Span and Connection Calculators

This is great. I just found this today from the American Wood Council. The calculators are at the top right of the page.

http://www.awc.org/index.html

They also have a great free downloads library at http://www.awc.org/Publications/download.html

Enjoy.

Specifc Gravity, Moisture Content, and Density of Wood

Here you go. Like Math? This is for the forestry students who like to insert some math into the subject.

It is an interesting read about determining specific gravity and understanding moisture content and density.

This is from the USDA, the Forest Service, and the Forest Products Labratory.

http://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/documnts/fplgtr/fplgtr76.pdf

Wood Species Weights

What a great tool! This site has the weight per cubic foot of many species of wood.

http://www.woodwood.com/species.cfm

Same idea and more concise but in metric:

http://www.simetric.co.uk/si_wood.htm

Offering Internet Marketing Assistance

Building Products Plus will begin offering free internet marketing assistance to loyal customers who purchase more than a certain dollar amount per year from Building Products Plus or American Pole and Timber (amount to be determined).

The free assistance will be focused on improving the effectiveness of customers' existing websites, although, we will consider helping customers with the design and implementation of new sites as well.

We want to increase the number of qualified leads our clients receive from their websites so they can turn those leads into sales.

Building Products Plus is asking nothing in return for the service other than continued business from our clients. This is yet another way we are dedicating ourselves to the success of our clients. We appreciate that our success is based on their success. http://www.BuildingProductsPlus.com

American Pole And Timber Online Leads

The success of www.AmericanPoleandTimber.com has been astounding - the site brings in a great deal of traffic and, even more importantly, converts that traffic into quality phone calls and inquiries (leads) through our internet form. We have generated some excellent sales from it, including increased sales of existing products in new areas and sales of NEW products, especially our manufactured products such as timber trusses and solid uniform diameter poles.

There are always improvements to be made, however, so I am always looking for feedback. If anyone visits the site I would appreciate feedback you can offer either via the online form or with comments here.

#1 difference between site redesign and the old design - and the #1 reason for the increase in success: Invitations to call or contact us online increased about 20 times in the new site.

To learn more about optimizing websites for leads go to http://www.LeadOptimize.com

Multi-Year Housing Market Contraction

U.S. Homebuilders Batten Down the Hatches as Multi-Year Contraction Awaits
- From Building Online eUpdate
10/12/2006

NEW YORK -- (BUSINESS WIRE) With the U.S. housing market likely in the midst of a fairly severe, probably multi-year contraction, U.S. homebuilder weakness will likely extend into 2007, though a downturn could easily extend another year should a recession develop before the current housing correction troughs, according to Fitch Ratings in its latest edition of 'Chalk Line'.

"Past post World War II period cyclical declines tended to be precipitated or extended by meaningfully higher interest rates and/or a sharply slowing or recessionary economy. This downturn was not," said Managing Director and lead Homebuilding analyst Bob Curran. "Further, probably slight to moderate declines in national housing prices may be evident over the coming months and, this, initially, may reinforce the buyers' negative psychology."

Further declines in housing metrics could occur during a recession, partially because delinquencies and mortgage defaults could spike up. Investors in home mortgages would suffer and demand that mortgage terms be tightened and the loan originators, as in the past, could likely over-tighten mortgage standards.

For the most part, public homebuilders reported growth in revenues, sales prices and deliveries, but lower margins and profitability in the June 2006 (or approximate) quarter. In general, return ratios were slightly higher than a year ago, while most companies' credit ratios were similar or a bit weaker. Delivery comparisons are likely to be less robust in the third quarter and margins and profits will be down sharply on a year-over-year basis. All companies reported better profits for calendar 2004 and 2005 (following record profits during each of the prior 6-12 years or more).

U.S. Home Builders Seek Lumber from Russia

U.S. Home Builders Seek New Lumber Sources In Russia
- from Building Online eUpdate
10/13/2006

SAINT-PETERSBURG, Russia -- Addressing the International Forestry Forum here, U.S. home builders offered to share American home building technology with their Russian hosts and encouraged them to boost exports of softwood lumber and other wood products to America.

"We support opening up competition in the U.S. lumber market because we know that it will be beneficial for those families in our country who want to buy homes," said Jerry Howard, executive vice president and CEO of the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB). "We also appreciate the benefit it will bring to our home builders, who are seeking a steady supply of affordably priced lumber."

Howard and NAHB Immediate Past President David Wilson, a home builder from Ketchum, Idaho, represented NAHB and the International Housing Association (IHA) at the conference. NAHB serves as the secretariat of the IHA, which was established in 1984 to provide a forum for home builders and related industry groups around the world to share information and discuss issues related to the housing industry.

As a result of environmental and regulatory policies that have greatly reduced timber harvests from public lands, America today does not have the domestic capacity to meet its demand for lumber. Last year, more than 38 percent of the lumber used in the U.S. was imported, with Canada supplying the bulk of that amount.

However, a new softwood lumber accord between the U.S. and Canada that is scheduled to take effect on Nov. 1 will create a complex system of border taxes and quotas that will artificially raise lumber prices during periods of normal or slow demand, and thereby harm housing affordability. The pact is also expected to cause new uncertainties for U.S. builders over the availability and price of Canadian lumber.

