With a Dry Kiln in the Northwest 121 



feet, the trucks are pushed forward. Stickers, 9 feet !/2 inch 

 long, 13/16 inch thick and from 2 to 3 inches wide, are inserted 

 above each truck in line behind the I-beams and a new tier is 

 begun. These stickers give space for the circulation of air in 

 the kiln. Tier after tier is added until the trucks are filled and 

 then another I-beam is placed in each of the sockets at the other 

 ends of the trucks. Beams opposite each other are bound firmly 

 together by rings or loops of 7/16 inch iron. The load is now 

 known as a car. It is then pushed out and another set of trucks 

 put in place. Stacked material varies in length from 12 to 22 

 feet, thus resulting in a variation in the size of a loaded car of 

 from 4,300 to 5,500 feet. The average is given as 4,800 feet. 



Besides the seven stackers supplied with lumber from the 

 live rollers, there is another, a "hand stacker", which is supplied 

 with lumber from the ordinary mill trucks. This is used in 

 getting out special orders or returning to the kiln material which 

 was not thoroughly dried the first time. 



The eight stackers are placed side by side and the whole 

 covered by a shed. Each stacker is 23 feet wide, thus giving a 

 total length of 184 feet for the eight stackers. The shed serves 

 mainly for the comfort of the workmen, and is quite necessary as 

 during the wet season rain falls nearly every day. 



From time to time, as orders require, laths are stacked for 

 the kiln. These, however, are stacked flat and by hand on steel 

 bars placed on the regular trucks. Care is taken that there is a 

 vertical space of from 4 to 6 inches between the bundles. Inch 

 boards for stickers are placed between the tiers. On each car 

 are piled 24 bundles to the tier and 18 high, a total of 432 

 bundles or 2,160 laths. 



As the cars are filled they are transferred to storage tracks 

 in front of the kiln, the different classes being kept separate. To 

 illustrate, spruce for boxes which requires two days for drying is 

 kept separate from clear spruce which requires five days for 

 drying. The different classes are sometimes mixed in the kiln 

 provided the cars ahead will be ready for discharge at the same 

 time or before. It is not good policy to open the doors more than 

 is absolutely necessary for that means in-rushing of cold air and, 

 of course, lowering of the temperature. 



The cars are pushed into the kilns by the aid of gravity, the 

 one end of the kiln being lower than the other. The ends of 

 the storage tracks are also the lowest near the kilns. Pieces of 

 lath are placed on the track for blocks when it is desirable to 

 have the cars come to rest. Sometimes these blocks become de- 

 tached, releasing the car, or a car gets loose from the tenders, 



