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This week:

Of saw and sawdust

erhaps he had been a little
hasty accepting the chal-
lenge to add 20,000 board
feet to his total production over the

‘next two weeks. His sawmill fore-
man had warmed him. "Buzz," Paul -

Planque had said, "you're nuts.
You're already producing every-
thing you can expect of two shifts
in a new mill. Push it, and you just
might break it."

"No." Planque was one of a
select few in the mill who was

. allowed to use Percival Sawyer’s

nickname, Buzz. "No Paul,” he had
said. "I’ve got a plan."

But as Sawyer watched the first
hints of moming sun highlight the
icy peaks of the Seven Sisters, he
wondered if perhaps he might
come up with a better plan. Mon-
day and Tuesday hadn’t gone all
that well.

"Just bad luck," Sawyer muttered
to himself as he watched workers
swing into the parking lot. “Today
will be much different. Paul’s a
good man. He’ll make my plan
work." |

The sound of machinery began to
fill the air, There was comfort in
the sound of the mill springing to
life. "Today will be much differ-
ent," Sawyer promised himself.

Sawyer’s plan was simple. If you
want a fan to blow mote air, you
simply switch it to a higher speed.
If you want more lumber to come
out of a sawmill, you simply
switch everything to a faster speed
and feed it more logs.

"How's it going Percy?" Sawyer
turned to see Syd Silver’s ample

frame filling the doorway to his
office.

"Fine," said Sawyer. "Just fine.
The first couple of days were a
little rough, but we'll have the mill
humming today."

"Good," Silver replied. "We'll
snatch this little disaster from the
jaws of fate yet. The other two
mills say their production is on

' track too. And even though he’s

paying a five percent penalty,
Milton Jovial will have reason to
smile a week -Monday when he
sees 310,000 board feet of lumber
on it’s way to the dock.”

"Right," smiled Sawyer.

He hoped his air of confidence
was convincing. Maybe he should
level with Silver. Maybe he should
tell Silver he didn’t really believe
the mill could stand the strain.
Maybe should explain that in their
rush, logs weren’t being properly
sorted... saw blades weren’t being
changed as often as they should.

Sawyer’s temptation to tell Silver
the truth was interrupted by a rap
on his open office door. It was
Planque.

"Buzz. Can I talk to you...
Alone."

Silver took the hint. "Okay. Keep
up the good work guys. I've got to
give Milton and Herby an update
on how things are going."

As a parting thought, Sawyer
reminded Silver that someone had
to explain to Milton Jovial that
they were working on a quarterly
plan, but in reality it would have
to wait until the current overseas
order was filled. Silver said he

Terrace Review —

Wednesday, July 24, 1991 AT

by Tod Strachan, in consultation with Rod Arnold and Doug Davies

would take care of it and left. .

Turning to Planque, Sawyer
began to ask what he wanted. But
the look on Planque’s face dis-
turbed him, "Come in Paul... Close.
the door," he said with some concern.

"Buzz. We need a better plan."

"What's wrong?”

"It’s simple. The plan we're
using isn’t working."

"Can you be a little more speci-
fic?"

"Well..."

Sawyer listened as Planque
explained. His plan had been to
speed up production by running
the entire mill a little faster in
order to cut the extra 20,000 board
feet needed to fill Jovial’s overdue

“overseas order. It was easy enough

to do, he thought. This was a state-
of-the-art mill... All you had to do
was adjust a few of the numbers at
the control panel and the job was
done. a

Planque, however, disagreed. It
takes time to increase production,
he said. Particularly in a new mill.
You don’t simply change a few

_ Letters to the Editor
Contribution taken for granted

To the Editor;
There are in Terrace two valu-

able institutions whose contribution .

to our community is often taken
for granted. I feet they deserve a
special note of thanks. I refer to
our newspapers! They not only

keep us up to date with all the

local events and interesting people,
but also go one step further. They
are genuinely interested in and
actively support any project which

benefits or improves our city.

As a library trustee, I am particu-
larly appreciative of our news-
papers’ support of ongoing ser-
vices such as the children’s pro-
gramming, Harriett Fjaagesund’s
book reviews and our mini-book-
mark ads. Moreover, they are
constantly attentive to all the addi-
tional activities and needs of the
library, especially with regard to

Blood clinic thanks

To the Editor; .
On behalf of the Red Cross

- Blood Donor Clinic, held July

10 at the Skeena Junior Secon-
dary School gym, I would like to
acknowledge all the local
businesses who assisted.

I would also like to thank the
Royal Canadian Legion Branch
13, the Terrace Kinsmen, School
District No. 88 (for the free use
of the gym), custodian Ron
Gardner for his endless help
before, during and after the
clinic, the two men who moved
the tables for me, all the outlets
in Terrace who so willingly let
me put up posters, the City of
Terrace for letting me put up the
Blood Donor Banner, Kay
Parker arid Frances Fraser for

donating two enormous

decorated cakes, the Kinettes for

their $50 donation, and last but
not least, all the volunteers who
did the telephoning, and the
ones who came out to work at
the clinic. Without you it
couldn’t have been done. Thank
you.