"Access to a reliable, steady supply of lumber is the lifeline for any American home builder," said Wilson, who provided conference participants with an overview of light-frame wood construction techniques in the U.S. housing industry. "We believe that lumber trade barriers impose an unreasonable burden on U.S. home buyers and on the industries that depend on adequate, affordable supplies of lumber to provide the housing and other vital goods and services America needs."

While Howard noted that the new trade pact is a misfortune for Canada, he said it represents an opportunity for Russia and the rest of Europe to increase lumber exports to the U.S. over the long term.

"Today, the U.S. is overly reliant on Canadian imports to meet its lumber needs," said Howard. "We are reaching out to you to correct this problem and we are looking to Russia to add equilibrium to our market for this essential commodity for the home building industry.

"The Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University projects 14.6 million household formations over the next 10 years," he added. "In the next 10 years, we conservatively estimate that we will need to construct 18 million new homes. We want to work with you to open up this new trading opportunity."

During their week-long visit to Russia, Howard and Wilson also held productive talks with representatives of the Builders Association of Russia, the Union of Timber Manufacturers and Exporters of Russia, Ilim Pulp Enterprise, BaltRoss, Slavyansky DSK and the Association of Wood Housing.

The meetings come one week after Howard visited Stockholm to discuss with Swedish trade and industry officials ways to secure new import sources of softwood lumber and other wood products and to export American building systems and log homes technology.

Brief log home history

Log ConstructionIn the Folk Building Tradition Of the New World
by Ron Diener - April, 1996 from Rumford.com

Log construction of folk design and folk tradition in the inland portions of America were of three general types, depending a great deal on the origins of the builders.
British Log Home Style:The horizontal stacking of logs, whether peeled and rough hewn or squared by broadax or adze, was the preferred method of those of British and British-American origins.

The corners of the log structures were either coped (the upper log carved out to fit the lower log), notched (both adjoining logs trimmed for fitting), or blocked (adjoining logs mortised for locking in place). The more carving that was done at the ends of the logs, the more the tendency to initiate rot and spoilage of the wood.

The chinking of the logs was done with moss and/or mixtures of moss with clay and straw. Years later, as various cements and mortars became available, they were also applied to this use.

The roofing was commonly thatch. In some areas where there were straight-grained hardwoods, shake shingles were made with froe and mallet. They were soaked and applied wet, because when dry they could not be pierced with a nail without bending the nail back on itself or without splitting the shake itself. A third roofing material was bark slabs, laid on poles, fastened with nails and/or tied with rawhide.

Chimneys were made of logs, with "fireclay'' linings that could not and did not protect the wood from flame when the clay cracked or opened. Thus, these chimneys were built outside the log walls. The firebox of the fireplace was clay-lined, as thick as eight inches deep.

The building design, such as it was, tended to follow the rudest concepts of "enclosure,'' with special care to exploit any and all loft space. Larger structures were thus made of multiple enclosures, rather than a larger enclosure divided into "rooms.''

French Log Home Style: The vertical arraying of logs, usually peeled and rough hewn, was found chiefly among the French and francophone settlers, both in Canada (Quebec, Nova Scotia) and in "Louisiana'' and "Illinois.'' The French region along the Mississippi River south of the confluence with the Missouri was known as Louisiana. North of this line the French regions were usually called Illinois, westward to the ill-defined boundaries of New Spain, later New Mexico. Some historians believe that this building design is an offshoot of the stockade concept.

The logs were either chinked (moss, straw, clay) or plastered to a smooth surface with bousillage (straw, cow manure, clay).

The roofs were usually made of shake shingles over posts (some shakes as long as four feet). Occasionally a thatched roof was made. But frequently the thatched roof was thought of as a temporary expedient until good shakes could be split.

Fireplaces were made of stone, as often fully interior as exterior in relationship to the outside walls. The French were the earliest to experiment with stoves and ovens, both in urban and in the rural/folk settings. Thoroughly adequate, if not masterful, stone pointing and masonry were commonly known and practiced.

The basic folk design of the structure was rectangular with sufficient space for subdividing into rooms. The roofline was gabled in such a way that the front entrance and rear entrance, together with a house-long porch area, could be covered by extending the roof well beyond the walls of the structure. This design left a large second-story space, divisible into more rooms.

German Log Home Style: Log framing - as opposed to solid-log construction - techniques were the basic method brought by those from Germany and the Alpina (some of French, Italian, Austrian and Slavic origins, but chiefly Germanic). This technique is called Fachwerke. Its major mechanical features are commonly used in modern pole construction.

The logs were peeled and squared, then fitted by mortising. The interstices of the log framing were filled. There were three techniques of such fill. First, brick was used, with plastering interior and/or exterior an option. Second, pointed (i.e., squared with chisel and mallet) stone was applied with an interior plaster. Third, rubble stone was used together with an interior and exterior plastering applied at the same time as the stonework.

Fireplaces were central to the construction, often with a single flue or two flues serving multiple mantles and fireboxes.

