My job at the sawmill (w/ vid, for Bob especially)

[Brmorgan]

Well, I got me this fancy new Samsung smartphone on Friday for an amazing deal, 5MP camera and shoots full 720p HD video too, so I thought I'd make use of it last night. I ended up working over in the sawmill, so I took a short video of what I run at the mill infeed from up in the control booth:

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

:censored: STILL can't embed video on this forum for whatever insane reason. Not bad for cellphone video though, eh? This thing's friggin' incredible.

Right now we're running 20' logs and splitting them into two 10-footers on the long stepfeeder, and 10' in the short stepfeeder to fill gaps etc. Tonight I was getting about 230-270 feet per minute through the mill when it was running smoothly. One of the guys who was supposed to sort down at the trim deck didn't show up so we only had one guy there, so I had the speed knocked back a bit. Around 300'/min is normal. Everything in this video is controlled from my booth and I have to watch it all the good ol' fashioned way; no cameras here! Except the camera I have on the chip/waste system down below, which I also have to keep an eye on. For those other than Bob who have not seen the mill, the first two blue machines are the 17" Valon Kone ring debarkers (made in Finland), then the big greenish thing is the four-head Chip-N-Saw canter which chips the logs into square cants, and directly after that and barely visible in the video, a Vertical Single Arbor (VSA) edger which splits the cant into three or four boards. A larger log will produce a nice square cant and all decent boards; smaller logs don't contact the top head and will produce a junk slab that is sorted out down at the trimsaws. We run a fixed set, so no matter how big the log is going in, the same size of cant comes out the other side. Not the most efficient for recovery, but very time efficient, and chip prices are paying almost as well as lumber right now anyway. Of course too big of a log (>9-10" on this 2X4 set) will stall a head or two from time to time, so I have to watch for oversize logs and kick them out as well.


Two hours into shift and about five minutes after that video was taken, the :censored: hit the fan and the #1 barker infeed calved:

One of the main bearings for the bottom infeed driveroll self-destructed. It's been coming for a while now, but it's such a job to replace that you generally drive it like you stole it until it finally dies altogether. It doesn't happen all that often; I think this is the third one in four years, which, considering how many feet of log it pushed through the debarker in that time isn't bad. We were down 7 hours on this one tonight. Took over half of that just to get it all apart and get the old stuff removed. Here, we're washing the inner race of the wrecked bearing off the driveshaft with the torch. It wasn't going anywhere otherwise. We also had to cut one side of the hub open and spread it with a taper bar to get it off the shaft; no amount of heat or pulling or hammering would budge it.

Got the shaft back in here, just getting the bearings in position and bolted down tight.

No spare hub, so we had to gouge and fill the cut we made previously. Took a while.

And finally, grinding the weld down to accomodate the driveroll. There's a bit of a shoulder on the hub that the roll mounts on, so it has to be ground back very closely to the original size or it won't fit up right and all the bolt holes will end up out of alignment, = bad. We got it right first try.

Sure glad to get that night behind us. I hate breakdown shifts like this, if for no other reason than how dirty I end up getting. I know we run kind of a hillbilly mill show compared to some of the big boys across the road, but I think it says something when I'm the oldest person on the crew at 28 with a supervisor five years my junior, none of us are even remotely ticketed welders, millwrights or electricians, just a few years (or less) of on-the-job experience like this, and we still manage to keep the place running on nightshift when we can't call on the maintenance guys that are around during the day. Won't see that happening at those big union mills; nobody's allowed to touch anything outside their limited job description, so nobody learns anything.

 

[mtngun]

Thanks for the pics, Brad.

I've never been inside a modern mill, so this fascinates me.

I did spend a summer in a ma and pa circle mill, but it was primitive ..... and went out of business shortly after I left.

 

[BobL]

Thanks Brad, thats pretty much how I envisaged the operation. Kinda scary to think about what might happen when things go pear shaped at that pace of operation.

How come you are not grading - waiting for stuff to dry?

