Never Lift a Board

Simple devices and procedures are used to reduce hand lifting in a small hardwood concentration yard handling yellow-poplar lumber. Rough green lumber, bought on grade, is moved from trucks and trailers by a 9-ton forklift and stacked in the yard. Lumber packages are fed to the double-end trim saw work area by the saw operator with a crank and cable. Saws are changed for length manually and trim 2,500 to 3,000 feet per hour. Trim ends go by conveyor to a bin for loading into a dump delivery truck for fuel wood. From the trim saw, lumber falls onto a 15-foot grading chain with a foot-pedaloperated stop which aligns the piece over a lumber scale board showing the scale for various length and widths of boards, thus eliminating the need for a conventional scale stick. Grades are marked on both faces, and the pieces are carried by a chain through a vat of stain preventative, then up an incline to the sorting ramp. The no-foot sorter, which consists of ball bearing rollers on a 1 in 12 slope, has 10 wood separating slots. The sorter operator drops the board into the proper slot, and it rolls on edge to a stop that tips it onto the stacking platform below. The stacking bins have permanent sticker guides at two-foot intervals; lumber is box-piled into 12-foot long, 6-foot wide, and 4- to 5-foot high packages. The pieces are pulled down from the shoulder-high stacking platform and pushed into place by foot so that no lifting involved. In the drying yard, the packages are stacked on oak timbers 14 to 18 inches above the ground with heavy timbers between packages to prevent warping. Piles are covered with cull board roofs in summer to prevent checking due to exposure to the sun. Local furniture plants purchase lumber on sticks, which saves the cost of unstickering at the concentration yard and re-stickering at the plant’s kiln. Allowance for degrade and shrinkage are negotiated. Miscut and low-grade lumber is dressed and resawed for box, crating, or sticker use.

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