Roofs were commonly thatched, later replaced with terra cotta tile if the owner could afford the additional expense. Generally speaking, shake shingles were not trusted because of fire hazzard.
The most common design was that of the central European Hof. The house occupied one of the narrow ends of a larger rectangle, with a parallel building on the opposite narrow end. Walls joined the two buildings, with a gate on each side for a team or hitch to pass through the courtyard. The building opposing the house was used for animals and storage, with roofing and roofline complementary to that of the house.

The house was thought of as two large rooms with a lower and upper story, or Etage. These larger rooms could be subdivided with hanging walls (not load-supporting) of lighter material - occasionally even cloth or hides.

Throughout the Old Northwest (Ohio, Indiana, Michigan), the Northwest (add Wisconsin and Illinois), the Trans-Mississippi west, the Rocky Mountain west, and the New Northwest (Washington, Oregon, Idaho), as well as in the bordering provinces of Canada, all of these styles stood in strange and wonderful juxtaposition. In the oldest cities (i.e., New Orleans, Kaskaskia, Cahokia, St. Louis, St. Charles, Ste. Genevieve), they even stood side by side.

A major change took place in the immigrations into these lands of the New World after 1848. Large numbers of university educated men came from those areas where the revolutions of that year failed - Germany, Italy, France, as well as other central and east European capitals.
They applied scientific principles to building and construction. They thought of their physical pied-a-terre as a place of experimentation, not as bothered by tradition or continuity as their contemporaries.

They did, of course, take on important professional and civic responsibilities in the New World (one of their number, Carl Schurtz, was a member of Lincoln's cabinet). But large numbers of them were intimidated because of their poor or highly accented English, and preferred not to confront or compete with the Yankees. They turned to farming, shopkeeping, merchandising and manufacturing, usually in their own ethnic communities with their own ethnic foods, dress and language.

They tended to influence domestic architecture profoundly wherever they went. And that influence stemmed chiefly from their examples, rather than through an imposition of ideas or concepts. They build round or octagonal barns, turreted dormers (long before Victorian styles), hillside solar-assisted homes, and many creative and innovative styles and designs.

But before them, others had come, in waves, as unrest after unrest swept Europe.

In 1736 the Moravians from Bohemia (via Saxony), as followers of Ludwig Graf von Zinzendorf, came to the New World to help fill Penn's Woods with dissidents. This, the largest of several groups from central and eastern Europe, also led the way for many others: Mennonites, Brethren, chiliastic communities, communistic settlements.

In 1745 unrest in Ireland helped to feed the shores of the New World with new stock.
The hunger and over-population of Frankish Germany in the 1740s and 1750s pushed its lesser inhabitants both east and west to the Volga River regions of Czarina Ekaterina (Katherine "the Great''), as well as to upstate New York, the marshes of New Jersey, coastal Delaware and deep into Penn's Woods.

Unrest in the Pyranees led lesser nobility of both southern France and northern Spain to come to the New World after 1763, together with their entourages who quickly abandoned their masters after their arrival on the Western shores.

More unrest in Ireland brought more refugees in the 1770s and 1780s.

Ambitious adventurers of the Low Countries from the lowly stow-away peasants to the rather wealthy younger sons of nobility and even royalty left their homelands to find their fortunes in south Asia, the Orient and America between 1785 and 1810.

The French Revolution and its sequela to the fall of Napoleon pushed out wave after wave of persecuted, tormented and threatened Frenchmen to help settle both the United States and British America (Canada), men of means and of talent and of education.

All of them, each and every group, had its special imprint on domestic architecture, folk architecture, the design and the style that are not really a "design'' or a "style'' at all, but rather the simple repetition of the known and familiar. But the repetition of the known and familiar often had to take shape in unknown or new materials. Thus domestic folk architecture developed in spite of itself.

What is Timber Merchandising?

What is Timber Merchandising

- article from myfuture.edu
This is a sector of the forest and forest products industry.

This sector includes wholesale distributors who import timber and wood products from overseas and/or interstate or buy from local manufacturers for sale to merchants and other large volume clients. They are often associated with large timber producers and are usually based in capital cities or major regional centres.

Timber merchants sell to trade users of timber products (eg commercial and industrial builders, furniture manufacturers). They usually handle many different types of timber species and products, bought from a large number of suppliers. They may provide ancillary services (eg quantities and sizes to order, drying, moulding).

Re-manufacturers design and construct wall frames and roof trusses to engineered specifications for domestic and commercial building. Others produce pallets, casks, boxes, crates and so on for agricultural and industrial use.

Retailers sell timber products and associated hardware in smaller quantities to individual tradespeople and the general public. Here the emphasis is on display, customer service and packaging.

Wood Design and Building Expo - Nov 6-8

2006 Wood Design & Building Expo


American Pole and Timber will be at the 2006 Wood Design and Construction Expo
November 6 - 8, 2006 in Anaheim, California.
www.PoleAndTimber.com

Two American Pole And Timber project consultants, Dennis Macel and Eric Lincoln, will be at the expo to discuss pole and timber products as well as manufactured products such as timber trusses and Solid Uniform Diameter poles. We hope you can visit us there.

