26 



HARDWOOD RECORD 



July II). 1021 



S^Wi:POWER:LOG6ING:i4A© 



^ '^^vCM^ 



:^i 



Concerning Maintenance Costs 



Sometimes a sawmill owner is heard lainentiiig tlie excessive 

 maintenance costs of his transportation units. There are undoubt- 

 edly a great many instances in which these costs are eating heavily 

 into the profits of the company. In this reconstruction period in 

 which we are now passing, and endeavoring to place operations 

 and industries back to normalcy, it is just such losses and wastes 

 as these which should be eliminated. 



It behooves every manager to diagnose his particular conditions 

 and seek a remedy. The trouble with most executives today, par- 

 ticularly those in the allied hardwood industries, is that market 

 prices and sale conditions are commanding their entire time. A 

 little attention to the curtailment of operating and maintenance 

 costs without curtailing or jeopardizing production will be found 

 just as beneficial. 



Every sawmill or logging operation of any importance, no doubt, 

 has enough motor trucks, automobiles, tractors, trailers and sta- 

 tionary gas engines to warrant the service of a competent and 

 experienced inspector. 



It should be the duty of this inspector to make a rigid and 

 systematic inspection of all mechanical units. Such an office is 

 .absolutely essential to economical operations. It matters not 

 whether there arc only one truck and one tractor in service, or if 

 there are one hundred each. Maintenance costs and operating 

 expenses will be lowered, and depreciation will be greatly reduced; 

 incidentally the entire operation will be placed on a more efficient 

 basis. 



The error which is being made at present is found in the fact 

 that in most cases the operator of each rig is required to make an 

 individual inspection, covering the conditions of the particular 

 unit under his charge. This is obviously wrong. Experience has 

 shown that if one man is placed entirely in charge and held 

 accountable to the management for the efficiency and condition of 

 all of the mechanical units, closer and more thorough inspection 

 will result. In some cases, it may be necessary for the inspector 

 to criticise the operator, who if he had been making his own 

 inspection would hardly be expected to correct himself. 



If there are enough units on the job, a printed inspection form 

 will be found quite advisable. This form should be filled out by 



lliu inspector every time he examines a piece of machinery. It 

 should show the condition of cylinders, piston, valves, piston rings, 

 governor, radiator, cooling system, clutch, brake, ignition system 

 and transmission, and should also show the inspector's opinion 

 as to the competency of the operator and whether or not the truck 

 has been overloaded or abused. Such a report should enable the 

 manager to tell at a glance the true and accurate condition of all 

 his equipment, and it gives him a complete check of the repair 

 service. From such a report the management will be able to prede- 

 termine its repair costs, as well as the work which may reasonably 

 be expected of each unit. 



If this policy is carried out, it is safe to believe that the 

 inspector's salary will be paid entirely out of the savings in the 

 repair parts, and lost time as a result of breakdowns will become 

 fewer and less disastrous. 



A Novel Loading Truck 



A novel loading truck, tlie joint invention of three Indiana men 

 — Orii and Eoy Amos and Ephriam A. McKee of Edinburgh — is 

 useil in loading logs, pipes, boilers or other heavy cylindrical 

 machinery. It includes a skeleton inclined platform leading to the 

 body of the truck; chains of sufficient length to engage around the 

 opposite ends of the cylindrical body to be loaded, and a windlass, 

 to which the free ends of the chain are attached. At one end of 

 the windlass is mounted a gear which meshes with a worm gear 

 that in turn is mounted on a shaft carrying a hand wheel at its 

 outer end. By providing the worm gear and the w-orm for trans- 

 mitting power from the driving shaft of the motor to the windlass, 

 a positive lock is provided, which will prevent the chains from 

 unwinding the windlass, thus holding the object being loaded at 

 whatever point same may be positioned when the driving shaft is 

 disconnected from the motor shaft. 



A Study of Motor Truck Logging 



The College of Forestry of the University of Washington, Seat- 

 tle, has published a thesis on "Motor Truck Logging Methods, 

 which was written by Frederick Malcolm Knapp, a student in the 

 college. The study is a very thorough one, taking up all phases of 

 tlie question, beginning with the early development or historical 

 phases, and subsequently handling costs, comparison with railroads, 

 loading and hauling methods, equipment, insurance, road construc- 

 tion, etc. 



This photograph shows truck dragging log onto its own body 



This illustrates how the loader puts a cargo of logs on a trailer 



