Sorting lumber......

[Bill Huber]

Just got back from a nice vacation, all 3900 miles of it.

I was on the back roads of South Carolina and came across a large sawmill, didn't get to go in but set in the parking lot and watch it work for a while, really neat.

The trees come in and are put in the sawmill, I could not see it but I am sure a computer was doing all the sizing and cutting the logs to get the most out of them.

Now the boards are place on a carrier at the top. At a point the board is dropped in a bin of the same size boards.

Now as the bin gets full it opens on the bottom and the whole stack falls on a conveyor which now moves the whole stack to a system that picks up the board and then stacks it and strikers it at the same time. When the stack get large enough it moves it outside and a forklift picks it up and takes it away as a new stack is made.

I saw one man the whole time and he was driving the forklift, I am sure its common thing to a lot of guy but it was really neat to see for me.

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[curtis rosche]

That's pretty awesome to see!

[glenn bradley]

Really cool Bill. thanks.

[Bill Huber]

Really cool Bill. thanks.

It was really cool, the different size lumber was going across the top and when it got to the correct bin some levers would drop down and kick it into the bin.
I guess there was different grades and sizes, there were at least 3 different bins with 2x6s in them and like 4 or more with 2x4s I think the biggest was like a 2x10.

[Kevin Bourque]

I love places like that.

[Brian Elfert]

The amount of automation in modern manufacturing is staggering. Of course, that means less humans being paid to do the work. That sawmill probably employed quite a few more humans before it was automated.