Schedule of events:

Monday, November 6, 2006
8:00 am - 11:45 am Educational Sessionsbr
11:45 am - 7:45 am Exhibit Hall Open
12:45 pm - 5:45 pm Educational Sessions

Tuesday, November 7, 2006
8:00 am - 10:15 am Educational Sessions
10:15 am - 3:45 pm Exhibit Hall Open
11:00 am - 7:00 pm Educational Sessions

Wednesday, November 8, 2006
7:30 am - 12:15 pm Educational Sessions

To learn more about the expo, visit http://www.wooddesignandbuildingexpo.com.

www.PoleAndTimber.com

www.AmericanPoleAndTimber.com got more than 120K page views during the month of September and drew in five times as many leads as it did the month before.

It has been considered very successful. We are re-designing www.BuildingProductsPlus.com now.

Chris

Successful Inventories

Physical Inventories at Building Products Plus are getting more accurate and faster. Like anything, they go more smoothly when there is more planning.

Key factors for success:

• Straighten, Clean, Tidy before the count
• PRE-COUNT
• PRE-COUNT
• PRE-COUNT
• Training - make it clear to everyone what is to be counted and how it is to be recorded.
• Bar Code Scanners and wireless canopy over yard - faster initial entry and no re-entry. Easier to correct mistakes as well
• Daily communication during pre-count about progress
• Count teams that work together well during the count

It helps to have an experienced team who knows what they are doing as well but really believe that will the above, the count could go well with people who have minimal training of the products themselves. This is especially true for the pre-counts where you truly are simply counting. It does not matter what the product is, just count it and tag it. The counter should know that part.

Raise Floor Building Benefits

Raised Floor Building - Top 10 Benefits
10.10.2006

Raised Floor Home Building: Top Ten Benefits A Southern Pine Council Article Raised floor houses are beautiful and have proven to stand the test of time. There are many benefits to using the raised floor method to build a house. The Southern Pine Council has compiled what it considers to be the top ten.

1. Classic Style Homebuyers are rediscovering the classic elegance that a raised floor design adds to the look of the American home. Drive through the older neighborhoods of your community. The homes with ageless grace and beauty are usually raised. Visually, the raised foundation functions as a pedestal, enhancing curb appeal regardless of architectural style.

2. Uplifting Comfort Inside the raised floor home, there are special qualities that nurture the body and soul. The feeling is warmer, more intimate. Remember that special place when you were a child, a tree house perhaps, where you felt cozy and safe? Raise the floor above the ground and your perspective changes. You feel more secure. An ordinary view from the window becomes a vista. There is calm and quiet above the din of street noise. The subtle "give" of a wood floor system provides a more comfortable walking surface, putting less stress on your back, legs, and feet.

3. Extended Living Space Enjoy your porch and deck. If it is not raised, a porch is not really a porch. Porches and decks are natural amenities for a raised floor system, adding usable living area to your home outdoors. Consider the charm and hospitality of a front porch, the pest-free privacy and comfort of a screened back porch, or a spacious deck for outdoor cooking, entertainment and relaxation. On slab, a "front porch" is just a front patio. The special ambiance you come to expect when gathering on a porch or deck can only be experienced with the raised floor system.

4. Lifetime Foundation The raised floor system has withstood the test of time. Some of the oldest, most historic homes in America are still standing proud with Southern Pine floor assemblies. Southern Pine is the strongest of all North American softwoods, so you can expect a lifetime of strength, stability and durability when framing with Southern Pine. And today, modern pressure-treatment adds long lasting resistance to decay and termite attack. 21 POLY polymer coating encapsulates treated wood making it impenetrable to termites and fungus.

5. Simple Foundation Any foundation can settle, but the use of piers with a raised floor system makes leveling or repairs simple. Repairing or leveling a cracked, damaged concrete slab can be very expensive. With the raised floor system, leveling is as easy as jacking up the floor and adding shims. The raised floor is also less susceptible to disruption from tree roots.

6. Easy Home Improvement Installation, maintenance, and modification of utilities such as water, sewer, and electrical are comparatively simple with a raised floor. Remodeling? Plumbing fixture modifications are easy with the raised floor system. If you want to move the location of a toilet or bathtub on a slab foundation, get the jackhammer! Routing and rerouting of wiring for electrical, telephone, television, and computers is relatively easy and less expensive. If the home is raised high enough off the ground, air conditioning ducts can be installed from below. This option allows floor registers to direct air closer to the actual living area.

7. Natural Insulator Why live on the cold, damp ground? Wood is a natural insulator. A properly constructed and insulated raised floor system isolates the home from potential moisture problems and provides a warm, comfortable walking surface.

8. Reduced Flood Risk Flooding is a potential risk for many homeowners. A raised floor system could be the solution to raising your home's foundation at or above base flood elevation. Considering other options — slab atop dirt fill, slab on backfilled perimeter wall, or ring levee — the raised floor may be the most practical and cost effective way to protect your property and meet local building ordinances in flood prone areas.

9. Pest Control Most pests are ground dwellers. With a raised floor system, your home is up off the ground away from pests. For optimum protection against termites, pressure-treated and kiln-dried after treatment (KDAT) Southern Pine lumber is available. American Pole and Timber offers 21 POLY polymer coating, which makes your raised floor system impervious to termites. For more information call American Pole and Timber at 866-397-3038.

