USNR News October 2006 on the web www.usnr.com

October 2006

FEATURES

"USNR was the backbone of this project with engineering support and a timely start up.” – Don Bright, General Manager, Morgan Lumber

A new USNR Line-Shaft trimmer, along with several other pieces of equipment, were manufactured and delivered on a fast turn around time.

This picture shows the burnt remnants of the original sorter and planer mill building.

The new USNR bin sorter and planer mill building.

Morgan Lumber Rebuilds Planer Mill With Help From USNR

Earlier this month, Morgan Lumber hosted an open house in Red Oak, VA for their newly rebuilt planer mill. The mill has made an impressive recovery after a devastating fire in February destroyed the entire planer mill building, its machinery and 150MBF of lumber.

President Ken Morgan, introduced special guests at the open house from the U.S. House of Representatives, the Virginia Senate, and the Virginia House of Delegates. Ken leads the company with a dedicated team of more than 50 employees and managers.

Ken Morgan, President of Morgan Lumber

General Manager, Don Bright spoke about the project and how successful it was to get their planer mill back up and running. “There were very few equipment vendors that could meet the deliveries that were required. USNR stepped up to the plate and met a remarkable schedule,” he said.

Indeed, USNR’s Hot Springs Division worked overtime to deliver the project on time. The new USNR equipment included a Quad Cam board feeder, Line-Shaft trimmer, 30 bay bin sorter, as well as a package maker and package maker outfeed.

John Morgan, Ken's oldest son and Lumber Sales Manager, talked about the flood of support from competitors who offered assistance, and even their planer mills, for Morgan Lumber to use during the down time while rebuilding.

Morgan Lumber is a long time USNR customer, and uses quite a bit of USNR equipment in other areas of the Red Oak, VA facility. The sawmill operates a USNR Cambio 30" ring debarker that uses six tools instead of the standard five, which results in a cleaner log, according to Don Bright.

The mill's C-frame top dogger carriage is optimized with USNR 3D LASAR scanning and optimization technology. The lumber is kiln dried with USNR (Irvington Moore) dry kilns and Kiln Boss controls.

The privately owned business produces approximately 26MMBF of Southern Yellow Pine annually. Most of it is 5/4 decking, which is sawn, kiln dried and planed on site.

Ron Vitone, Optimization Account Executive for Eastern Canada, enjoys working directly with customers to provide forest products industry solutions.

EMPLOYEE SPOTLIGHT

Ron Vitone is the USNR Optimization Account Executive for Eastern Canada. Fluently bi-lingual in English and French, he came on board through the recent acquisition of Inovec and brings over ten years of industry experience to USNR.

An industrial mechanic by trade, Ron graduated from Vanier College in Montreal, Quebec in 1989 with a degree in Electro Technology, specializing in industrial automation and control.

He worked in the packaging industry which took him into sawmills, planer mills and bottling plants where he installed and repaired strapping and stretch wrapping systems for bottlers like Pepsi, Budweiser and Coca-Cola as well as local sawmills.

When Ron branched into material handling, he entered the world of sawmilling for good, and has never looked back. He spent some time selling dry kilns before finding his niche in Optimization technology sales. He loves being in the field and working directly with customers to provide solutions to the complex needs of forest products companies.

Ron enjoys boating and four-wheeling in the summer, and snow mobiling and skiing in the winter. He is often accompanied by Opus, his Black Lab mix who keeps an eye on his jeep.

PRODUCT FEATURE

True Flow knives are proven to have an exceptionally long knife life, and can be retrofitted to any Chip-N-Saw.

Interchangeable knife seats allow for quick and easy adjustment of chip thickness.

Chip-N-Saw Conversions

Back in the 1960’s the Chip-N-Saw revolutionized the forest products industry. At USNR today, we’re keeping history alive with upgrades and conversions that keep your C-N-S running faster and more efficiently than ever.

Conversions for increased speed and accuracy: USNR offers a number of C-N-S conversions including the True Flow Knife upgrade, which offers many competitive advantages.

True Flow Knife Upgrade:

• Overfeed through the chipper is limited, starting at the knife clamp, resulting in smooth feeds
• Chrome-plated wear area extends the life of the knife holder
• All knives are heat-treated and ground to precision tolerances using only the finest chipper knife steel
• True Flow knives can be retrofitted to any Chip-N-Saw

• Easily accepts babbitted or dual-edge babbittless replacement knives (just change the knife clamps)

NEW PROJECTS

USNR says Thank You to our customers for the new orders.

We appreciate your continued loyalty and pledge to continue earning it!

Bois Hunting in Lennoxville, QC has placed an order for a YieldMaster Stereoscan system for an existing carriage. The new system will replace Autolog setworks. The mill processes a variety of hardwoods, predominantly Maple.

Claude Howard Lumber has chosen USNR to provide 3D scanning and optimization systems on all projects associated with the major mill expansion in Statesboro, GA. The mill is replacing their traditional three knee carriage with a new Maxi Mill end dogger that features USNR 3D LASAR scanning and optimization. They are installing a new TMT high-speed lineal edger to handle the additional production expected from the optimized end dogger, as well as a new trimmer system.

The mill's new "Super X" 3D trimmer optimizer is the gold standard in transverse scanning. It's basically two standard USNR Transverse Smart TriCam scanning systems in one scan frame. Each array is oriented on a diagonal so that the laser lines are in an "X" configuration. This effectively doubles the scan density.

