In keeping with its tradition of producing quality lumber, the Angelina County Lumber Company, Keltys, Texas, has put into operation a new group of facilities designed to keep its mill among the most modern in the South. The latest plan improvements include the addition of a new planing mill, shipping building and dressed storage building which are arranged for efficient lumber flow. Completion of this project now makes Angelina's Plant all modern from "log to car."

This program of expansion produced many problems which required careful and expert planning. Would the increase of efficiency and the superior quality of the finished product he sufficient to warrant the expenditure? How could the new planing mill, storage building, and shipping facilities be arranged to best fit the remaining plant site, and provide efficient tie-in? What existing equipment could be reused to advantage in the new planing mill? How could construction be accomplished with the least lost production time and disruption to the schedule of shipments to customers?

All these questions were adequately answered by thorough initial planning and the result is a smooth flowing component of Angelina's lumber manufacturing plant, enabling higher production with smaller crews and the output of a product of higher quality neatly trimmed and ends printed with Angelina's trademark, and coated with wax. The product can be handled from planing to truck or rail shipment with the least delay, and the new dressed lumber storage building keeps the finished product awaiting later shipment in clean bright condition well protected from the elements.

The flow pattern and remaining plant area available when initial planning was undertaken resulted in the use of land requiring deep fills and soil with low foundation bearing pressures. Even though the buildings adjoined each other, each of the buildings required a different type of foundation for the purpose of economy.

It will be interesting and gratifying to readers to note that all of the buildings were constructed of wood. Both sawn timbers and laminated kiln dried lumber were utilized. Preliminary investigations leading to the decision to use wood rather than steel for the framing of the buildings indicated that the cost of using wood or steel was practically identical. Savings in time of fabrication and erection of wood structures overbalanced the factors favoring the use of steel. Other factors favoring wood included availability of the timber and lumber at the site, close proximity of laminating facilities in nearby Houston, the use of local labor, and the elimination of freight costs involved with steel.

The old planing mill was placed in operation some 60 years ago and had become quite expensive to operate since most all operations were manual and very little conveying machinery was available. It was built up on a rather weak floor quite high above natural grade and, therefore, could not accommodate the carriers and lift trucks utilized in the remainder of the plant. It occupied a location about midway of the length of the proposed new shipping building and the necessity of keeping the old planing mill in operation until the new one was ready to go required step wise construction of the new buildings. These problems were overcome successfully, however, by careful scheduling, and Angelina lost only a few days of partial productive capacity in the change over.

In the new planing mill, the major production is handled through three planer-matchers. One of these is a new S. A. Woods A-484M planer-matcher with a JM-5 double profiler. The other two planing machines were relocated from the old planing mill. The new machine and one of the re-used ones, a Woods 414M planer-matcher, are setup for high efficiency operation with the installation of automatic feed tables and package infeed breakdown hoists. The third machine, a Woods 406-D2 was installed with automatic feed table, but without a package infeed breakdown hoist, since the stock that is fed to this machine is of such varied nature that complete mechanization was thought impractical.

Carriers and lift trucks are used for unit package handling of lumber in the new operations in keeping with the method selected and in use in the rest of the plant from the kilns through rough storage.

All three of the planers are set adjacent to a grading conveyor. All material discharging from the machine can be conveyed past a grading area to the feed section of an Irvington No. 43A trimmer, followed by a single end, two-position printer and waxer. Although all material can be conveyed to the trimmer, a set of drop gates is provided in the grading conveyor, so that stock coming from the 406-D2 can be dropped out and sorted separately instead of being trimmed. Stock run on the 406-D2 is of varied nature and much of it is bundled for shipment on a separate short conveyor table.

Continuing on from the trimmer, printer and waxer section is a 100' section of sorting conveyor with space for 16 different sorts of finished lumber. At the end of the sorting conveyor an automatic package reloader is to be installed to allow the predominant items of finished lumber to be repackaged without manual labor.

Several other operations round out the manufacturing process to enable the planing mill to meet all the demands of Angelina's customers. These include two reused Woods molders followed by sorting table conveyors, and cutoff, tying, and packaging facilities; a vertical resaw; a straight line ripsaw; a multiple ripsaw; a double-end tenoner; and a timber sizer. Everything in the new planing mill is driven electrically, and a good level of lighting is provided in all manufacturing, loading, and storage areas.

With all these various operations determined in the early stages of planning, many operating layouts were made by the Bovay engineers to obtain a system that would be efficient, economical, flexible and compact. Centralization was important to reduce handling and make the best use of a minimum operating crew. Consideration of all these factors allowed the selection of a planing mill plan with all operations except the timber sizer placed in a 140' clear span width by 240' long planing building. To keep the operating layout intact and allow relatively free movement of carrier trucks in the building, it was decided to design the building free of interior columns. This was accomplished by the use of bowstring trusses constructed of laminated southern yellow pine.

The trusses have a straight bottom chord and a curved top chord fabricated to a radius of 140', the same as the truss span length. The bottom chord is built up of six 2" x 6"s glue laminated to form a finished member 5-5/8" x 9-3/4”. The top chord is built up of nine 2" x 6"s to form a curved member 5-5/8” x 14-5/8". The building columns are also laminated and all other members are fabricated from solid timbers. A 2" T & G wood roof deck with four ply built-up roof fits the curvature of the building trusses, and corrugated iron siding completes the enclosure of the building.

Adjoining the end of the planing mill is the new shipping building. Past records of shipments and predicted future trends indicated to Angelina the need for space to load six to eight rail cars and five trucks. These needs developed the building size of 80' x 400'. The entire 400' length of one side of the building is devoted to a rail car loading dock set at car-door height. With the building floor and the car at the same level, mechanization of package loading is made easier. Five truck docks are located on the opposite side of the shipping building.

The dressed storage building, designed to hold 3,000,000' of lumber is located perpendicular to the shipping building and adjoined to its side. This makes for ease of lumber flow from planing mill to shipment or storage and from storage to shipment. This building is 120' wide by 400' long with 20' eave height. Storage is in four rows of lumber packages the length of the building with two aisles for access.

The floors of all the buildings and the carrier and lift truck runways to and from the rough storage buildings are concrete to provide smooth travel and storage surfaces. This is expected to reduce maintenance on the carriers and lift trucks, minimize down-grading of the product from dust, and provide ease of cleaning and maintaining neat operating and storage areas.

A structure within the planing mill building occupies a central location, and houses the grinding room, rest room facilities and planing mill foreman's office. The shipping office is located within the shipping building between the planing mill and the carloading dock, and commands a view of all loading operations as well as the outfeed end of the planing mill.

The accompanying layout and flow chart will help you visualize the entire arrangement. Angelina is well satisfied with the new facilities. This report might be more meaningful if we could show von the old layout. However, since the people spending the money are pleased with the result, we know this efficient building and expansion program has been a good economic investment.