10. Flexible Landscaping Landscaping looks best around the foundation of the home. It helps "ground" the structure to the site. However, the installation of built-up flowerbeds and other landscaping against a slab foundation can invite termite infestation and rot. With a raised floor, landscaping can be located near the foundation without inviting this risk. Furthermore, root-severing slab construction often demands the removal of existing trees in close proximity to the structure. Near a raised floor, these valuable, beautiful and energy-saving shade trees can be preserved. Footings of a raised pier and beam structure only penetrate the root system, allowing trees to thrive.

21 POLY Polymer coating for wood comes in green, tan, brown, and grey and will make a raised floor system last virtually forever and passes building codes. For more information about 21 POLY or pressure treated wood, call 866-397-3038.

Dowel Mills - Production Methods

By Alan Froome on TimberLineMag.com 5/1/2004

RATON, New Mexico — Western Wood Products Inc. is not new to the post and pole business. Owner Ray Levengood has been running a plant in Mountain View, Wyoming since 1991 where his company produces about 6,000 components daily. The plant produces poles and posts ranging from 3-8 inches in diameter.
“We recognized an opportunity and decided to build a second plant,” said Ray. He picked a location in Raton, New Mexico and started to design a new mill. “Very few people are as serious as we are about the post and pole business,” said Ray. “I wanted to build the best plant I could and traveled all over, looking at ways to process small logs.”
WWP has been operating dowel mills since 1993 when the company invested in equipment from Round Wood Systems (RWS) of Montana. It bought two more machines in 1997.
Ray started discussions with Round Wood Systems in 2002 about an improved machine design for the proposed new plant in Raton. He specified consistent production, reduced maintenance and high quality product as his main priorities. Round Wood Systems subsequently supplied two machines that were custom designed to meet his specific requirements.
“We started to build the new plant in September 2003 and took delivery of the first RWS dowel mill in January 2004,” said Ray. “The second mill was delivered in February. The new mills are a tremendous improvement over the old ones at our other plant.” The new design features seal-less heads, and Ray expects the new machines to prove much more durable compared to the old machines.

New Plant
The new plant in Raton is designed to be a first class, state-of-the-art facility. Logs are debarked, electronically scanned to determine diameter and length, and then sorted according to eight sizes prior to processing.
The plant contracts for logging and usually works with logs from 4-12 inches in diameter and from 6-16 feet long; the preferred length is 8 feet. The logs are debarked by a Valon Kone Brunette (VKB) 16-inch ring debarker and then passed through a scanner that controls the eight sort system downstream. The sorting system was supplied by Precision Sawmill Sorting from Montana with a log scanner from WGBM.
“We sort them as we like to run all day without changing the cutter heads on the dowel mills,” Ray explained. “It takes about an hour to change a head.” He added, “We grind our own knives and replace them twice a day at Raton, but we are trying to get a full 8 hours with the new machines.” (On the older dowel mills at the Wyoming plant, the knives are changed three or four times daily.)
After sorting, the logs are fed by a belt conveyor into one of the two Round Wood Systems dowel mills. If a log has an extremely high taper, it will pass through the larger mill and then be kicked out to be processed on the small machine. A four-gang drill is used to drill holes in fence posts as required. Afterward the posts are transferred by belt conveyor to a 140-foot long green chain, and workers pull them off and stack them by size. After bundling and strapping, final length trimming is carried out by an L-M Equipment Co. package cross-cut saw.

Dowell Mills
Dowel mills are machines designed to process raw unbarked logs directly into dowels or other round wood products such as poles, fence posts, furniture parts and other round wood components that require accurate size and smooth finish. Logs must be delimbed before processing although debarking or rough sizing is not necessary before feeding them into the RWS machine.
RWS manufactures two basic sizes of dowel mills for either fixed mill floor installations or portable trailer mounting. The smaller RWS-6020H machine produces round wood dowels 2-6 inches in diameter from rough logs up to 9 inches in diameter; the larger RWS-8040H machine turns out dowels from 4-8 inches in diameter from logs up to 12 inches in diameter. An optional second head that will make 2-4 inch dowels can be fitted to the larger machine to extend its range.
The process of converting logs into round wood is accomplished in two steps. The infeed and outfeed systems accurately center and guide the log through the cutting head and prevent it from turning in response to the torque exerted by the knives. The log does not spin or turn.
According to Round Wood Systems, its machines can reduce labor by one half and increase production 100-200% compared to labor-intensive machines that turn the log. “We now have 30 machines in operation and have been building them for four years,” said sales manager Ed Smith. “Our latest design is improved so they run more smoothly and need less maintenance.”
The dowel mills can process logs at speeds up to 110 linear feet per minute, said Ed, although most companies run them at speeds of 50-80 feet per minute.
“The mills can process almost any length logs,” he added. “They are only limited by the log butt size. However, most mills run logs from 5 to 20 feet long.”

Round Wood Systems
Montana Hydraulics opened for business in 1998 in Helena, located in the forests of central Montana. In the beginning the company kept its machine tool and fabricating shops busy by provided mechanical and hydraulic service to anybody who needed it. This initially included work for the sawmill, logging, railroad, and construction industries in the region. This diversified service continues but today also includes the manufacture of precision-machined components for the aircraft industry.
In 2000 the company began supplying components to Montana Manufacturing, which was building dowel mills in the area. A year later Montana Hydraulics began building the complete machines, and in 2002 it bought the manufacturing rights for them from owner Harold Bouma.
It established a separate division to further develop these and other machines. Round Wood Systems (RWS) was formed in 2003 to focus on the design and manufacture of sorting systems, trim saws, dowel mills and their associated material handling and conveying systems. RWS employs about 20 personnel at present. Some of the key people include general manager Mark Ehlke, sales manager Ed Smith, purchasing manager Charlie Wiles and engineer Richard Hogan.

