chipping.

[Jeff]

Ron, that sounds like Dave Holli's company

Story about Holli
http://www.timberlinemag.com/articledatabase/view.asp?articleID=2438

And this may be the article you read....

Michigan Company Uses Canadian Technology for More Efficient Small-Log Utilization--A Greenfield studmill that utilizes small logs more effectively has been developed at Sawyer Lumber Co. in the Upper Peninsula. In a sense, owners Dave Holli and Ed Nagel were inspired by the Quebec government's mandate to the Province's wood processors: stop chipping whole trees-extract lumber from the trees and use residual chips to make pulp. Since Quebec changed its policies several years ago, its lumber business has boomed, while its pulpmills have managed quite well on residuals and logs unsuitable for sawmills. Given the similarities between Quebec and Upper Peninsula timber, Nagel and Holli figured the concept ought to work in Michigan too.

One byproduct of the change in Quebec's policies was a big boost to local designers and manufacturers of sawmill equipment. With guaranteed demand for software and machinery to process small logs, suppliers responded. Quebec now boasts a significant coterie of well-known small-log specialists who are increasingly present in American markets as well. Their products are the backbone of Sawyer Lumber, where the majority of machinery is Canadian. "What we do here is foreign to the usual way [U.S. sawmills] operate," Holli explains. "We buy the whole tree, then scan and sort the logs to find the proper home for each one. We have 11 log classes, plus one for pulp logs, one for stems rejected at the metal detector, and a bin that feeds the log reverser. When we find logs with flared butts, we turn them around and saw the tops first." Logs range from 3.5 to 20 in. (8.9 to 50.8 cm) in diameter.

Log sorts are designed to accommodate the current sawing pattern and to feed the two sawlines most efficiently. Two loaders feed the mill's two unscramblers and infeed decks and two debarkers remove bark, which fuels a pair of 600-hp boilers. In the winter, logs are debarked and sawn frozen. In warmer months, balsam and pine logs are sprinkled to slow staining and rotting. Clean logs then pass through a metal detector; those logs with metal are kicked out. Usable bolts are conveyed through a four-camera scanning system, which feeds true-shape data to a computer that decides sawing patterns based on log shape, diameter, maximum yield, and prices for lumber and chips. These data are used to sort logs into 11 bins: 5 bins feed the small side line and 6 feed the big line. The small side features a four-head curve-sawing canter that feeds an edger. On the big side, a twin curve-sawing canter feeds pieces to a second canter, yielding a four-sided, curve-sawn cant. Cants then go to one of two edgers, depending on their size. Lumber from both lines is trimmed and then passed through a moisture detector before going to a sorter. This permits sorting by moisture content as well as size, which improves kiln efficiency. This is important at Sawyer Lumber because two of its species, balsam (10%) and red pine (15%), require long drying times. The main species sawn is Jack pine (65%); the remainder (10%) is spruce.

The mill uses 1 by 3 and 1 by 4 lumber for kiln stickers. Sawdust is sold to a medium-density fiberboard plant in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario; and a company based in Kenosha, WI, buys the planer shavings, bagging them for retail sale at the mill site.
[Source: Wood Technology, July/August 2000]

[Ron Wenrich]

That could be the one.  I was thinking it was on an old Air Force base in Escanaba.  I also thought that the mill was shut down. 

[Wudman]

My biggest customer is a local Ultra-modern pine sawmill.  It came on-line in 2001.  They are optimized to saw smaller diameter plantation wood.  The typical tract that I will send them will average about 12" dbh.  The mill will take this material tree length to a 6" top (they are going to a smaller top now as they really need the wood). 

When it enters the mill, the entire tree is laser scanned and an optimal sawing solution is formulated based on price inputs.  It is bucked to length based on this  solution and goes to 1 of 2 saw lines.  One line is optimized for a 10-12" log; the other for the smaller logs.  The "slab" is chipped off and the "cant" goes on to the gang.  The saws automatically reset according to the computer solution and the dimension lumber is cut in one pass.  It has "curved saw technology" so it can saw around the sweep in a log.  This mill produces about 40,000 bd ft per hour (yes 40,000 bd ft per hour) when running.  They will consistently saw right at 2 million feet per week running a single 10 hour shift 5 days per week.

On the sawmill side, there is a crane operator unloading trucks and feeding the live deck.  The "sawyer" is monitoring the computer.  He has the ability to override if there is some malfunction, but is usually just along for the ride.  There are a couple of guys to straighten lumber on the chain if something gets turned.  For the most part, the feed is self correcting.  The "green chain" is totally automated running to drop sorters.  From the drop sorters, lumber is fed to the automatic stacker.  From there, it is moved by forklift to the kiln carts and into the kiln.  The kiln operator can control the kilns remotely from home.  From there it is on to the planing mill.

On these small logs, I don't think a (portable) bandmill can generate any better recovery.  I'm not privy to their recovery rate, but I know what I can saw out of an 8 inch log.  For small dimension lumber (2x4), I'm better off going to the building center and buying it as compared to trying to saw it myself.

Wudman

 

[Jeff]

That could be the one.  I was thinking it was on an old Air Force base in Escanaba.  I also thought that the mill was shut down. 

K I Sawyer Airbase in Gwinn. The mill was sold to Louisiana Pacific in 2000, then it was acquired by Potlatch Corp in 2005 and I think is still in operation as Potlatch Forest Products Corp.  Chet or Pasbuild would know.

[Shotgun]

Interesting reading the article on Dave Holli, Jeff.  Dave was a member of the same class that  Ron Scott and I graduated in at Michigan Tech.  I have seen Dave a number of times since graduating in 1961, and I learned things about Dave that I hadn't known by reading the article that you referenced. We're going to be celebrating our 50th reunion from Michigan Tech in 2011 and it appears that all three of us will be in attendance. Thanks for posting the article, Jeff.

Norm

[backwoods sawyer]

In set ups like this the office inputs a new price as they get it and it affects what the mill is optimizing for, say the price of a 2x6 is slightly higher per thousand bft then 2x4's, you will see less 2x4s and more 2x6s later in the day the price goes the other way and then it will be mostly 2x4s rather then 2x6s. Fractions of seconds count, on spacing of the logs, and can impact the days production. We have several small log mills in this area as well medium and large log mills, over the years they have developed a very good chip market as most are with in 100 miles of a port. A lot of emphasis is placed on making good chips, as that can make the difference in the viability of the mill operation. I have seen operations that have a cat driver feeding and forklift driver clearing the mill, one sawyer, an electrician and a supervisor. There is very few miss cuts in an operation like this as well.       

[SwampDonkey]

Around here they take pulp as small at 3" on the top and studwood down to 4" tops. Hardwood logs are taken as small as 8"-9", that's the average run of our local hardwoods.

Just look at the specs for some mills in this link.

http://www.ysc.nb.ca/PRICELIST.html

I was helping a guy with marking trails on a 150 acre tract of softwood that had been thinned with brush saws 10 years previous, they were taking stuff down to 2-1/2" on the top end. A 6" dbh tree was a big one in there. 1000-1200 stems to the acre. And it was being thinned by processor and on paper they said it averaged 38 m²/ha (166 ft²/acre) basal area. ;)