I posted a story of your mill and associated pics on the Aussie woodworkers website (small millers forum). http://www.woodworkforums.com/f132/milling-bc-122372/

I probably got some of the facts wrong - but hey let's not spoil a good story

If you think it appropriate I can post the same pics here?

 

[mtngun]

Thanks for the link, BobL.

Some dumb newbie questions for Brad:

-- is there a sorting process for chips that are sold for pulp ?

-- what are the specs for pulp chips ? Size ? Species ?

-- is there a pulp or paper mill in Williams Lake ?

-- what is the biggest board produced by the chipper mill ?

-- do the Chinese use inch size boards, or do you have to make a special metric board ?

It's hard to believe the chipper mill will only take up to 12" logs, but that isn't too different from my local stud mill. Most of the local trees are harvested at around 14" - 18", maybe 24" tops. I've even seen trucks hauling 6" logs to the mill.

That's why I don't have any big logs to mill.

 

[Brmorgan]

Thanks Brad, thats pretty much how I envisaged the operation. Kinda scary to think about what might happen when things go pear shaped at that pace of operation.

How come you are not grading - waiting for stuff to dry?

I posted a story of your mill and associated pics on the Aussie woodworkers website (small millers forum). http://www.woodworkforums.com/f132/milling-bc-122372/

I probably got some of the facts wrong - but hey let's not spoil a good story

If you think it appropriate I can post the same pics here?

Things don't usually blow up TOO quickly, even at that pace. Usually you just get a jamup and it stops the line, but there have been some good ones. Even what happened last night wasn't a big crisis immediately; I just started hearing some severe clunking and banging when that roll started wobbling and knocking against the barker frame. The whole line is interlocked, so if one section stops feeding, everything behind it will shut down too.

Right now we have to fill these orders for China, and there's no money in stud, so we're running two shifts over in the mill since they only want it left rough. Keeps our costs down too since we don't have to pay a second crew to handle the lumber a second time over in the planer. It's not a permanent arrangement, but frankly I'd rather be over in the mill running the infeed anyway. Nice air conditioned and heated booth to sit in and listen to the radio all day.

Yeah, feel free to duplicate that other thread over here or whatever you want to do. I don't care much, and I doubt the owners would ever see it over here, or care if they did.

 

[Brmorgan]

Thanks for the link, BobL.

Some dumb newbie questions for Brad:

-- is there a sorting process for chips that are sold for pulp ?

-- what are the specs for pulp chips ? Size ? Species ?

-- is there a pulp or paper mill in Williams Lake ?

-- what is the biggest board produced by the chipper mill ?

-- do the Chinese use inch size boards, or do you have to make a special metric board ?

It's hard to believe the chipper mill will only take up to 12" logs, but that isn't too different from my local stud mill. Most of the local trees are harvested at around 14" - 18", maybe 24" tops. I've even seen trucks hauling 6" logs to the mill.

That's why I don't have any big logs to mill.

We don't sort the chips into different sizes or species or anything; everything does run through a chip screen / shaker though that sorts out any "overs" that the chipper left oversize and sends them back through. I don't really know what the spec is on chips; if I remember right they like to see them about 7mm thick though. The biggest issue is bark content - we're only allowed 1.5%, I think, so if the debarker gets a little loose and isn't doing its job properly, we'll hear about it and they won't pay as much. The thing we have to be most careful about though is making sure that NO plastic, rubber, etc. makes it into the chip system. One little foam earplug can contaminate the amount of chips it would take to produce enough paper to cover a football field. Metal is a nonissue since the metal detector can sort it out, and it won't melt down at the temps they make pulp at, but plastic will.

The closest pulp mill is in Quesnel, an hour's drive north of here. Historically though they've been supplied quite well by the mills just in that town, so our chips have usually gone by bulk truck down to mills closer to Vancouver or sometimes north to Prince George. I'm glad we don't have a pulp plant here; they're the stinkiest, ugliest operations always billowing this sick-smelling steam into the atmosphere. Worse than smoke, IMO. As it is, if the wind is right we can catch the odd whiff of the one in Quesnel well over 100km away.

