The Molpus Woodlands Group (MWG), a timberland investment management organization (TIMO) based in Jackson, Miss., has agreed on behalf of an institutional investor to purchase 465,000 acres of timberland from Louisiana-Pacific Corp. in east Texas. The purchase price is $285 million. The timberland is northeast of Houston and is located in the counties of Hardin, Jasper, Liberty, Newton, Orange, Polk and Tyler.

Beginning in 2000 with planer mill improvements, the latest step in the evolution of Collum’s Lumber Products, LLC culminated in mid-2002 with the renovation and reconfiguration of the sawmill. This $14 million plant-wide modification project involved new machinery from the outfeed of the debarker through to the stacker, relying mainly on CAE/Newnes-McGehee scanning/optimization and sawing systems (CAE/Newnes-McGehee has since been purchased by Coe).

Sawmillers from across the South and parts afar made the move in late June to the 27th Forest Products Machinery and Equipment Exposition at the World Congress Center, sponsored by Southern Forest Products Assn. (SFPA) in cooperation with APA—The Engineered Wood Assn. The event featured 280 exhibitors covering almost 100,000 sq. ft. of display space and drew more than 4,100 visitors, according to SFPA.

Approximately 720 sawmills produce most of the softwood lumber in the U.S. The largest 200 of these, ranked mostly according to 2002 production, are displayed in the table on the ensuing pages. Where the actual production statistic was not released, it was estimated by subtracting from capacity any lost volume due to downtime. In a few instances where neither production nor indications of downtime were available, capacity was used to compile the listing.

With today’s competitive environment and lower lumber prices, sawmills are forced to get more from less, which requires the most effective and efficient equipment. For any machine center to achieve the best results there must be the best scanning (measurement), optimization software (decisions) and material handling (results). The final results will only be as good as the worst of these three.

Autolog offers a Visual Defect Detector unit, which can be retrofitted to existing optimizers and is also offered as an option with the linear planer mill optimizer. The new system consists of 4 ultra sensitive CCD cameras with long life LED lighting system housed in rugged enclosures. The Visual Defect Detector operates at speeds of up to 2,000'/min. and detects knots as small as 0.250": edge knot, spike knot, combination knot, intermediate knot, center line knot, 1 face, 2 face and 3 face knots.