It was a very busy day, with
the last bed being packed away
atlOp.m. |

Anyone interested in the
challenge can phone me at
635-2158. Again, thanks to the
residents of Terrace for making
this 1991 clinic a huge success.

Lissi Sorensen,
__ Chairman
Tetrace, B.C,

the planned expansion of the
library. :

One recent example of their
support concems their contribution,
along with School District #88, the
Terrace and District Teachers’
Association, the Northwest Devel-
opment Education Association, the
Terrace Toastmasters, and the
Library in bringing to Terrace the
renowned correspondent Gwynn
Dyer, who gave us his vivid obser-
vations of the Gulf War and his
own, very positive, vision of the
future. On that occasion, both
papers supplied extensive adver-
tising and encouragement for the
visit, and the Terrace Standard
contributed accommodation for the
visitor. This was an event made
possible by several groups, but the
newspapers played a big part in
making the event a success.

We are fortunate indeed to have
such a community-minded media
and through this letter we at the
library wish to extend to them our

sincere thanks. We look forward to
their continuing support in publi-
cizing the many services that the
library offers and also our plans to
expand the facility in the near
future.
Maureen Ogawa,
Correspoimling Secretary,
 ‘Perrace Public Library,

numbers and watch the lumber fly.

"The way we’re doing things, the
head rig can’t keep up," Planque
said. "We should be cutting
interior hemlock and coastal hem-
lock and balsam for this order. But
that’s only 60 percent of the logs
in the yard... Twenty percent of the
logs out there are spruce. And
because of our great haste, and a
bit of a shortage of logs, a lot of
that spruce is going through the
head rig. The logs aren’t being
sorted properly and it’s slowing us
down.

"Compounding matters,” he con-
tinued. "Under your orders, we're
not changing blades in the head rig
often enough. Twice per shift, you
told me. We don’t have the time
Tight now to change blades every
two hours or so. It’s only been two
days, Buzz, but | think we're cut-
ting less lumber now than we were
before. You had better face the
facts before the deadline comes
and you find you haven’t been able
to live up to expectations.

"Nonsense," said Sawyer.
"You're exaggerating. You were
hired because of your qualifica-
tions. Now’s your chance to show
your stuff. There’s nothing wrong
with the way we’re doing things."

"Buzz," Planque said in frustra-
tion. "Let’s go have a look."

The two men leaned against the
stee] rail overlooking the head rig.
Blades screamed as the logs came
down the line. .

"So what’s the problem," Sawyer
said after watching for a short
while.

Planque didn’t need to reply. As
if in answer to Sawyer’s question,
there was a noticeable change in
the sound of the saw. The system
slowed. Blades began to smoke.

"Spruce," said Planque. "And the
wrong kind of a blade. A few of
those, the blades dull, and even the
hemlock doesn’t get cut properly."

"Nonsense," said Sawyer with
some uncertainty.

"Let’s go look at what's coming
out of the dry kiln," Planque sug-

Pifer —

Continued from page A6 ____.

By staying away, and thus
out of the media spotlight, Mr.
Vander Zalm’s longtime links
with Mrs. Johnston could only

‘be sneered at by the McCarthy

crowd. I believe that had he ac-
tually been there as a reminder
of the party’s internal strife
and external political chaos of
the past four years, Mrs.
Johnston would have lost votes
— certainly more than 31.

gested.

Sawyer watched as workers
sorted lumber.

"What we're having to do,”
explained Planque, "is cut every-
thing oversize in order to accom-
modate the spruce and the damage
caused by a dull saw. As you
already know, spruce shrinks more
than hemlock when it’s dried. So
we're cutting oversize and the
hemlock has to go through the
planer after it’s dried so the
dimensions of both the spruce and
hemlock will be the same."

Sawyer watched as most of the
cut lumber was sorted; destined for
the planer.

"T still don’t see the problem,"
Sawyer finally replied. “There’s a
bottom line here. We have an
order to fill, and fill it we will. So
you have to send it through the
planer. Big deal."

"See that pile over there,"
Planque said as he pointed to a
sizeable pile of lumber. "Reject.
Take a closer look."

Sawyer felt and looked at the
surface of one of the pieces of
jumber.

"All those humps and hollows,"
Planque explained. "That's what a
dull blade does. It wanders."

"I know that," Sawyer shot back
with some annoyance. "So what.
Send it through the planer and it’l!
be just fine."

"Can’t," replied Planque. "Where
there’s a hollow, the lumber is
undersized. It’s reject... Pure and
simple. The wood’s wasted. The
time used to cut it is wasted. If we
had have changed the blade we
could have used this lumber."

"Planque," said Sawyer. "You
amaze me. There’s a very simple
answer and I’m surprised that

someone with your experience

can't see it. Cut the lumber larger,
and send it all through the planer.
"We don’t have the logs or the
time to sort any better than we are.
And we can’t spare the fifteen or

‘twenty minutes it takes to change

blades every two hours. That could
cost us up to two-and-a-half hours
a day.

*Now make the necessary adjust-
ments and keep pace with the
demand. I want to see 20,000
board feet of lumber leaving this
yard a week Monday morning."

Taproot to treetop
Stump to dump
You’ll find the best

forestry coverage in the
region in the pages of the }
Terrace Review |

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