The largest boards we've put out of the CnS is 10' 2X6; however just last week we did a run of 6X6 posts out of it. Those are heavy to process and grade, let me tell you.

The Chinese stuff is all metric. The stuff we ran through the planer was 35X78mm, 38X88mm, etc. Four different sizes, I think; can't remember them all. Metric measurement for lumber, to me, is just brain-dead nonsense. Numbers get too big. I hate having to measure a board's length in thousands of millimeters rather than saying it's a 104-5/8" (considered 9') long stud. It makes grading a chore too, because the grade rules and specs (like knot sizes, wane allowance, twist/warp allowance, etc.) are all determined using SAE measurements.

We will run logs down to just over 4" diameter through the mill. The ones that I kinda followed into the debarker in the video were maybe about 5"; I'd say 5-7" was the average sort I was running last night with a few bigger ones here and there. The problem with running logs that small is that you have no leeway whatsoever to deal with any kind of curve in the log. With a bigger one you just chip the curve away and still get a good cant out of the center, but when a log is barely wider than the cant/board you're trying to get out of it, it doesn't take much curve over its 10' length to result in some ugly skip or wane.

 

[mtngun]

The largest boards we've put out of the CnS is 10' 2X6

Wow.

If I'm interpreting this story right, the chipper mill's main product is .... chips ? The lumber is almost a by-product ? Cuz they can't be making much money selling 2x4's and 2x6's ?

OK, we know the logs are puny, but what species, and what kind of quality does the chipper mill prefer ? Are there any local species the mill won't take ?

There's a chipper in the port of Lewiston, but I dunno if they make boards, too. I always assumed it was all chips, barged to pulp mills downstream. Mostly white/grand fir.

 

[Metals406]

Cool thread Brad! I kinda miss working at the mill. . . You sure smell nice at the end of a shift.

My father-in-law has done mill work almost his entire life.

 

[Brmorgan]

Wow.

If I'm interpreting this story right, the chipper mill's main product is .... chips ? The lumber is almost a by-product ? Cuz they can't be making much money selling 2x4's and 2x6's ?

OK, we know the logs are puny, but what species, and what kind of quality does the chipper mill prefer ? Are there any local species the mill won't take ?

There's a chipper in the port of Lewiston, but I dunno if they make boards, too. I always assumed it was all chips, barged to pulp mills downstream. Mostly white/grand fir.

Probably 80% or more is Lodgepole Pine because the stumpage on the beetle-killed timber is much lower, with a bit of White/Engelmann Spruce (most are a hybrid of the two up here nowadays anyway) and Subalpine Fir mixed in depending on the block they're hauling out of. These three species constitute Western SPF. We get the odd Douglas Fir log, and get away with running it through, but technically D. Fir is offgrade in an SPF run. I've even seen a couple Aspen and Birch sneak in, but I won't put them through the mill.

 

[cowtipper]

Well, I got me this fancy new Samsung smartphone on Friday for an amazing deal, 5MP camera and shoots full 720p HD video too, so I thought I'd make use of it last night. I ended up working over in the sawmill, so I took a short video of what I run at the mill infeed from up in the control booth:

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

:censored: STILL can't embed video on this forum for whatever insane reason. Not bad for cellphone video though, eh? This thing's friggin' incredible.

