28 



HARDWOOD RECORD 



Motor Driven SaW and Planing Mill 



At Brooklyn, on !New Town 'jreek. is a 

 jilaning and lumber mill of more than ordi- 

 nary interest from an electrical and me 

 clianieal standpoint. This is the new mill 

 of the Cross, Austin & Ireland Lumber Com 

 pany. It has a total storage capacity of 

 50,000,000 feet of lumber, and a planing ca- 

 pacity of 100,000 feet per day. An average 

 of 60,000 lineal feet or about 20,000 board 

 feet of North Carolina pine flooring are 

 made each day. There is a storage capacity 

 of ,3,000,000 feet of flooring that insures a 

 well-seasoned supply of various grades and 

 widths. A large amount of heavy timber is 



im]iossible to keep all portions of a struc- 

 ture in lorreet alignment unless the foun- 

 dation oonsists of piling with a heavy re- 

 inforced concrete floor. 



Previous to 1907, the work of the Cross, 

 Austin & Ireland Lumber Company was car- 

 ried on in a mill a few hundred feet back 

 of the present one, and the machines were 

 driven from a line shaft by a simple slide 

 valve steam engine. With a view to increas- 

 ing the capacity of the mill and reducing the 

 ojieratins cost, the present site was decided 

 upon, and early in 1907 the erection of the 

 jiresent mill was lieguii. This new mill is 



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also handled, nearly all of which is brought 

 from the South directly to the docks with- 

 out reloading. In handling large quantities 

 of heavy timber, the convenience and low 

 cost of transportation by water can hardly 

 be overestimated, and in laying out new 

 plants of this type transportation facilities 

 demand frst attention. 



The land along the water front is marshy, 

 and mucli of that now occupied by the lum- 

 ber company's buildings has been obtained 

 by filling. As buildings on land of tliis na- 

 ture are practically floating, it is almost 



equipped with electric motor drives. The 

 entire power equipment, consisting of the 

 power house with its boiler and steam tur- 

 bine, and the motor drives for the wood- 

 working machines, was designed and laid 

 out b_y Eichard A. Wright, consulting engi- 

 neer of Brooklyn. 



The power house is of concrete and brick, 

 37 by 68 feet, and is divided into a boiler 

 room and a turbine room. Two Heine water 

 tube Ijoilers, rated at 310 horsepower each, 

 supply steam for the plant, and are equipped 

 with two shaving tubes each. Shavings and 



sawdust, or coal if necessary, can be used 

 for fuel. The shavings are blown from the 

 planing mill to two cyclones above the 

 power house. These cyclones separate the 

 chips from the air, and are so equipped with 

 screens that the sawdust can also bo ob- 

 tained. The cyclones discharge into vaults 

 directly below that have a capacity of 17,- 

 500 cubic feet for sawdust, and .52,.500 cubic 

 feet for shavings. These vaults are above 

 the boilers, and by means of numerous 

 dampers in the piping it is possible to direct 

 the shavings and sawdust into their respect- 

 ive vaults or into either of the boilers. The 

 fupply of shavings from the mill furnishes 

 sufficient fuel for the boilers; during the 

 summer months there is an excess which is 

 reserved in the vault and drawn upon during 

 the winter. The high steam efficiency at all 

 loads makes it unnecessary to use coal and 

 possible to sell some sawdust. The disposi- 

 tion of ! Mwdust and shavings is frequently 

 a serious problem in city mills. In the 

 present i ase a market has been obtained 

 for all the sawdust, so that the power housa 

 costs arc still further reduced. 



The '.'se of a condensing steam turbine 

 for ))laning mill work is somewhat of a nov- 

 city, luit three years of satisfactory opera- 

 tion sliov,- tliat the advantages which have 

 brought turbines to the front in power 

 louse and industrial plants apply equally 

 well to planing mills. The turbo-generator 

 is of the Westinghouse-Parsons type, rated 

 at 650 K. V. A., two phase. 60 cycles, 3,600 

 R. P. M. The turbine operates at 150 

 l)Ounds ' steam pressure and a 26-incli 

 vacuum obtained fuom a jet condenser. Be- 

 sides a desired low cost of maintenance, the 

 item of foundations was of considerable im- 

 portance in making the choice in the present 

 case. An engine set of the capacity needed 

 would have required a foundation several 

 times as expensive as that of a turbine, due 

 both to the area required and the greater 

 weight to be carried, and tied together on 

 the piling. 



Planing mills, as a rule, have used non- 

 condensing steam engines operating at suffl- 

 cient hnc'\ pressure to supply steam for dry 



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 MOTOR, MORSE CHAIN DRIVE 



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