The system returns such high density scan data, particularly on the corners and sides of the lumber, that it is also suitable for more demanding planer mill scanning applications.

Carter Holt Harvey has purchased a USNR 3D Smart TriCam edger optimizer system for the mill in Kawerau, New Zealand. CHH Wood Products manufactures a full range of wood based building products, including timber, plywood, and laminated veneer lumber (LVL) supplied from twelve major manufacturing operations throughout New Zealand.

Cox Wood of Alabama located in Vance, AL has purchased a USNR double track dry kiln with Kiln Boss controls to dry SYP poles.

Hood Industries has placed an order to upgrade three existing USNR kilns at the Metcalfe, GA facility. The mill is adding Plenum baffles and re-piping the heating system to create more zoning in the kilns. This will help Hood Industries achieve more trapping and more zoning for better control. Other benefits include a more efficient utilization of steam to prevent over drying lumber, and creating a tighter moisture content distribution.

MeadWestvaco of Cottonton, AL has ordered a TimberGrafx+ upgrade for their USNR cant optimizer. This will permit the mill to realize the benefits of the latest optimization on a modern, commercial grade computer system.

Northwest Hardwoods Division of Weyerhaeuser has purchased eight G3 upgrades for the YieldMaster Stereoscan carriage optimizers in several of its mills. The Windows XP based software is user friendly and utilizes the latest PC hardware platform. Inovec's proprietary servo control card has been replaced with a standard RMC 100 servo card for setworks controls, making the system easier to support and maintain.

YMG3 is the latest optimization software offered by Inovec-USNR.

Northwest Hardwoods mills in Eugene, OR, Garibaldi, OR, Arlington, WA, Centralia WA, Longview, WA and Delta, BC are all taking advantage of Inovec-USNR's YieldMaster G3 upgrade.

Parker Forest Products of Burnsville, NC recently bought a USNR 3D LASAR scanning and optimization system for a McDonough carriage. The system features front and backside scanning with MillExpert carriage optimization.

Salamanca Lumber in Salamanca, NY has ordered two USNR aluminum frame package kilns with powered vents to dry a variety of assorted hardwoods.

Scierie Dion has successfully started up a full coverage USNR 3D Transverse TriCam combination edger/cant optimization system in St.Raymond, QC.

Scierie V.O.G has completed start up of a USNR 3D LASAR scanning and carriage optimization system in Plessisville, QC.

The Swanson Group of Noti, OR has placed an order for a new USNR Edger Maximizer Infeed table to feed an existing USNR 6-saw reman edger, along with a 3D Smart TriCam combination edger/cant optimization system. The single scan zone will process data from cants and boards ranging from 2" to 6" thick. The mill also ordered a USNR 3D trimmer optimizer upgrade to replace v6 scanners with Smart TriCams and MillExpert software. A PLC control system for the resaw is also included. This order comes on the heels of the successful bin sorter and stacker start-up, reported in the February issue. The Noti mill produces 2x4 and 2x10 dimensional lumber from green Douglas Fir.

Weyerhaeuser of Dallas, OR is replacing an Inovec YieldMaster light curtain system with a USNR 3D LASAR carriage scanning and optimization system. The order also includes a new ControlLogix PLC based setworks system provided by Concept Systems. The softwood mill produces dimension lumber and will use LASAR front and backside scanning to generate BOF and full log breakdown solutions to achieve higher yields.

Weyerhaeuser in Aberdeen, WA has ordered a USNR 3D Smart TriCam scanning and optimization upgrade on an existing double length infeed. High-performance computer hardware with faster operating speeds will permit the mill to realize the benefits of the latest version of MillExpert optimization software. Running optimizers on a modern commercial grade computer system, will allow the mill to take advantage of a host of advanced software features.

York Casket of York, PA has installed a USNR aluminum frame hardwood package kiln with powered vents. The plant manufactures hardwood caskets and casket components.

EVENT CALENDAR

November 5-6 - SFPA - The Southern Forest Products Association will hold its 2006 Annual Meeting at The Homestead in Hot Springs, VA. Visit USNR in Booth # 11. For more information please visit http://www.sfpa.org

NORTH AMERICAN LOCATIONS

Headquarters	Arkansas	Florida	Michigan
Woodland, WA 98674 phone (360) 225-8267	Hot Springs, Arkansas phone (501) 262-1010	Jacksonville, Florida phone (904) 354-2301	Brighton, Michigan phone (248) 573-1930

Oregon	British Columbia	Quebec
Eugene, Oregon phone (541) 485-7127	Parksville, BC Canada phone (250) 954-1566	Plessissville, QC Canada phone (819) 362-7362

INTERNATIONAL LOCATIONS

Chile	England	New Zealand	New Zealand
Patricio Faundez y Cia. Patricio Faundez Santiago, Chile phone 56.2.220.1517	Sawmill Machinery J.F. Wilson Tyne & Wear, UK phone 0191.253.1402	CNC Design John Marwick Auckland, NZ phone 64.9.274.1280	Skookum Forest Tech John McLachlan Auckland, NZ phone 64.9.525.2402

Japan	Russia	Russia
Hirota Corporation Ryosuke Hirota Shimada City, Japan phone 0547.38.3211	Lydia Volkova Moscow phone +8.917.511.8679	Oksana Filina Khabarovsk phone +7.4212.254.258

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