Lumber Mill Integration from Woods to Car Door

In the fully integrated operation, emphasis is placed on utilizing all wood on the lands and all portions of the tree. In the mill, emphasis is placed on getting the highest possible overrun and making sure lumber is produced in a form that gives it the highest possible value. To achieve this result, the sawmill described in this article has been equipped with three double-cutting headrigs — a 72-inch opening carriage for sawing the large, logs, a small, fast 48-inch carriage for handling thinnings and the smallest sawlogs, and a 54-inch carriage to take care of the intermediate log sizes. The three edgers in back of each of the headrigs are fully automated. Specialized equipment makes it possible to sort and band logs by species during the same shift and to separate wood chips by species. In the pulp mill, the chips are loaded into Bauer rapid-cycle digesters and treated with hot water under hydrostatic pressure to give the chips a uniform moisture content for refining conditions. The remaining residuals, consisting of hogged bark, sawdust, shavings, and hogged trim ends, are utilized to produce 77-1/2 million pounds of steam per month. Despite the heavy steam requirements, an excess of about 1000 units of wood fuel remains. Investigations are underway for the utilization of this excess for the production of charcoal briquettes.

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