U.S. Coalition for Fair Lumber Imports petitioned the Dept. of Commerce (DOC) and the International Trade Commission (ITC) on April 2 to restore fair trade in softwood lumber between the U.S. and Canada by imposing duties to offset alleged Canadian softwood lumber production subsidies and dumping of the product on the U.S. market.

Curtailment? Not here. Not even close. Production at the Kinzua Resources, LLC sawmill operation in Pilot Rock has doubled since the company purchased the mill from Louisiana-Pacific in 1996, thanks to the installation of a small log line, from infeed deck to primary breakdown. The new small log system is adjacent a large log infeed side and headrig, with pieces from both small and large log breakdowns moving into a fine-tuned flow of upgraded downstream machinery.

Mead Southern Wood Products’ facility here recently spent $3 million replacing a tired chipping headrig small log line with a new USNR extended length infeed/sharp chain and vertical shape-sawing (VSS) single-arbor gang system. Installation began last November and was completed in early January. According to mill managers, the line is coming up to speed nicely and is expected to be operating at capacity within a few weeks.

In a true story, an employee of a Southern sawmill was too impatient one day to wait for help or to follow procedures and he started working on a machine. It was a simple routine he had done time and again, which probably contributed to his false sense of security. So he skipped several safety procedures and almost lost a hand after the machine’s hydraulics crushed it.

Not surprisingly, the 29th annual Wood Technology Clinic & Show held here at the Oregon Convention Center on March 14-16 suffered a decline in attendance compared to the 2000 event. VNU Expositions, which now runs the show following the buyout of the previous management, Miller-Freeman, reports a 35% drop in attendees, from 6,617 to 4,326. Number of exhibiting personnel held at 2,363 compared to 2,387 in 2000.

As part of Toyota’s strategy to strengthen its global material handling operations, Toyota Automatic Loom Works, Ltd. (TAL) is acquiring Toyota Industrial Equipment (TIE). The acquisition results in the formation of a new company, Toyota Material Handling, U.S.A.

It began with a breakfast and has grown into a feast—a banquet of tomorrow’s technology that has spread to international proportions by serving up the latest in forest products machinery and equipment. In a word, it is Expo. Expo traces its roots back more than 40 years, when members of the Southern Pine Assn. (SPA) held a series of meetings to determine how the industry’s mechanical efficiency could be improved.