Economic Feasibility Analyses 3541 



28-21 $10.0 MILLION— MANUFACTURE OF 



LAMINATED-VENEER FLANGES FOR FABRICATION 



WITH FLAKEBOARD WEBS INTO LONG-SPAN 



I-BEAM JOISTS" 



This proposed enterprise would annually convert 16,750 cords of hickory into 

 1 1 ,880,000 lineal feet of structural joists with laminated- veneer hickory flanges 

 and mixed hardwood flakeboard webs (fig. 28-25 bottom). Equipment for the 

 system (fig. 28-25 top) includes a merchandising deck for tree-length logs; 

 debarker; chipper; round-up shaping-lathe (fig. 18-252); veneer lathe; veneer 

 dryer; facility to laminate short, butt-jointed veneer; cut-up saws; facility to 

 connect laminated flanges to purchased hardwood flakeboard webs in an I-beam 

 configuration; and a chipping center facility to process veneer cores into pallet 

 cants. Key statistics for the enterprise are as follows: 



Capital investment $9,962,529 



Operating cost, annual $7,850,1 16 



Sales, annual $10,237,050 



Net profit, annual (before income tax) $2,386,934 



Return on sales 23 percent 



Return on investment 24 percent 



Employees 66 



Energy requirement, annual 



Electrical, oil or gas, and wood 37,530,000 kWh 



Each ton of hickory logs (ovendry weight basis) plus resin and 0.25 ton of 

 hardwood flakeboard would yield about 0.463 ton of I-beam joists plus 0. 19 ton 

 of pallet cants (fig. 28-26). Projected costs of purchased raw material are $60/ 

 cord of hickory logs, $200/thousand square feet of Ys-inch-thick hardwood 

 flakeboard, and $0.50/pound of glue. Projected sales prices are $0.80/lineal foot 

 of joist (corresponds to $480/Mbf of nominal 2- by 10-inch equivalent); $10/ton 

 for bark, barky chips, flakes, veneer waste, and sawdust; $12/ton for clean 

 chips; and $120/Mbf of pallet cants. 



28-22 $11.9 MILLION— STRUCTURAL LUMBER 

 MANUFACTURE^^ 



Forest Service research has demonstrated that straight structural lumber can 

 be manufactured from low- to medium-density hardwoods such as red maple, 

 yellow-poplar, and sweetgum. The technique is referred to as an SDR system — 

 to 5aw full- width flitches, dry the flitches, and then rip to desired dimensional 



23 Abstracted from Woodson (1981). 

 24 Abstracted from Harpole et al. (1981). 