Right now we're running 20' logs and splitting them into two 10-footers on the long stepfeeder, and 10' in the short stepfeeder to fill gaps etc. Tonight I was getting about 230-270 feet per minute through the mill when it was running smoothly. One of the guys who was supposed to sort down at the trim deck didn't show up so we only had one guy there, so I had the speed knocked back a bit. Around 300'/min is normal. Everything in this video is controlled from my booth and I have to watch it all the good ol' fashioned way; no cameras here! Except the camera I have on the chip/waste system down below, which I also have to keep an eye on. For those other than Bob who have not seen the mill, the first two blue machines are the 17" Valon Kone ring debarkers (made in Finland), then the big greenish thing is the four-head Chip-N-Saw canter which chips the logs into square cants, and directly after that and barely visible in the video, a Vertical Single Arbor (VSA) edger which splits the cant into three or four boards. A larger log will produce a nice square cant and all decent boards; smaller logs don't contact the top head and will produce a junk slab that is sorted out down at the trimsaws. We run a fixed set, so no matter how big the log is going in, the same size of cant comes out the other side. Not the most efficient for recovery, but very time efficient, and chip prices are paying almost as well as lumber right now anyway. Of course too big of a log (>9-10" on this 2X4 set) will stall a head or two from time to time, so I have to watch for oversize logs and kick them out as well.


Two hours into shift and about five minutes after that video was taken, the :censored: hit the fan and the #1 barker infeed calved:

One of the main bearings for the bottom infeed driveroll self-destructed. It's been coming for a while now, but it's such a job to replace that you generally drive it like you stole it until it finally dies altogether. It doesn't happen all that often; I think this is the third one in four years, which, considering how many feet of log it pushed through the debarker in that time isn't bad. We were down 7 hours on this one tonight. Took over half of that just to get it all apart and get the old stuff removed. Here, we're washing the inner race of the wrecked bearing off the driveshaft with the torch. It wasn't going anywhere otherwise. We also had to cut one side of the hub open and spread it with a taper bar to get it off the shaft; no amount of heat or pulling or hammering would budge it.

Got the shaft back in here, just getting the bearings in position and bolted down tight.

No spare hub, so we had to gouge and fill the cut we made previously. Took a while.

And finally, grinding the weld down to accomodate the driveroll. There's a bit of a shoulder on the hub that the roll mounts on, so it has to be ground back very closely to the original size or it won't fit up right and all the bolt holes will end up out of alignment, = bad. We got it right first try.

Sure glad to get that night behind us. I hate breakdown shifts like this, if for no other reason than how dirty I end up getting. I know we run kind of a hillbilly mill show compared to some of the big boys across the road, but I think it says something when I'm the oldest person on the crew at 28 with a supervisor five years my junior, none of us are even remotely ticketed welders, millwrights or electricians, just a few years (or less) of on-the-job experience like this, and we still manage to keep the place running on nightshift when we can't call on the maintenance guys that are around during the day. Won't see that happening at those big union mills; nobody's allowed to touch anything outside their limited job description, so nobody learns anything.

Very nice... keep the vids coming... some day I will learn how to ask a somewhat smart question about the process, besides what does that blue thing on the end does, ya the one right above the red one

 

[Andrew96]

Great story for those of us who don't get to go inside. Fun phone you have too. As a former maintenance manager I started to get worried for your safety after I read you guys are all young, and self teaching each other. My first thought...was for your safety. All of you. Then I noticed your lockout system on your belt loop and sat back and enjoyed the story. Good job...atta boy..for putting your safety first, then telling a good story. The best photo I think is the one welding...with locks still on the pants (I know...missing the clasp) with the warning sign on the floor reminding of a lockout, but still showing the one on the machine. Nice.

 

[Behemoth Jim]

Reminds me of my days at Hancock lumber in Pittsfield, ME. That was a white pine 1x mill, though. It had a 36" gang saw that would take that log up to 36" diameter and slice it instantly into 1x boards in just one pass, then on to the resaw and edger, etc.

 

[Brmorgan]

Very nice... keep the vids coming... some day I will learn how to ask a somewhat smart question about the process, besides what does that blue thing on the end does, ya the one right above the red one

No offense but I really have no idea what red and blue things you're talking about here. In the video or one of the pics?

