By Jennifer McCary
Modernization has been an ongoing project for 35-year sawmill veteran Ron Andrews ever since he purchased Deer Park Lumber Inc., in 1982. His first move for the Tunkhannock, Pennsylvania, facility was to add kiln-drying capabilities before focusing on increasing production with the addition of a band resaw.
By the early '90s, the company president and son Ryan, who is plant manager, were ready to plan their next expansion. As they began preparing to add a second resaw, it became apparent that it was time to improve yield and tighten efficiency. Thus, they developed a long-range strategy that included a new mill.
The first step in 1995 was to renovate the log yard and increase storage capacity of the air-drying yard to 2.5 MMBF. The following year, a new building, designed to encapsulate the operating mill, was constructed.
Phase one of the project included installation of all Salem machinery fitted with Inovec optimization. Machinery included a tilt headrig and related setworks, 6ft. linebar resaw, combination thin-kerf guided gang and edger, and trimmer. Once that was operational, the old mill was dismantled and Webster vibrating conveyors were installed in the lower level.
In October 1998, a second-phase addition extended the sawmill floor eighty-five feet to encompass a 5 foot Salem horizontal band resaw with linear positioning setworks, optimized Salem board edger, Precision 66-inch chipper, and Precision vibrating conveyors. "We had planned for this, so the wall was not an end wall." Ryan stated. "Then all we had to do was add a belt conveyor, and cut off the end gate at the resaw outfeed, as well as extend the main roll-case at the headrig."
Deer Park Lumber features an INOVEC-equipped trimmer, top; a 5-ft. Salem horizontal band resaw with linear positioning setworks, left; and a Salem 17-degree tilted carriage, right.
With downstream capacity exceeding the capabilities of a single primary headrig, the next step was to match that capacity. Phase three, completed three months later, added a second Salem carriage and 5-ft. bandmill as the primary breakdown, used as needed to keep downstream machine centers operating at full capacity. Andrews opted not to install the more expensive tilt headrig here since it might not operate full time, depending on mill flow requirements.
A new HMC rosserhead debarker replaced the existing HMC unit, now used at Andrews Forest Products. In addition, the trimmer was optimized with an Inovec system to provide maximum yield.
Plant Manager Ryan Andrews is pleased with the performance of all machines.
"With the scanning, optimization, and linear positioning, we now have the means to recover and produce an excellent quality board," Ryan observes. The Andrews visited other mills and studied various machinery options before settling on Salem Equipment for the new mill. "Originally when we got into quoting the project, we thought about piece-mealing the machinery, carriages, bandmills, and rollcases," Ryan states. "Since it was a brand new project, I thought a turnkey project would be beneficial because you'd have one vendor come in and be completely in charge. It'd simplify my job with machinery specs. And it'd eliminate any scheduling and communication problems between various vendors."
A new band mill operation with a vertical edger, Andrews Forest Products, was constructed on site in the spring of 2000. The double-end trimmed production from this sawmill, although small (6-8MMBF-per day), will help control log inventories of limited volume species.
the story continues...
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