Dowell Mill Specifications
The RWS dowel mill has five main components: main frame, infeed, cutting head, outfeed and hydraulic system. There is also an electrical control console for the operator.
The main frame features one piece welded construction and supports pairs of feed rolls to guide the logs into the cutting head and prevent them from twisting as they go through the machine. Both the 6-inch and 8-inch dowel mills utilize the same frame design, but the 8-inch model is longer because it uses four pairs of feed rolls — compared to only three pairs on the 6-inch machine.
The mill infeed section guides the logs into the machine and comprises a number of smooth machined bed rolls. They work in combination with upper toothed rolls to grip the incoming log. The upper and lower rolls are mechanically linked to maintain a log center line concentric with the cutting heads and are mounted on cantilevered spindles. Squeeze pressure and roll drive is applied hydraulically, and the operator can adjust the squeeze stroke to optimize the log feeding action and resulting throughput. All roll bearings are sealed, tapered roller-type with grease-zerk fittings. To reduce maintenance, no ball bearings, roller chain or keyed shafting are used in the construction.
Cutting heads are supplied for three dowel size ranges: 2-4 inches, 2-6 inches and 4-8 inches. Each size head can be adjusted to produce a series of standard dowel sizes within its range. In addition, RWS can supply non-standard bushings on request to make custom sizes. For the most efficient operations, RWS recommends running the smallest size head capable of cutting the required post or pole diameter.
All RWS dowel mill heads use the same five bolt and three locating pin pattern, which ensures the head-machine centerline will be maintained irrespective of the size head fitted over the entire life of the machine. The heads are driven by an electric motor, and both the 6-inch and 8-inch capacity dowel mills have a drive platform designed to suit both 50 hp and 100 hp motors. Normally, the smaller machine uses a 50 hp motor and the larger machine use a 100 hp motor. In addition, a 20 hp electric motor is used on the hydraulic power pack.
Each head has three roughing knives that make the first cut and three finishing knives to make a smooth, finish cut. The knives are made of tool steel and ground to suit the individual application, depending on the customer’s wood species, moisture content of the wood, desired log feed speed, and other factors.
Head bearings are tapered roller type with adjustment by shim packs and lubricated by pressurized oil spray, which also provides cooling. Oil flow is provided by a gear type pump, belt driven by the main head motor to directly link the lubrication flow to the head rotation. The lubrication tank is separate from the main hydraulic system. Oil containment in the head is provided in a ‘seal-less’ manner using centrifugal force on the oil in the return direction rather than conventional lip contact type seals. According to RWS, this results in lower rotational drag, reduced maintenance and longer life.
The outfeed section continues to guide the material after it exits the cutting head. The resulting dowel is carried by smooth machined hour-glass shaped rolls mounted on cantilevered spindles with upper press rolls running in tapered roller bearings with grease-zerk fittings. Drive is provided by hydraulic motors, synchronized to match the speed of the infeed section.
The hydraulic system provides power to the infeed and outfeed rolls, the squeeze cylinders and outfeed kicker. A single 20 hp electric motor drives two pumps in a ‘piggy-back’ configuration. A tandem hydrostatic transmission pump supplies the feed drive, and a pressure compensated pump supplies the squeeze cylinders and kicker. The infeed hydraulic motors are connected in series, and the circuit is separate from the outfeed section; the outfeed motors are also in series. Both circuits are mechanically connected and actuated by a single electric device.
The hydraulic system oil tank is provided with a filter, heater for cold weather operation and a cooler to protect from overheating. An accumulator is also supplied for the squeeze cylinder circuit to provide compressibility and fast response.
RWS can also supply a belt infeed and outfeed conveyor to complete the customer’s production line. In addition to the dowel mills, RWS manufactures an automatic pointing machine to sharpen a point on fence posts or stakes plus a five-drill gang drill that can drill up to five holes in one pass.

Start at Western Wood Products
The most recent installation of an RWS dowel mill was at Western Wood Products in Raton, New Mexico. Two machines were installed in February. In March, when Ray talked with TimberLine, Western Wood Products was still in the initial ramp-up period.
“We are having a few glitches getting the new plant up to full production, but the new dowel mills are a tremendous improvement over the older ones,” said Ray. “Our target is 6,000 pieces per eight hour shift from the two mills, and we got 3,100 pieces from one machine on the first day, so we think it’s realistic.” By way of comparison, at the company’s plant in Wyoming, it takes three dowel mills to produce about 6,000 pieces.
The dowel mills supplied by RWS are new, improved designs that are intended to provide smoother running and require less maintenance.
When asked about debarking, Ray said, “We run lodge pole pine at our Wyoming plant and do not debark the logs. However, at Raton we run a mix of Ponderosa and yellow pine, and I have found it better to debark the logs first.” Ray added, “We also sell the bark for landscaping material and the shavings for animal bedding.”
Western Wood Products ships posts and poles all over the U.S. “When we introduced dowels to the fence post market, people were really impressed,” said Ray. “One lot of ranchers came all the way from Florida to buy our posts. Compared to peeler cores, which are all heart wood, the dowels are much more stable and don’t warp in the hot sun.”
The new plant employs 15 people but will increase to 22 when it is in full production. The company has been warmly received in Raton. “I have never been in such a great community,” said Ray. “The folks here are really awesome.”

