Assessments of hardwood lumber edging, trimming, and grading practices of small sawmills in West Virginia

Six small-scale sawmills were investigated on two separate occasions to evaluate lumber edging, trimming, and grading practices across West Virginia. Measurements for wane, clearwood, and defects were taken on 60 pieces of lumber prior to edging and trimming at each sawmill. Measurements were taken...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Forest products journal 2009-05, Vol.59 (5), p.69-75
Main Authors: Wang, Jingxin, Goff, William A, Osborn, Lawrence E, Cook, Gregory W
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Automation
efficiency
Forest products industry
Losses
Lumber
lumber grades
Lumber industry
optimization
Pallets
processing technology
Product defects and recalls
product quality
Production data
Production methods
profitability
Profits
sawing
Sawmills
Studies
surface quality
value losses
wood defects
wood processing
wood products
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Summary:Six small-scale sawmills were investigated on two separate occasions to evaluate lumber edging, trimming, and grading practices across West Virginia. Measurements for wane, clearwood, and defects were taken on 60 pieces of lumber prior to edging and trimming at each sawmill. Measurements were taken for widths and defects at 1-foot increments on the board to retain the optimum width and length of the top face using reference points to maintain the determined measurements. A private National Hardwood Lumber Association (NHLA) certified lumber grader was employed to determine the grade of each face of the boards. The boards were then put back into the system to be edged, trimmed, and graded by sawmill employees. After processing, the grade and surface measure obtained independently by the private NHLA certified grader and the sawmill's grader were compared for each board. Results indicated that all of the sawmills investigated were losing money to some extent because of their edging, trimming, and grading practices. An average loss of nearly half a foot of surface measure per board was found based on all 360 boards. The average dollar-value loss ranged from 0.5 to 24.1 percent per board. With increased training in edging, trimming, and grading requirements, these losses could be reduced and the small sawmills' yield and revenue could be improved.
ISSN:0015-7473
2376-9637