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

[Andrew96]

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.

It's too bad your company has made it mandatory to carry your locks with you. That is a bit much. Old safety policies..like the now safe conveyor.....well I might agree with them on that one (well...I certainly don't know your plant). Your plant should be safe enough for a visitor, or a new guy to survive until they know as much as you do now. As we saw last week...simple machines can do a lot of damage to ones fingers when you mix visitors in there. Everyone else knows...the visitors or the new guys don't. Mix in an old sign with some plain old common sense and people will be safe. Rely on the signs....that's just asking for trouble. Too bad those people haven't learned yet.

I was glad to see you pitch in and fix your machinery...and put safety first even if it was night shift.

It's great to see inside a real mill though. Thanks again for the video and photos.

 

[Brmorgan]

It's too bad your company has made it mandatory to carry your locks with you. That is a bit much. Old safety policies..like the now safe conveyor.....well I might agree with them on that one (well...I certainly don't know your plant). Your plant should be safe enough for a visitor, or a new guy to survive until they know as much as you do now. As we saw last week...simple machines can do a lot of damage to ones fingers when you mix visitors in there. Everyone else knows...the visitors or the new guys don't. Mix in an old sign with some plain old common sense and people will be safe. Rely on the signs....that's just asking for trouble. Too bad those people haven't learned yet.

I was glad to see you pitch in and fix your machinery...and put safety first even if it was night shift.

It's great to see inside a real mill though. Thanks again for the video and photos.

Carrying locks is fairly standard, actually. When I was in high school (and a while after) I worked weekend cleanup and on-call at one of the bigger mills that my dad used to work at, and sawmill personnel were required to have 10 locks (and some jobs DID actually require use of all ten!). And they were the big 4" long brass Master locks, not lightweight pressed-steel ones like I have now. Regular floor workers at that mill weren't required to wear locks, but maintenance and cleanup were. It was a major PITA running around with two locks on every beltloop putting an extra four or five pounds of weight on your waist. Felt like a deep-sea diver. We would often take them off if we were going to be in one spot for any length of time though, and nobody said anything.

I dunno about a plant having to be safe enough for a visitor; I mean, any visitors should be accompanied by a senior employee, not left to find their own way. And as for safe enough for a n00b, well, that could be pretty subjective and dependent on the person in question's common sense, I guess.

 

[Brmorgan]

Some grading

Well Bob, remember you were asking me how fast boards come out of the planer? We ended up in the mill for the first half of the shift tonight, and then hopped over to fire the planer up for the last half, so I took a bit of video to give you an idea of what it's like:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RL4keS7wQgY

We were running 9' (104-5/8" long) 2X6 Studs tonight, and the planer was only running at maybe three-quarters capacity because the other guy I'm grading with hasn't done it in a couple years and is still re-adjusting to the speed, so this is nowhere near what you'd see with the planer pushing 2X4s flat out. The only reason we have to run 2X6 slower though is because you run out of real estate on the landing table chains real quick with that extra 2" of width, and have nowhere to flip the boards; you just end up flipping one on top of the other and spending more time sorting than grading, which is pointless. This stuff was a breeze today though - we ran quite a large sort (7-12") through the mill the last couple days for the 2X6 run, much larger than what was in the 2X4 run in the first video, so the majority of the boards made grade easily. It's when all the boards are borderline and you have to really think about each one that the job gets to be a real challenge.

When grading there, we have to push the on-grade 9' pieces forward into the pinch belt/chain which carries them up to the top chains to the 9' stacker. Anything that does not make grade is marked accordingly and pulled back to avoid the bypass incline to go through the trimsaws and down to the greenchain and short stacker. The general idea with two gradermen is to flip every other board; some are better than others at this, and it can really throw you off if you're second man like me and the first guy keeps messing up the cycle. Being second is a bit more work with no more pay, but I'd rather be there and keep an eye on everything a bit more, personally. I can grade everything at this speed if I need to; the arms get sore real quick flipping 2X6s though and there's no way I could do if for more than a couple days in a row.


