he WESTERN CANADIAN LUMBER WORKER 5 NEW MACHINES-— sat FEWER WORKERS IN SAWMILLS By JACK MacKENZIE IWA REGIONAL 2nd VICE-PRESIDENT Nevertheless, the push-button operator is a common sight. Various units are at least semi-automatic. The transfer of material between the various stages of ‘ precessing is rapidly becoming more automatic, and may yet lay the basis for complete automation in a sawmill. The future of sawmilling is an open question. ; All the IWA Local Unions, certified in large saw- mill operations, report the introduction of automatic and semi-automatic machinery involving new milling techniques. The production of dimension lumber has soared to a new high. This story of the last few years reveals radical changes not only in production methods but in the organization of the crews. The over-all pic- ture indicates very clearly that the labour force in relation to the increased production has diminished. As in logging, a bird‘s-eye view of the whole situa- tion is necessary. The rate of medernization varies from mill to mill. Mills with antiquated equipment have been closed down. No mill has yet been fully automated. Because of the wide variation of changes in saw- mill operations, we may here select the new sawmill operated by Celgar Lid. (division of Columbia Cellulose Lid.) at Castlegar as one of the best illustrations of a - modernized sawmill. Because it is a new mill, in opera- tion for only one year, “built from scratch”, with brand- oy ee ee ee new engineering designs, it may establish something of a pattern in the industry, at least for a few years. Production in this mill ap- proximates 150,000 f.b.m. per shift. The mill is not auto- mated.’ After a study of auto- mated mills in the. United States, the engineers decided on plans that would place skilled men at the “points of decision”. The labour force required by the original plans has remained almost constant, and for this reason a displacement of labour is not evident as in some other mills. Any estimate of labour displacement must be made by comparisons with the pro- cess of modernization else- where. The company’s inten- tion was to replace manual labour, wherever possible, with machine supervision by the employees. i This sawmill has unique 4 features in the design of the log lengths and each head rig feeds cants to its own gang saw. The cants cross the roll * case from the riderless car- riage by means of cant flip- pers. A double acting set of sweeps, operated by the tail sawyer, takes jacket boards to the double edger and slabs to the waste conveyor. Steam feeds of 14” induction motors, 150 hp. : ving through Airflex LOG BUNDLE HAUL-UP FROM BOOM |S “sawmill flow”, the simul- taneous production of lum- ber from fir, pine and spruce, and the utilization of waste by dovetailing the operation of the sawmill with that of the adjoining pulp mill. We are indebted to Celgar Ltd. for courteously supply- ing the photographs and tech- nical descriptions used here for the readers..I have personally visited the mill. Two rail carriages on four tracks raise log bundles from the boom area to the log deck. From the breakdown decks the logs are kicked on- to a Jog conveyor and bucked to length, either with an overhead circular cut-off saw or a chain saw. The logs are then scaled and kicked off to transfers which lead to the barker. Here the bark is sep- arated from the water and used for fuel. Two headrigs cut different Se SS he All the gang output ap- proaches the edgers, where a system is installed to dispose separately of slabs, square sawn timber, and jacket boards to be edged- A vertical re-saw services both sides of the mill. This unit also returns the resawn outturn to the side where it came from originally. Square sawn timber from the pine side rig and both edger gang side drop-outs goes directly to the trimmers. All other lumber goes over a transfer and a four- way p sort. On the fir side, before the decline to the green chain, a information of our - Teen CLCK from the fir side passes the marker and goes down the decline to the green chain, after which it is yarded by the carrier. Lumber from the pine side, after trimming, is passed through a 90 degree turn by means of a curved roll case and delivered by belt con- veyor to a semi-automatic drop-type sorting machine. This sorter provides for 23 different sorts, by grade, width, and length. Sorted lumber is stacked in bins, which are on inclined skids about 30 degrees to the hori- zontal. Enough lumber is stacked in one bin to make See “NEW MACHINES” — P. 6 SAWMILL FLOW SHEET % CELGAR LTO., Costiegor, AC. ee a TWIN LOG DECKS x u or) EN io, aX 7 oh o 4 i fi} J - wai P ese ; ee. oi ‘ co = . bs fe