42 Forestry Quarterly 



Provision must be made for the collection of waste from various 

 parts of the plant and its delivery at the box factory. In the 

 main sawmill, the easiest plan is to pick out suitable pieces 

 from the waste as it passes along the main refuse conveyor on its 

 way to the refuse burner. It may be dropped on to trucks or 

 wagons, or — if there is enough of it — on to a conveyor arranged 

 to carry it to its destination. If the plant also has a lath mill, the 

 box factory should be given first choice in working over the 

 refuse, since box boards are a higher grade product than lath. 

 There need be no fear of there not being enough pieces left too 

 narrow for box boards with which to supply the lath mill. 



Box shooks must generally be made of seasoned lumber, else 

 they will warp ; consequently it is necessary either to send the 

 waste to a dry kiln or to pile it in the yard to season for several 

 weeks. The dry kiln is better, since the cost of the extra handling 

 of such small pieces increases rapidly. The illustration shows 

 how sawmill waste is stacked on kiln cars. The edging strips are 

 used for moulding stock. Such a car is estimated to contain 

 6,000 board feet. 



Planing mill culls can easily be loaded on trucks and moved 

 directly to the box factory, since they are usually already sea- 

 soned. Planing mill trim, if enough exists to make it worth 

 while, can go in on a special conveyor. Occasionally a wagon 

 or a trash car can be sent over the yard and the dead stock and 

 trash which accumulates be loaded into it and hauled to the 

 factory. If a slab saw is installed in the main mill it is a simple 

 matter to sort out all the short boards cut on it from the slabs 

 and see that they reach the box shop. 



Box boards used for tops, bottoms and sides are generally 

 cut 5/16 or 3/8 inches thick. Ends and cleats are usually from 

 1/2 to 13/16 inches thick. It is generally possible to get 2 pieces 

 for tops, bottoms, or sides from an inch board and 4 from a two- 

 inch one. To obtain the required thicknesses, two-inch pieces 

 are resawed, then planed and finally resawed again, since most 

 shooks require dressing on one surface only. Inch boards are 

 simply surfaced on two sides and then resawed, while pieces 

 less than an inch in thickness are usually worked down entirely 

 on the planers. Pieces of the required thickness for ends and 

 cleats can sometimes be obtained directly from planing mill 

 waste. For many uses it makes little difference if tongues or 



