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Automated Cant and Tie Stackers

Started by smwwoody, July 03, 2015, 08:57:00 AM

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smwwoody

Hi All,

We are getting ready to build a new mill to replace our current set up.  we have 2 corlly headrigs both feeding gang saws. we average around 200mbf/week now with 24 total employes.  that is counting office staff and the forester. 

we want to automate our cant and tie stacking at the new mill.  does anyone have any experance with theses machines.  so far I have been looking at these 2.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTOQGhNEoUE

http://midllc.com/

what do you think?
Full time Mill Manager
Cleereman head rig
Cooper Scragg
McDonugh gang saw
McDonugh edger
McDonugh resaw
TS end trim
Pendu slab recovery system
KJ4WXC

Ron Wenrich

I'm not too impressed with the TS4000 stacker.  I never liked stacking on the smallest width due to instability in the bundle.  It's not such a big deal in green bundles.  But, those straps loosen up when things dry out.

The other system looks rugged enough, but takes up a lot of room.  Is the sort run by sensors, and can you change up easily?  Sometimes you work yourself in a corner.  That unit has the ability to sort and stack.  Seems like a good choice.  The only drawback is you have to wait until you have a full layer before you can add to the stack.  What happens when you have a partial layer and you want to change the bundle?  We always had to separate our soft hardwood cants from our hard hardwood cants.  Different buyers. 

Another option is something like the Morbark Stack Trak.  They're supposed to be fairly fast.

We always stacked our ties on the end of a green chain.  We always ran a single length in a run.  That way, we wouldn't have to change up on our bundles.  It gets busy as you run your lengths with all the cutoffs.  But, it made for a lot simpler stacking.  With the ties on the end, it was just a matter of keeping things straight without any lifting.  A Logrite was there to help.  When we cut bridge or long switch ties, we ran them off the end of the green chain.  One man can stack a lot without lifting, if it's set up right. 

For cants, we pulled them onto bundles and onto carts.  There wasn't much lifting, just pulling.  Get an end on the bundle, then push the piece into place.  But, we weren't doing that type of production.  We were in the 60-70 Mbf/wk with 5 employees and no office staff or forester.  Single headrig, no gang saw, no resaw.

Never under estimate the power of stupid people in large groups.

smwwoody

Hi Ron

We stack just like you do now.  it works good but the bean counters are looking for more production more automation and less people.  they tell me that 1 person over the life of a new mill will cost around 1.2 million dollars.  I have worked around a few of the stac tracs  they work good but i dont think they will keep up with the production we are looking for.

our new set up will consist of a Cooper overhead scragg with slab recovery, a HMC carriage, an optamized edger, gang saw, and grade resaw.

i am leaning toward the cooper stacking system.  we have lots of room and it looks simple

we dont sort logs by length now but i think we may have to in the future.

Woody
Full time Mill Manager
Cleereman head rig
Cooper Scragg
McDonugh gang saw
McDonugh edger
McDonugh resaw
TS end trim
Pendu slab recovery system
KJ4WXC

Ron Wenrich

We found lots of advantages of sorting by length and species.  A lot of that was done in the woods.  Trucks would be loaded with logs of the same length in the same tier of the truck.  Depending on jobs, sometimes the species were mixed.  It also made material handling easier.  Maybe the bean counter should look at what happens when you cut a single length at a time.  It also gives you more room in your log yard. 

The Cooper looks like it can handle the work.  Although you may have room, you'll have to put a roof over it if you expect guys to be around it in all types of weather.  Can you get that Cooper to unload from both sides, or is it limited to just the one side?  If you can get it to dump both sides, you'll get more bang for your buck and a smaller footprint.
Never under estimate the power of stupid people in large groups.

smwwoody

I like the 2 sided idea I will have to call cooper about that
Full time Mill Manager
Cleereman head rig
Cooper Scragg
McDonugh gang saw
McDonugh edger
McDonugh resaw
TS end trim
Pendu slab recovery system
KJ4WXC

smwwoody

I looked at the video again and it looks like it is a 2 sided system
Full time Mill Manager
Cleereman head rig
Cooper Scragg
McDonugh gang saw
McDonugh edger
McDonugh resaw
TS end trim
Pendu slab recovery system
KJ4WXC

sandsawmill14

the stack track will keep up with a cooper scragg. I am sawing the the logs that are to large diameter for the scragg they saw around 300 ties per day plus about 2-3 loads of 4x6 per week and the lumber. stack trac has no problem keeping up :)
if your logs are smaller dia you will love the cooper scragg. the way this one is set up it takes 4 men plus the sawyer to run. vertical edger would do away with 1 man but would probably slow down sawyer.
hudson 228, lucky knuckleboom,stihl 038 064 441 magnum

Ron Wenrich

I run a vertical edger on a circle mill.  It always sounds cheaper because you've done away with a man.  But, I know having a good edgerman making the decisions will make more money than having the sawyer do both jobs.  It does slow the sawyer down.   If you had a scanner to do an automatic set on the edger, it would work out pretty good.  I don't know if anyone has them or not.  We talked about making our own, but had other things that needed done and we never got around to it.  Vertical edgers are real good at breaking slabs down for the chipper and for sawing oversized logs.  Also works well on low grade logs.

