HARDWOOD RECORD 



through the season many would l)i> saved from deterioratiou, and 

 also prieeeuttlng due to accumulated stock would be eliminated. 



President Lord expressed' himself as being in accord with the 

 sentiment where it is practical to apply it. He stated, however, 

 that in some oases, particularly where the logs are brought in on 

 the water, it is impossible to tell beforehand how many logs will 

 l)c needed or how many logs the contractors will get out. He said, 

 however, that the question should be considered closely, and sug 

 gested that the committee take up this question, as well as the 

 (piestion of preservatives. 



Business Conditions 



Then followcil a discussion of business conditions. 



K. E. Hemingway stated that his concern was running on short 

 time on veneers to be used next year in its own plant. He said 

 it is building a warehouse to take care of the accumulation of 

 stock, and that many others he knows of are doing the same thing, 

 that is, either storing their stock or running on short time. 



Reverting to the question of log preservation, Mr. Hemingway 

 said that he conducted some experiments with treated and un- 

 treated logs; that without the treatment a certain set of logs 

 turned doty about 2 to 3 inches from the end, whereas in the same 

 length of time the same logs cut between September and June 

 were spoiled 2 to .'i feet from the end without the treatment. He 

 suggesteil that the proper time for treatment in the Xorth is as 

 soon as the frost is out of the log. 



Jlr. Barnard spoke regarding quartered oak conditions, stating 

 that furniture buyers are not taking much stock, but that his mill 

 is running steadily. 



W. A. Runge stated thiit incpiiries and orders are quiet, and 

 expressed as his ojiinioii that business will not look very much 

 better until fall. 



President Lord again cautioned members not to force stock. 



A. E. Gorham suggested the advisability of getting out periodic 

 reports to keep the members posted as to stocks of logs on hand and 

 l>robable cut. He said that he hail sizeil up the situation for the 

 jireseut year as pretty dull and as a consequence ha<l bought fifty 

 |icr cent of his normal log supjily. He stated that if the other mem- 

 bers hafl had the same information and acted accordingly, they would 

 lie in a better position at this time. In discussing this question it 

 was developed that it is extremely liard to get this information from 

 the members. 



Mr. Lemke, in speaking on the same (piestion, said that lie had 

 put in fifty per cent as much birch this year as last year; that he 

 had formed his conclusions regarding the market in talks with the 

 trade, and believes that the establishment of some information bureau 

 of this kind would be of benefit. 



A. E. Gorham, in again speaking, said that he believed that not 

 more than one-half of the members really knew how many logs they 

 liave bought, and that the compilation of such reports as he suggested 

 would compel them to keep track of their logs. Mr. Gorham sug- 

 gested that the association 's traveling representative, Mr. Roach, take 

 u|i the matter of such reports in connection with his other road work. 



The morning session then adjourned. 



AFTERNOON SESSION 



The afternoon session was opened with a short talk by Mr. Wheel- 

 ock, representing the Panama-Pacific Exposition, who issued an invi- 

 tation to the association to hold its next semi-annual meeting at San 

 Francisco. Mr. Wheelock went briefly into the various features pre- 

 sented at the exposition and jiainted a very attractive picture of what 

 will be seen. 



A. M. Cleveland, president of the National Basket & Fruit Package 

 Manufacturers ' Association, addressed the convention on invitation of 

 Mr. Lord, and spoke mainly on the value of association work, stating 

 that an association is just what its members make it. 



The Drying of Veneers 



President Lord then introduced Albert Kraetzer, who spoke on 

 lumber and veneer drying methods. Mr. Kraetzer spoke in part as 

 follows : 



I was in a now soutliorn vcncor mill some months ago, where they had 

 4 or r, -rotaries." as tlie foroman caHiMl th.-ni. They liad Just placed a 



irs." as I called them, and 

 r w;i- l>right. pretty and 

 M.iiii iM ^,.e what it looked 



' I I" r, I had suspicious. 



.1- ilcfccts is to first ascor- 

 irds to determine at wtiat 



los ahout :;o" in diaLiii'tcr into one of tl 

 1/20" veneer was un<-niling itself. Th 

 Hat. but instinctively I made for the si 

 like when dry. for, JudKins hy what ha| 



You will agri'e with me the proper re 

 tain that there are defects and then go 

 stage of manufacture these defects originated. 



