December 2019
COVER STORY – Shuqualak Lumber Goes With New Technology –
During the past 12 months, Shuqualak Lumber Co. has made additional key investments in its southern yellow pine operation, resulting in greater production and recovery for the heavy-to-wide dimension producer.
Shuqualak Lumber chose Autolog for the optimization because of the familiarity and confidence gained from an earlier installation of an Autolog automatic grader in the planer mill.
Shuqualak Lumber Vice President of Sawmill Operations, Charlie Thomas III, says their five-year plan included putting a profiler on their existing curve-sawing gang, but there was no need to put it in until they replaced a vintage 1985 HEMCO vertical bin sorter with a new sorter; otherwise it would have created a run-stop, run-stop bottleneck.
Article by Patrick Dunning, Associate Editor, Timber Processing

"I can share with you from personal experience, if you are responsible and running a mill for him, you better be getting the best value out of each log in the most efficient manner, or all hell breaks loose. It can be humbling, but you learn." -- Sierra-Pacific Industries' President and CEO George Emmerson on his father, Red. Article by Dan Shell, Senior Editor, Timber Processing

Georgia-Pacific Completes Warrenton Mill; Bob Freres Dies At 90; Canfor Heads For Private Status; Hardwood CLT Plant Planned; Florida Gains Some Relief

Looking to increase lumber drying efficiency and overall performance,American Wood Dryers' patented Single Pass Continuous Kiln design has the company on the leading edge of lumber drying technology, says AWD President Gary Kolari, PE. The company is moving ahead on almost a half-dozen installations since the single pass patent was granted in the U.S. and Canada in early 2018. The new design is just the latest from a company that’s provided high-performance and efficient lumber kilns for almost 40 years. Article by Dan Shell, Senior Editor, Timber Processing

The iron and steel industry consumes more energy than any other manufacturing sector and if the cement industry were a country, it would be the third largest emitter of carbon dioxide in the world. Despite these figures, we don’t think often enough about the climate impact of construction. As both the housing crisis and climate change mount in urgency, building cities out of wood offers an exciting solution. Article by Craig Curtis, Chief Architect of Katerra