www.PoleAndTimber.com

It is the best site in the marine and shoreline construction business.

www.PoleAndTimber.com
www.PoleAndTimber.com
www.PoleAndTimber.com

Turning Waste Wood into Profit

One of the most common ways mills and custom-wood-product manufacturers turn their wastes and scraps into a profit is by turning those scraps into shavings for sale as animal bedding or landscaping ground coverage.

This can be accomplished in either of two ways - in house or by selling (or giving) the scraps to someone else who turns them into shavings. Not only is there a value on the top line through the sale of the shavings but also to the bottom line because typically a disposal fee is required to get rid of those scraps. Here, we will discuss the benefits and risks of operating a shaving mill in-house.

Let's take a quick and simplified look at running a shaving mill. The basic requirements are:

• Shaving mill
• electricity source to run the mill (they require immense power)
• labor to run said shaving mill
• marketing of the shavings
• bags for shavings
• enough wastes to necessitate a shaving mill

Shaving mills are NOT cheap machines. This factor alone makes the entire venture questionable. The fixed cost required to even begin shaving wood wastes in-house can start from $10,000 (if you find a decent working used mill at a great price) to $100,000 for a new high-capacity shaver with a loading mechanism. You can easily spend more money but for the sake of this, we will stick to a $50,000 machine.

In my experience, you will spend additional money setting the mill up with electricity - running lines, transformers, and breaker boxes that can manage the huge draw a mill can put on the current electrical system at your location. A generator could be used but who wants another machine to maintain? Besides, you have to feed generators. Let's price this ordeal at $5,000. The monthly electricty bill for running the shaving mill 40 hours per week is $300 (this is cheap), which comes to $3,600 per year or $10,800 over three years.

Now, we have a shaving mill and electricity to power it. All we need to start making shavings is waste materials (logs, tree cuts, or blocks or scraps of wood - and they MUST be untreated) and labor to load the machine and keep it in operation. For the sake of argument, let's drop the problem of having enough scraps and say that we DO have enough scraps to run this machine non-stop five days a week for the next one hundred fifty-six weeks (three years).

Now we need labor. Let's say one person run constantly for 40 hours per week. The work costs the company $10 per hour after benefits and labor taxes. This is cheap labor, by the way, but the point of this discussion is a simplified analysis. At $10 per hour, 40 hours per week equals $400 per week, times 52 weeks per year equals $20,800 per year. Over three years, this yearly salary comes to $62,400.

Let's get to the production numbers, which brings up the number of bags we need. Let's assume, one person running the mill can shave and fill 80 50lb bags of shavings each day - this is pretty great production from one person. Either way, we need 80 big clear plastic bags each day at a cost of about 40 cents each which comes to $32 per day. Over a five day week, this equals $160 and over a 52 week year it equals $8,320. Over three years, this will come to $24,960.

To recap: We can now make and bag shavings. The variable costs per year will be $3,600 (elec.) + $20,800 (cheap labor) + $8,320 (bags) for a total of $32,720 in variable costs. This does not include admin costs, returns, gas for forklifts or other equipment used to help operate the mill. It also does not include maintenance costs or other unforeseeable costs that might arise.

$32,720 per year in variable costs.

At $3.00 per bag (often the going rate), we need to sell 10,907 bags per year to cover those simple variable costs. We produce 80 bags per day X 5 days per week X 52 weeks oper year for a total production of 20,800 bags per year.

At $3.00 per bag, the revenues from 20,800 bags comes to $62,400. This is a profit of $29,680 per year. Keep in mind that we did not figure in any ads for the shavings, our really super-productive labor is really cheap, and we are working in an environment with zero mishaps.

Other costs that need to be subtracted from this profit are: the costs of marketing your new products, sales costs (salesperson, labor to load or deliver), payments made on the shaver, and maintenance costs.

There you go. Money can be made from turning wastes into shavings but all aspects have to be carefully managed and costs need to be kept to a minimum.

From another blog

Right now, I am having trouble because of the rediculous blocks between Blogger and Blogger beta so I am just copying some of the text from this article instead of blogging it.

About the DIY homebuilder market:

To a visitor from the UK, the gleaming efficiency of the production lines is a site to behold. It’s reminiscent of car factories with wall and roof panels moving through assembly lines with a minimum of human intervention. If you want to read up more on it, there is a very funny description on the But She’s a Girl blogsite. Baufritz produce around 250 houses a year with a staff of 260, of which around 80 work in the factory and a further 60 work on site as erection crews. Work it out: it’s roughly one house per person per year. Say 1800 hours input. In the UK, you would expect to see between 3000 and 5000 hours work go into a traditionally-built house of similar size, and not that much less for a timber-frame one.

