Mill doubles capacity for pallet timber

Press, 15 December 1983, Page 34

Mill doubles capacity for pallet timber

Shands Road Sawmills, Ltd, has moved further along the road to a 1.2heetare site near Calgary Place, which was officially opened earlier this week by Mr M. A. Connelly, M.P. The mill, which specialises in pallet manufacture, has installed a new saw with 22-metre headrig and 11-metre fully-automatic carriage. The new layout has been designed to double the daily cutting capacity to 30 cubic metres, with allowance for up to four times the present capacity by the addition of extra machinery. Shands Road Sawmills was established in 1965 with two working proprietors, Messrs C. G. McCorkindale and H. 0. McCrystal. In the intial stages, three staff were employed, and it was a typical small sawmill operation selling all types and grades of timber. It soon became apparent, however, that there was a potentially large market for wooden pallets, as the palletisation of all types of goods was becoming more and more common. After initially building pallets by hand, pneumatic nailing and stapling equipment was purchased, and Shands Road Sawmills soon became the major pallet supplier in Canterbury. As the market grew, more and better equipment

became necessary. Soon, even this was not enough, and a regular supply of timber had to be obtained from other sawmills to supplement their own supply. About this time, a new air-operated docking saw was installed because the company was almost entirely specialising in pallet building. All timber off the mill was cut to length as part of the milling process. This gave a definite advantage over other sawmills in the pallet market, as the firm had eliminated the cost of grading, stacking, unstacking, cutting to length and stacking again. In 1969, Mr C. G. McCorkindale purchased the shares held by Mr H. 0. McCrystal; and two years later, Mr J. E. McCorkindale, and another two years later, Mr B. R. McCorkindale joined the company. The policy of buying in timber was continued, as were improvements to the mill itself. In 1978, major modifications were made with the purchase of secondhand machinery from a small sawmill in Kaiapoi which had closed down. This increased the cutting capacity, which enabled the firm to continue using the same staff to run the mill part of the week, and build pallets the remainder of the week. The demand for pallets

still increased but so had the competition in the pallet market owing to the downturn in the building trade. At this stage, the firm was operating the mill single-handed. That is, the same two men would operate the breaking-down system and then the breast bench at approximately 30minute intervals. This gave the docking-saw operator a chance to keep up, as this was not possible when cutting at full capacity. In 1980, the company bought its most modern piece of equipment — a Savage SD4OO docking system, which it was hoped would be capable of keeping up when the mill was running at full capacity. It was a big step, as this type of setup had never been tried before, and there was no guarantee that it would handle the large volume of timber produced by the mill. It worked extremely well, and for a short time the firm was able to produce all its needs without buying in timber. Shands Road Sawmills took this opportunity to branch out into the field of kitset pallets, being the first in New Zealand to do so, and has since been exporting regularly to Australia. The pallet market, however, was still increasing and the firm found itself in

the position of not being able to handle its work load — let alone seek new markets. Increased staff levels, to the point where the mill could operate full time, and a permanent pallet-building team plus an increasing number of part timers only postponed the inevitable, At that stage, no more modifications were possible to the existing mill at 35 Shands Road which could increase cutting capacity greatly, and the land had also become too small for operations. To solve these problems, the firm felt the time had come to build a completely new sawmill on a new site. With nearly two decades of experience in pallet manufacture, the company was confident of its ability to build a sawmill and pal-let-manufacturing plant with the potential to cope with all the present demands, plus any future increase.