The numbers you give for the stack trak comes up to roughly 90-95 Mbf/wk.  That's pretty good production and sounds like it would fit SMWoody's production.  The stack trak does all that with one guy, I believe.  The Cooper sorter system also ties a guy up where they have to lift bundles with a loader and stack from the bottom.  The Cooper also is using a trim saw which probably tells where the cants are stacked.  That's an extra man.

For the bean counter, if you're sawing 100 Mbf/wk in cants and ties and the average piece has 20 bf in it, you'll run 5000 pieces through the unit in a week.  That amounts to 1000 pieces per day at a rate of 2 pieces per minute.  20 bf may be a little low.  The question is which system runs the cheapest in labor, energy, and capital input. 

An industrial engineer told me that a machine used to replace labor has a 2 year payback.  In other words, if it costs 2 years in labor expense, then it's a good investment.  With cheaper interest and added employee costs, that may have changed a bit.  Although one worker may cost 1.2 million over 20 years, assuming a 20 year life on the equipment; equipment also has a cost factor in energy usage, and maintenance that must be factored in. 

Never under estimate the power of stupid people in large groups.

sandsawmill14

i agree with ron about the edger(and everything else ) :D  in my last post i forgot to count the loader man so it takes 5 men plus the sawyer in stead of 4. also this cooper scragg has the 48" blades so thats why the smaller sticks. i set this mill up 10 or 12 years ago and it was a used mill then. if you are looking at new mills i would think it would be faster but i doubt it would it would double. in average logs it will cut a 7x9 tie a minute. in smaller logs it is a little faster. 100 hp on each saw. it is also a end dogger not a sharp chain.  a saw blade can only cut so fast so you have to  make up the time giggin back and getting the lumber out of the way.   :)
hudson 228, lucky knuckleboom,stihl 038 064 441 magnum

smwwoody

we bought a reman copper scragg from cooper it is an end dog with 48" saws

i was thinking about the cooper stacking system without the end trim and auto sorting.
Full time Mill Manager
Cleereman head rig
Cooper Scragg
McDonugh gang saw
McDonugh edger
McDonugh resaw
TS end trim
Pendu slab recovery system
KJ4WXC

sandsawmill14

i watched the videos and i liked the cooper the best but it looks massive. price would be a big factor if it were me. i wish i new how to put up a drawing of how we arranged everything. i know there i s room for improvement but it works pretty good.  it is set up in sort of a U shape log deck in to the mill at 90* then from mill to live rollers out to green chain, lunber drops about 3 feet down to green chain which is 90* to mill
green chain is 60-70 feet long i cant remember but there is plenty of room for 8 stacks of lumber on each side. stack track runs full length of green chain and stacks cants on that side of chain and 2 men stack lumber on the other side of green chain. boards that have to be edged run off the end of green chain in a pile and the loader driver picks them up and dumps them in the unscrambler to feed in the edger.  the man on the stack track has time to get down and goof off  and keep ties scraped but he has been on the stack track since we installed. once you learn how to run it stacktracks are FAST  faster than you can walk going back and forth up and down the length of the chain.
i am not a morbark salesman  :D  i just really like their stacktrac :)
hudson 228, lucky knuckleboom,stihl 038 064 441 magnum

sandsawmill14

smwwoody what kind of hyd servo valves did they use on it or have you got the mill yet ???
hudson 228, lucky knuckleboom,stihl 038 064 441 magnum

Ron Wenrich

Quote from: smwwoody on July 04, 2015, 10:08:01 AM
we bought a reman copper scragg from cooper it is an end dog with 48" saws

i was thinking about the cooper stacking system without the end trim and auto sorting.

Without the auto sort, I don't think you save any manpower.  Without the end trim, how does the machine know which way and where to dump the cants? 

Never under estimate the power of stupid people in large groups.

smwwoody

Quote from: Ron Wenrich on July 04, 2015, 12:12:45 PM
Quote from: smwwoody on July 04, 2015, 10:08:01 AM
we bought a reman copper scragg from cooper it is an end dog with 48" saws

i was thinking about the cooper stacking system without the end trim and auto sorting.

Without the auto sort, I don't think you save any manpower.  Without the end trim, how does the machine know which way and where to dump the cants?

I ment to say no end trim but I want to add some type of auto sort to the stacker so it does not need a man to run it.
Full time Mill Manager
Cleereman head rig
Cooper Scragg
McDonugh gang saw
McDonugh edger
McDonugh resaw
TS end trim
Pendu slab recovery system
KJ4WXC

smwwoody

Quote from: sandsawmill14 on July 04, 2015, 11:37:24 AM
smwwoody what kind of hyd servo valves did they use on it or have you got the mill yet ???

The mill was just delivered last week.  it is setting under our gradeing shed.  I have not had time to look it over yet.  is there something I should be looking at with the servos
Full time Mill Manager
Cleereman head rig
Cooper Scragg
McDonugh gang saw
McDonugh edger
McDonugh resaw
TS end trim
Pendu slab recovery system
KJ4WXC

sandsawmill14

we had alot of trouble with the factory ones and ended up changing them out but i cant remember the names. the ones we got were from a guy in atlanta and were $3500 each cheaper than factory  replacements. but you should not have any trouble for years and it factory rebuilt but they are crazy expensive when they do go bad unless they have changed the way they do it now. i will try to remember to get the names for you monday so you will have it for future needs. they have sawn millions of feet on this mill and with very little trouble.  dont let me scare you because we gotyears of service before there was any trouble :)
hudson 228, lucky knuckleboom,stihl 038 064 441 magnum

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