Pretty cool.

There's more. Read on if you like:
http://markbrinkley.blogspot.com/2006/07/baufritz-biological-housebuilders.html

Getting Better Profits from Timber

This is an excellent article about trends in profiting more from timber.

http://www.cnr.uidaho.edu/extforest/FMP14.pdf#search=%22timber%20profits%22

Waste Wood from Landfill Becomes Profit

Waste Wood into Profit

Sawyers turn wood otherwise destined for the landfill into a business. June 5, 2002

Here's a great value-added story I heard recently. A landfill operator in North Carolina who accepts trees and brush bought a portable sawmill and is milling "waste wood" (logs brought in by tree trimmers, homeowners, etc.). He produces lumber and sells it to local hobbyists, furniture makers, etc., as well as making "packaging timber" which is sold to a steel manufacturer. His prime value-added product consists of surveying stakes, which he makes and sells green to utilities and land surveyors. He will soon be adding a small kiln to his operation so he can market dry lumber. Not bad for an operation that charges folks for the wood they deliver (tipping fee). Most of us have to buy our raw material as opposed to getting a payment to accept it.

Steve Bratkovich

Few Acres Can Yield Big Timber Profits

Few acres can yield big timber profits
By Keryn Page

MISSISSIPPI STATE -- Landowners with as few as five acres can manage their land for pine timber production, and an often overlooked byproduct can add to the profits.

Tim Traugott, a Mississippi State University Extension Service forestry professor, said in the past landowners needed 20 to 40 acres of land to make timber production economically feasible. With today's market situation and prices, however, five acres of pine trees is more than enough.
"If a landowner plants five acres of pine trees today and manages it the way it should be managed, he or she can expect a return of $25,000-plus -- it could be much more than that -- when it matures at 35 years of age," Traugott said. "Timber buyers routinely purchase tracts of five acres or less."

Case studies show existing pine stands can earn an average of about $100 to $150 per acre per year. "That doesn't mean you plant the trees and get $100 to $150 a year -- landowners must properly manage the timber, thinning a few times over the 35-year lifespan. When the timber is harvested after 35 years, the profit will equal about $100 to $150 per acre per year," Traugott said. Traugott said his data is based on timber that is managed as a crop, much like the management techniques used by producers of soybeans, cotton and other traditional crops.

Without proper management, pine trees cannot be expected to generate these high profits.
"No matter how many acres you have, you need to manage it like a crop. If landowners seek professional help, manage the timber just like they would any other crop and market the crop properly, a five-acre pine tract will make them a tremendous amount of money," Traugott said.

Small-acreage pine plantations work because good management produces a higher volume of timber. With proper management, a landowner could produce the same volume of timber on a five-acre tract that could be produced on a 25-acre tract that has not been properly managed.
"Landowners need to understand it's not the number of acres that matters; it's the volume of timber on those acres. If you plant in pine trees and manage it properly, you're going to have high timber volumes," Traugott said.

Extension forester Britton Hatcher said selling timber at maturity is not the only opportunity landowners have to make money off pine trees. An often overlooked source of income is the pine straw that gathers on the forest floor each year.

"A lot of people here in the South are looking at a product every day that they don't realize can make them money. It is possible for landowners with pine stands in the right condition and location to make $150 or more per acre per year by selling the pine needles for mulch," Hatcher said. "If a landowner does all the work on five acres, yields 100 bales per acre and wholesales the straw for $3 per bale, those five acres could yield $1,500 per year."

Landowners can choose to harvest the pine straw themselves or contract with a harvester to do the work for them. The benefits of hiring someone else to harvest may outweigh the reduction in overall profit.

"Landowners who contract with someone to harvest their pine straw can make a considerable income, plus they don't have to do the work themselves. Not only can a landowner make money from their straw, but getting the pine straw up also helps to reduce a potential fire hazard," Hatcher said. Hatcher said managing a pine tree for straw production is not difficult: pine trees inevitably drop the needles, and landowners can simply gather them for baling.

There are two main methods of harvesting pine straw. Buying equipment to mechanically harvest is less labor-intensive but can become rather expensive. A relatively simple and inexpensive method is to purchase a hand baler, which is more labor-intensive.

Pine stands must be at least 6 to 8 years old to produce enough pine straw to make baling economically worthwhile, and baling can extend until the stand's first thinning. Once logging debris is cleared, needle harvest can continue after the thinning. Needle fall starts in late October or early November and can continue until April.

Pine straw yields, depending on harvest method, are estimated at 100 or more bales per acre for healthy, growing pine stands. Landowners who are willing to fertilize have the potential to see more than 250 bales per acre. "There's a square bale that averages about 15 to 20 pounds and a round bale that weighs about 40 pounds. The square bale has been known to bring as high as $6 or $7 per bale, and the round bale has sold for more than $12 per bale," Hatcher said. "If you're the landowner and you're doing all the work yourself and start wholesaling or retailing it, you're talking about a good bit of money."

Pine straw contains nutrients vital to tree growth, so landowners should fertilize stands with diammonium phosphate to replace the nutrients lost in baling.

Hatcher warned that producers are not allowed to harvest pine straw on lands enrolled in the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Conservation Reserve Program.