Incidentally, this was my view of the sunset from my booth in the sawmill tonight around 8:00:

And closer to 8:30:

That's the plume of smoke from the Meldrum Creek fire, which was the closest of the really big fires to town at scant over a dozen miles west, and contributed to the smoke conditions the most. It's still burning pretty good but is more or less completely contained, and conditions have gotten significantly better for the firefighters with recent rain and cooler temps, and a fair bit more rain is in the forecast yet. Fingers crossed.

Bob - did your little air sampler thingy show you anything interesting? Or have you even gotten 'round to that yet?

 

[BobL]

Well Bob, remember you were asking me how fast boards come out of the planer? We ended up in the mill for the first half of the shift tonight, and then hopped over to fire the planer up for the last half, so I took a bit of video to give you an idea of what it's like:

Thanks Brad - that is pretty interesting to see - but when do you get time to scratch?

Bob - did your little air sampler thingy show you anything interesting? Or have you even gotten 'round to that yet?

I did a preliminary analysis and it showed very low Uranium content in the air. It was about 1 millionth of a millionth of a gram per cubic metre! This is very, very low and I strongly suspect that filter (which was hanging in front of the window) was just resampling (or rescrubbing) the room air more than continuously sampling new outside air. The problem was that there was an insect screen across the window so I couldn't hang the filter outside the window. I was still a worthwhile experiment wherein I learned what I'll have to do next time.

 

[mtngun]

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

Was the trimsaw still spinning when he went over to unjam the chute ? If not, how did it turn on ?

There was a similar incident at the local stud mill a while back. Chute jammed up, guy jumped in the chute to unjam it, ended up falling into the chute and getting chopped up -- fatal. So yeah, they are anal about locks.

An acquaintance was fired from the same stud mill because he stepped over a machine without locking it out. Just that one violation, and he was out of a job.

When I worked in industry, I was pretty good about locking out my machines. I was so good at it that I'd leave my lock on when I went home at the end of my shift. I was always getting in trouble for that.

Do some mills grade lumber with a machine, rather than with humans ? Just wondering, because someone who worked at the Potlatch mill in Lewiston used to brag that their lumber was never touched by a human hand. Optical scanning is commonly used for grading food products (i.e., french fries) so I assume the technology could be applied to lumber ?

 

[Andrew96]

how did it turn on ?

Well I wouldn't call that the million $ question...but I'm sure by now...a million life question. That's the whole point of a lockout. People ask that after someone got hurt. How does it happen?

Someone walks over and turns it on...I bet this rarely happens.

Someone turns the machine on from a distance away...might happen.

More often though...Machines are linked together in a line...someone turns on the line (or jogs it which you can do with some safeties open..like to clear jams) and the machine turns on the one you are working on...or IN. We used to read about these all the time. Two guys get a jam on a long line..both try to clear them. One guy jogs the line and the other gets caught.

At our plant...a new electrical tech was 'reviewing' a PLC program online from home looking at live code within a robotic cell. After watching the code for awhile he couldn't see anything happening. He assumed production had gone to lunch or whatever. He toggled a value apparently 'accidentally' (moved cursor over it) and the robot 'homed' himself. That was enough for a guy, in the cell, to get hit with a quick moving arm and get hurt. You just never know. Yes the guy was wrong...He had the center stopped..but never thought someone from home could make the robot do something.

In Ontario you have to have access to locks. With you means in your tool box, or at your work station. Not actually locked onto your pants.
Is having them locked to your pants a BC thing or a forestry industry mandate or just your mill?

 

[Brmorgan]

Was the trimsaw still spinning when he went over to unjam the chute ? If not, how did it turn on ?

There was a similar incident at the local stud mill a while back. Chute jammed up, guy jumped in the chute to unjam it, ended up falling into the chute and getting chopped up -- fatal. So yeah, they are anal about locks.

An acquaintance was fired from the same stud mill because he stepped over a machine without locking it out. Just that one violation, and he was out of a job.

When I worked in industry, I was pretty good about locking out my machines. I was so good at it that I'd leave my lock on when I went home at the end of my shift. I was always getting in trouble for that.