Great story for those of us who don't get to go inside. Fun phone you have too. As a former maintenance manager I started to get worried for your safety after I read you guys are all young, and self teaching each other. My first thought...was for your safety. All of you. Then I noticed your lockout system on your belt loop and sat back and enjoyed the story. Good job...atta boy..for putting your safety first, then telling a good story. The best photo I think is the one welding...with locks still on the pants (I know...missing the clasp) with the warning sign on the floor reminding of a lockout, but still showing the one on the machine. Nice.

Well I wouldn't say we're necessarily teaching ourselves; I have 12 years working in sawmills behind me already with plenty of time spent around and helping the maintenance personnel, and some of the other guys aren't far behind and a couple youger guys have more hands-on experience than I do, to be fair. We get to spend a fair bit of time around the experienced maintenance people during the day but nightshift is somewhat of a skeleton crew right now, so we do what we have to do. I certainly don't get paid to do maintenance work, but either we all throw our hats in and do what needs to be done, or the mill will shut down because margins are so thin right now.

We're all well brushed up on safety though; the sign hanging on the chain is to block off access to the catwalk running down beside the debarkers and canter (the one heading top-left in the first photo) while the line is running. Had a couple people get smacked by thrown logs and little chunks of wood a couple years back, so we have to keep it blocked off now. Thing is, there have since been other improvements so that really doesn't happen anymore, so it's kinda redundant.

Designated supervisors and maintenance personnel have to wear their full complement of locks on their person at all times; floor workers only have to wear half and keep the other half at their workstation hanging on a nail or whatnot. I have 6 locks, so I have to wear three on my beltloops. I don't mind during the colder months when I wear heavier Carhartt pants, but in the heat of summer I tend to wear very thin, light synthetic material and pants like that don't do well with weight hanging off them. Oh well. IMO rules like this are plain STUPID, and do nothing to increase safety, just offload responsibility. Case in point: two years ago we had a guy lose both legs, one above the knee and one below, because he was a fool and didn't lock a trimsaw out when he went to unjam its waste chute. He was wearing three locks on him and the rest were literally hanging less than two feet from the disconnect he should have locked out to stop that saw, yet he failed to do so. He's a great guy and still a good friend, but what do you say to that? And because of it we got shut down for two weeks and investigated and had WCB down our throats for months, trying to blame the company somehow for what happened and nit-picking every little detail of the mill. We've all been told the same about safety, but there's always someone who just won't listen no matter what.

In general, if it didn't mean my job, there are a lot of safety protocols that I would ignore though; not because I'm an idiot, but because I've spent enough time around equipment to recognize when a rule is a rule because it's actually important and in my best interests, and when it's a rule because somebody's trying to cover their arse against a potential lawsuit, which is often the case. Mandatory lockout policy = good; not being allowed to walk under a moving conveyor belt 6' off the ground = stupid. I've also found that too many rules make people complacent; some people think if they're following all the rules that they're safe and don't have to pay as much attention to their surroundings.

 

[Brmorgan]

Reminds me of my days at Hancock lumber in Pittsfield, ME. That was a white pine 1x mill, though. It had a 36" gang saw that would take that log up to 36" diameter and slice it instantly into 1x boards in just one pass, then on to the resaw and edger, etc.

I take it that must have been a sash saw then to be able to process a 36" log in one pass? If so, those haven't seen use up here for a good 75-odd years since the introduction of double-arbor gang edgers. Mind you I've never heard of flitch-cutting an entire 3' log into 1X stock in a single pass either; usually it would at least be squared on two sides by the headrig and then sent through the edger. I'd love to see a pic or vid of this thing.

 

[Behemoth Jim]

I take it that must have been a sash saw then to be able to process a 36" log in one pass? If so, those haven't seen use up here for a good 75-odd years since the introduction of double-arbor gang edgers. Mind you I've never heard of flitch-cutting an entire 3' log into 1X stock in a single pass either; usually it would at least be squared on two sides by the headrig and then sent through the edger. I'd love to see a pic or vid of this thing.