I'.elieve n^e, I found defects enough. Twist, curl and warp galore, and 

 11 showed on the face of it that there was room for improvement. But 

 111.- -r-at.-it surprise was in the 1/20". This had ruffles on the ends. 

 liulll.s. mind you! Now. ruffles are line in their place. Some of my 

 lia|i|ii'-^t r.collections are spiced with a haunting memory of ruffles, but 

 rirtlli's emphatically ari' out of place on the ends of 1/20" veneer. So 

 why ruffles? This was easy. The ends of the veneer liad dried faster 

 than the other portions, because the.v were exposed wlien tlie sheets were 

 stacked, and as the nuiiu body of the sheets liad not shrunk until the 

 ends wore dry, the ends, of course, had to dry while they wore hold in 

 the distended shape. And before the center lind shrunk the ends had 

 betronie set in width. Later on the center, wliicli dried more slowly, had 

 also shrunk more than the ends, and as the ends could not shrink after 

 they were dry, they luid to curl up into ruffles. 



1 asked the missus how rulflles were made and she explained that one 

 side of the goods was either shirred, scrambled or tucked, and then in- 

 <l«lri'd in her serenely unsuspicious fashion, "why this sudden interest 

 ill ruffles?" 



l)i>viouslv the remedy lay in either shrinking the ruffled ends as much 

 as the center, or to dry the center as fast as the ends and thereby also 

 prevent some of the excessive shrinkage of the center. 



My next step was to the drying room, and the first thing I encountered 

 was my old friend, "whiskers," otherwise known as fungus, or mold. 

 I'^ungous growth is a sure indication of stagnant air, and the air in that 

 room was surely stagnant. 



The veneer, after being brought from the trimming room, where it had 

 been cut to size, was being fed on endless chains into sheet-iron ovens. 

 .\11 of these 1/20" veneers made at least one round-trip through the 

 ovi-ns. and I noticed the tendency toward ruffles before the veneer was 

 started on its first round-trip through the drier. After the first round- 

 trip the rullles began to show more prominentl.v. and after the second 

 they were present in their full efTulgenee. 



I drew the operator's attention to this feature and T got from him 

 Just the very answer that I expected : "This damn machine is no good. 

 We have tried everything and it still comes out this way." 



Now the expression "we have tried everything" always gets on my 

 nerves, for It really does not mean anything. All that can possibly be 

 taken from this expression is. "we have tried everything we can think 

 of." And in a good many eases the thinker is hampered by a diminutive 

 "think-tank." So. blame it on the machine ! It was apparent to me that 

 the fault was not with the drier, but rather with the condition of the 

 material as it was entered into the drier. 



Then I got back to the rotary and I noticed several things. The first 

 was that the veneer as it came from the rotary was not "smoking." 

 This proved the log was not hot enough. Everybody who has ever steamed 

 lumber under pressure for bending purposes, or otherwise, has noticed 

 that the surface to a depth of anywhere from 1/S2 to 1/16 of an inch, 

 gives up its moisture almost immediately, after being exposed to air that 

 is capable of taking up this moisture. Apply this 1/20 veneer and see 

 whi n- :; :;2 win l.md. The veneer as it came from tliis rotary was not 

 giviiii; ii|> it- I \ - s^ of mioisture for the reason that it was not hot 

 enouL-li »a- II.. I -III, iking enough to give up its moisture. 



The -...iii.l W.I- that boys were rolling up this voneer into coils just 

 contrary to what ought to bo done for drying it: the third was that after 

 a time men unrolled those coils onto tables that had solid tops and rapidly 

 cut up the long sheets into regular sizes and stacked them solid ; the 

 fourth was that the air in the room was stagnant and charged with 

 bunudity — Just contrary to what it ought to be. In fact, all conditions 

 seemed to exist for the purpose of retarding the drying instead of assist- 

 ing it. To cap it all a respectable supply of logs was cooling off back of 

 the rotaries so that no time might be lost waiting for a hot log. 



Next I migrated toward the boiling vats, where the logs were being pre- 

 pared, and there I found the trouble, plain as day. To me the whole boil- 

 ing mess seemed wrong. Here were a number of concrete vats with a 

 warm brownish liquid in them In which were floating a lot of logs im- 

 mersed for about three-fourths of their bulk. Several men were parading 

 up and down poking these logs under tlie surface, turning them and 

 manipulating them so that the whole log could be subjected to the boiling 

 process. I asked the man in charge what the temperature of the water 

 was. He told me that it ranged from ISO to 200 degrees : that the 

 ordinary thermometer would register from ISO to 190, and that when he 

 got hold of an obliging thermometer the temperature might run to 200. 



The whole system of boiling vats was a messy and smelly affair, and 

 nt that it did not boil the logs, for 212 is the boiling point, and I am 

 sure the veneer as it came from the log was not over 150 in temperature. 



From the time that the log was first immersed in its hot bath until the 

 bulked sheets arrived in front of the drier, every possible precaution for 

 preventing the evaporation of moisture had been taken and then ? "This 

 ilamn machine Is no good." 



Several months ago a gentleman connected with a big veneer industry 



