July :;:.. r.ii: 



Handling Kiln-Dried Lumber 



The wholosalo li:ir.l»iii><i ili'alrr or IuiiiIht iii.imifiicliiri'r who iloCB 

 not inuko ii nili- of luiiiilliii); kiliiilriiHl stook is Hoiiictiiiios coiiipolleil 

 to figure consiJoniblv when he is asked to quote :i price on kiln-dried 

 nititerial. The things he wants to know include cost to kiln-dry the 

 lumber, how much it will lose in measurement and Rrnde, liow much 

 more ought ho charge for the stock. 



Usually tho arrangement is that the inspection which takes place 

 before tlie stock is put into the kiln is final, as there is a loss both 

 ways under the drying process. There is a ilelinite shrinkage in meas- 

 urement, usually amounting to about 500 feet to the car, and in most 

 cases there is some loss of grade, no matter how carefully the drying 

 is accomplished. Besides this, it must bo remembered that it takes 

 several weeks to dry the lumber, and that if the dealer has to send 

 the stock to some other point for drying, there are two extra han- 

 dlings to be considered, besides the delay in getting the money. In 

 other words, the interest on the lumber for the time that it is in the 

 kiln should properly bo added to the cost, for the customer delays 

 that much longer in paying his bill. 



The cost of custom kiln-drying is usually somewhere around $3 to 

 $4 per thousand feet, and when handling charges are figured this seems 

 a very reasonable amount. The concern which is doing its own dry- 

 ing should include that much additional for the service, unless, as is 

 sometimes the case, the manufacturer is protecting a delivered price, 

 and in that event the reduced weight just about makes up for the ex- 

 pense which is added to the lumber. 



Helping the Little Fellow 



One angle on the dimension business is that it enables many a smflll 

 concern to get along when it would be impossible for it to operate 

 if it were compelled to handle the cutting up process. It would not 

 be able to carry and season a stock of lumber, nor finance the installa- 

 tion of the necessary machinery, yet by means of the service offered 

 by the manufacturer of dimension lumber, the consumer can get the 

 stock dried, dressed and cut to size, ready to put together, and is able 

 to conduct his business with a much smaller amount of capital than 

 would be needed otherwise. 



One little furniture concern like that is operating with only half a 

 dozen employes, who are all joiners and finishers, and by means of 

 the use of dimension stock it gets out a surprisingly large amount of 

 goods. And there are some much larger plants wliere there is not a 

 machine in operation. They are assemblers altogether, and find their 

 profits in volume, rather than in working up the raw material. Built- 

 up tops and panels are dimension propositions, and everybody knows 

 the important part they play. 



The Silver Lining 



When the situation is such that profits are Iiard to locate, it is neces- 

 sary for the lumber manufacturer, and for everybody else who is in 

 business, to do his best to cut out the leaks and reduce expenses 

 wherever this can be done legitimately. The fact that the millman is 

 forced to scrutinize costs more closely during the lean periods is un- 

 doubtedly the silver lining of the cloud, because opportunities to 

 make a saving are developed that probably would be overlooked with- 

 out the incentive which the necessities of the situation create. 



The president of a large lumber manufacturing concern said re- 

 cently that his superintendent, who is in charge of the mill opera- 

 tions, has been cutting expenses here and there in a very satisfactory 

 way, and that the pressure has been applied to all other departments. 



There is a better opportunity to make money by cutting down costs 

 than by attempting to get a price better than the market. It is 

 mighty hard to go out and convince the customer that you can give 

 him so much better quality that he can afford to pay you more than he 

 would anyone else; but if you can cut down in your own plant, and 

 make the margin a little bit bigger, so that you can sell at the market 

 price and score a profit, you have a proposition that can't be beat. 



If every lumber and veneer manufacturer would look about his 

 plant right now and see where improved methods might be introduced 



—26— 



to save handling cents and other exiK-nses, the chances are that the 

 foundation would be laid for iH-fter profits a littlp later on. 



Dry — But for How Long? 



The experience which was rcienlly reported by n hardwood llooring 

 manufncturer emphaHizes the fact that lumljcr which comes out of 

 the dry-kiln with all tho superllous moisture eliminated is not per- 

 manently dry. The assumption is often made, without qualification, 

 that kiln-dried stock means, necessarily, lumber that is ready to use; 

 but this nuiy be wrong in both directions. 



In the first place, the lumber as it comes from the kiln contains 

 less moisture than the normal ; less, in other words, than the atmo- 

 sphere contains, and therefore it is going to take up moisture out of 

 tho air until the amount is the same. It is necessary that this be 

 done, too, because if tho lumber is used when it is in this abnormally 

 dry condition, it will swell later on by absorbing the normal quantity 

 of moisture. 



Tho manuf:icturer referred to shipped a carload of tongue-and- 

 groove material to the Pacific coast. The buyer wrote back, declining 

 the shipment on the ground that the tongues wouldn't enter the 

 grooves of the flooring. The flooring man wired, asking that the 

 stock be kiln-dried. When it came out of the kiln, it was easy to 

 use it. The trouble here was that an excess amount of moisture had 

 been taken up on the road, making the swelling so great that the 

 flooring wouldn 't fit together. 



Thus it is evident that kiln-dried stock may be either too ilry or 

 not drj' enough, depending on the time which elapses after it is taken 

 out of the kiln. The answer is that dry lumber should be protected 

 from the weather after leaving the kiln, and at the same time should 

 be given a chance to take up some moisture before being put tn use. 



Word of Mouth Advertising 



A hardwood man who went into a railroad ticket office to get a 

 Pullman berth asked to be placed in a wooden car. 



"Give me anything but one of those sardine tins," he said. "I 

 nearly roasted the last time I slept in a steel car, and it's nothing 

 doing hereafter." 



It happened that he could be accommodated. In the meantime an- 

 other prospective passenger, who had been about to buy a berth with- 

 out saying anything about the type of car, turned and asked the 

 lumberman if he found the wooden cars more comfortable than the 

 steel. 



' ' Undoubtedly, ' ' was the reply. ' ' They are cooler in summer and 

 warmer in winter. And if you ever slept near a loose joint in one 

 of the steel variety, and heard it squeaking all night long, you don't 

 want any further argument on the subject." 



"How about safety?" was the next inquiry. 



' ' Well, the wooden cars have steel ends, and will resist crushing 

 better than the steel, the material of which is too light to be of much 

 value in that connection. When it comes to burning, wood will bum, 

 but baking in a tin pan is about as bad." 



The stranger took a berth in that wood car, too, convinced by this 

 time that the descriptive all-steel trains, as used by the advertising 

 manager of the railroad to attract business, means nothing. And if 

 every lumberman talked and acted the same way, the steel car would 

 cease to be a preferred vehicle. 



Red Elm for Poles 



.\ii electric light company in northern Indiana is considering the 

 advisability of using red or slippery elm poles in place of Michigan 

 cedar which they are now using. Ked elm is more durable in contact 

 with the ground than the other elms and has been used considerably 

 for fence posts and to some extent for ties and sills. Its sapwood is 

 thin even in the pole sizes and its employment for this purpo.se is 

 worth considering if the cost is not too high. The census report for 

 1909 mentions the local use of elm for poles untreated; and for 1911 

 the use of 150 elm poles after some kind of preservative treatment 

 classified under "miscellaneous" is recorded. 