Sorry that was 10 years ago and I didn't take any pix. I will try to see if I can find anybody else's pictures online, maybe their website. It was a reciprocating saw, the 36 or 38 or however many blades were vertical and all locked together (I think) and went up and down very very fast, for their size. Hancock Lumber, Pittsfield, Maine. I believe they had another mill in Reedfield.

 

[Behemoth Jim]

In general, if it didn't mean my job, there are a lot of safety protocols that I would ignore though; not because I'm an idiot, but because I've spent enough time around equipment to recognize when a rule is a rule because it's actually important and in my best interests, and when it's a rule because somebody's trying to cover their arse against a potential lawsuit, which is often the case. Mandatory lockout policy = good; not being allowed to walk under a moving conveyor belt 6' off the ground = stupid. I've also found that too many rules make people complacent; some people think if they're following all the rules that they're safe and don't have to pay as much attention to their surroundings.

I agree whole-heartedly with your assessment.:yourock:

 

[820wards]

Hey Brad,

Thanks for the brief description on how your mill runs and the pictures and video are cool!

jerry-

 

[Daninvan]

Brad,

Thanks for posting these pictures and the associated descriptions, great to see.

Dan

 

[Behemoth Jim]

I take it that must have been a sash saw then to be able to process a 36" log in one pass? If so, those haven't seen use up here for a good 75-odd years since the introduction of double-arbor gang edgers. Mind you I've never heard of flitch-cutting an entire 3' log into 1X stock in a single pass either; usually it would at least be squared on two sides by the headrig and then sent through the edger. I'd love to see a pic or vid of this thing.

Ok, here's their website, and on it is a video you can watch (where it says "Click to see how we make Eastern White Pine boards."

http://www.hancocklumber.com/sawmill/Sawmills

Their website says they have three mills-- I don't know for sure which mill this video was shot at. It appears they have gotten even more technical ten years later (no real surprise, I guess, but they already had high tech when I was there). One thing that seems to be different (either they changed how they do it or else they do it differently at that specific mill than they do / did in Pittsfield) is the use of the bandsaw first to cut the cants. I don't remember that being the case in 2000 when I worked there.

I only worked there for 3-4 months, and had severe tendonitis and wasn't able to maintain the pace they called for on the green line. (that is what they call where you take the finished lumber off, right?) Anyway, where they sort the finished lumber into the appropriate stacks to be shipped is where they generally started the newbies (as well as rotating them through some other simple tasks so they didn't get bored, wear themselves out, or not learn enough to be of much use). Sorting was too much for me-- it came at me thick and fast and my hands couldn't do that grasp and throw thing hundreds of times a day at extremely high speed-- slippery planed lumber. If you were THE ONE to slow the line down, you were very unpopular with everyone there, esp the management. Understandably, I might add. Then I had a minor injury to my shoulder, and that kind of sealed my doom there-- I'd been hanging tough for the time being, but I decided I'd had enough-- the pay was pretty low as a temp-hire newby, and they would try you out for a while before hiring you on directly-- when I started seeing the guys I had come in with the same week graduating to red hats instead of yellow, meaning they were real employees, not temps, and I was not approached about it, I started getting a clue that I was not well-suited to their expectations. My hands are strong enough for most of the things I have to do, but the constant clenching and pulling was too much for me. I don't hold them any grudges for my not fitting in well there, if I was better able to do the work I would have stayed longer and maybe been hired permanently.

 

[cowtipper]

No offense but I really have no idea what red and blue things you're talking about here. In the video or one of the pics?

I will hang my head is shame on this one... I was trying to make a joke or more like being a smart a$$. What I was trying to say thanks for posting the information with the vid and photos it helps someone like me that is learning this stuff and being able to see how a mill works and saying in time I won't be pointing thing out with out knowing kinda what its called. Kind of like when you take a tour and there is that one person that points at something and asks what is that blue thing next to the red thing, and no one know what is is talking about. Does that make any since....

There is so much info out there, and a lot of people don't take the time to post this kind of information. Again thanks for posting the info and I will hang my head in shame for being a bad smart A$$