Do some mills grade lumber with a machine, rather than with humans ? Just wondering, because someone who worked at the Potlatch mill in Lewiston used to brag that their lumber was never touched by a human hand. Optical scanning is commonly used for grading food products (i.e., french fries) so I assume the technology could be applied to lumber ?

Oh wow, talk about missing one altogether! I never saw this post, sorry. Anyway the fella that lost his legs never shut off or locked out the saw at all. Which might have been better because I've seen the damage a coasting sawblade can do - makes an ugly snarled mess instead of a nice clean cut.

As for grading with a machine, there are two grades for this: Machine Stress Rated (MSR), which is the most common, and Machine Evaluated Lumber (MEL).

MSR machines consist of a series of rollers which push and bend a board as it passes through; they measure how much pressure it takes to bend the board X amount, and can determine if it passes a certain strength rating. MSR lumber is not graded #1, #2, etc... you will see grades like 1450fb (the lowest grade), 2100fb, 2400fb, etc. In this case, "fb" stands for "fiber bending", nothing to do with board feet! You may also see a combined grade like 2400fb - 2.0E. There is another measurement known as the Modulus of Elasiticity, or MOE; the latter number reflects this. MSR lumber must still be visually graded by a human being (or a very very good optical machine) though, because MSR machines are unable to stress-rate the first and last two feet of each board due to their design. So grading MSR lumber essentially consists of making sure that there are no defects in the untested portion at each end that are worse than the defects in the tested portion. It often isn't as easy as it sounds!

In all honesty I'm not entirely sure what the differences of MEL lumber are. They don't even teach how to grade it when you get your certification up here because almost nobody runs it around here.

Some more info:

http://www.msrlumber.org/machinegradedlumber.htm

 

[Brmorgan]

I had to go run the trimdeck in the sawmill today (and probably all this week) so I decided to turn the phone's camera on for a bit. Bob wondered when I got time to scratch over grading in the planer? This is MUCH busier! I have to sort boards, throw the rejects and slabs down to the main chip conveyor in the basement, and pull/flip boards to trim the ends as needed. I've helped out here briefly a couple times when it was a two-man job a long time ago, but this was the first day I'd done it by myself. Went pretty well. These are 10' 2X4s destined for China.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVxQ_1x17Ik

PS - got some good Aussie rock 'n roll going for ya there too Bob! Work isn't so bad when you can have some tunes in the background, makes the day go by pretty quickly.

 

[BobL]

Thanks Brad. it looks like its full on. Are you concentrating or on some sort of autopilot. I see things get pretty hairy around the 3'20" mark but you seem to recover. How long continuously do you have to do it for?

 

[gemniii]

I assume the boards being tossed off are the ones sent directly to my local home depot.

 

[Brmorgan]

I assume the boards being tossed off are the ones sent directly to my local home depot.

LOL... I know what you mean. But I doubt it since they get turned to chips pretty quickly, about 50' farther down the line.

Bob, it can go at that pace for an entire quarter between breaks (2.5h) without any significant stops if the machines are working well and everybody's doing their jobs. It's fairly rare that things go that smoothly though. It's not a very difficult job, but you have to be willing to work at a good pace and it helps to know a few tricks for handling boards. It's kinda fun watching a newbie try to sort boards on the deck when they don't know how to use the board's weight and shape to their advantage. The only real concentrating I have to do is to look ahead a bit and calculate how to most efficiently sort the boards as they come down the chain, sometimes fairly crossed up. It's like a minor game of pick-up-sticks once in a while. This China wood is pretty loose on grading, so I don't have to spend too much effort on that.


What happened later in the vid is that the slab I tried to tip into the waste had a split, which hung up on the channel steel that the second deckchain runs in and then got pinched between two boards moving down the deck, so it wouldn't fall down free; then I got backed up a bit when I had to go after it. It happens from time to time. I really really hate shutting the chains down; it feels like I've been defeated, so I had to bust my hump for a minute to get caught up again. No worries!