3536 Chapter 28 



Veneer logs $175/Mbf Doyle log scale 



Random-length sawlogs 150/Mbf Doyle log scale 



Two-piece, dowel-laminated crossties 156.86/Mbf lumber scale 



Pallet lumber 150/Mbf lumber scale 



Pulp chips 13/ton, green-weight basis 



Hogged fuel 8/ton, green-weight basis 



See figures 20-12 and 20-13, with related discussion, for additional data on 

 dowel-laminated crossties. 



28-19 $4.6 MILLION— MOLDING PALLETS FROM 



FLAKES^^ 



Pallets molded from hardwood flakes and a binder could be used extensively 

 in the materials handling industry. The flakes and binder are hot-pressed to form 

 a flat deck with integral legs or posts (figs. 28-22 and 28-23). Since pallet weight 

 is not as critical as the weight of building board, a wide variety of woods, 

 including mixtures incorporating the denser hardwoods, can be used — provided 

 the species blend is controlled and constant. In the proposed operation (fig. 28- 

 24), hardwood cordwood is debarked, and cut into flakes about 0.020 inch thick, 

 2 inches long, and of variable width. The flakes are dried, size-classified, 

 blended with binder resin, formed into mats, hot pressed, and trimmed. Key 

 statistics of the proposed enterprise are as follows: 



Capital investment $4,558,555 



Operating cost, annual $5,694,720 



Sales, annual $7,600,000 



Net profit, annual (before income tax) $1 ,905,280 



Return on sales 25 . 1 percent 



Return on investment 41.8 percent 



Employees 62 



Energy requirement 



Electrical 524 kWh/hour 



Wood residue 14 million Btu/hour 



Cordwood is estimated to cost $40/cord delivered to the mill. One ton of 

 cordwood (aspen in this study) plus 0.059 ton of resin and wax will yield 0.684 

 ton of pallets, ovendry-weight basis (fig. 28-24 bottom). At 25 pounds per 

 pallet, ovendry basis, about 55 pallets can be made from a ton of dry cordwood. 

 On a three-shift basis, with the plant operating 350 days per year, annual 

 production should be equivalent to 1 ,600,000 40- by 48-inch pallets of the type 

 shown in figure 28-22. The sale price of such a pallet should be about $4.75. 

 Double-deck pallets can be made by securing a pair of single-face pallets as 

 shown infigure 28-23; such pallets would typically weigh about 56 pounds and 

 sell for $10 each. 



Molded flake pallets are further discussed in text related to figure 24-62. 



^'Abstracted from Haataja (1981). 



