COTTAGE GROVE, Ore.

What was once standard for a whole industry is now just a small specialty niche served by a few. Starfire Lumber in western Oregon is filling its self-appointed large-log Douglas fir cutting mill specialty quite successfully. Mill management has been able to adapt to the major change in timber sources, especially for larger logs.

"We've had to adapt to new circumstances, but the company has been successful here," says  Starfire President and CEO Robbie Robinson, who started at the mill in 1983 in procurement and has been managing the mill since '87. He's been in his current position three years.

"Back in '83, we were cutting probably 95% public timber," Robinson says. "Now, the public timber sales are few and far between." He adds that Starfire bought a Forest Service sale in 1998 that it hasn't been able The facility had been in place for years on the east side of Cottage Grove. In 1983 it was the site of the to harvest yet, and a Bureau of Land Management timber sale that was purchased in 2001 is just now being worked.

former R&R Cedar, which had gone out of business, when the Engle family of Roseburg purchased it, then converted it to a Douglas fir cutting mill. In fact, the large log niche has proven successful, since the mill is one of only a few in Oregon's Willamette Valley that can handle bigger diameter logs.

The new owners upgraded the mill in the mid '80s, with a new Salem carriage and bandmill headrig, new Ukiah edger and USNR/Irvington-Moore trimmer. The improvements also included the mill's first scanning/optimization package, from Inovec. But since the turn of the century, the original scanning/optimization package was becoming less tenable by the shift.

"Though it had done a good job for us, the system was so old that even Inovec couldn't really support it," Robinson says. "It was built before people started using off-the-shelf components, and there was almost no way to fix it or support it."

BETTER SAWING

By 2003, Starfire personnel were actively researching new scanning and optimization systems. Yet because of the mill's large log cutting specialty (up to 26 ft.), not just any old - or new - optimization package would do.

"In our operations, you can't get away from people making cutting decisions," Robinson says. "Our sawyers still have to look at the log to determine how to saw it. Our situation is entirely different than a commodity mill."

After looking at the offerings from several vendors, Starfire hired Nelson Brothers Engineering to design and put the system together. Working closely with Nelson Bros. licensed distributor Robert Cecil of the Cecil Co., Starfire came up with an easily supportable and serviceable scanning and optimization system that has provided the mill with better accuracy and recovery when sawing high-grade Douglas fir logs.

The system features JoeScan JS-20 laser line scanning heads and two desktop PCs. In addition to being mounted overhead to view the front of the logs, scan heads are also mounted on the carriage, between the knees, providing a more accurate picture of the whole log, Cecil says.

"This gives you a much better idea of a log's taper," he says. "When you're only looking at one side of the log, you're doing a lot of guesswork."

Logs are rolled onto the carriage and dogged, then the operator hits the scan button. The optimization software develops a best-opening-face cut and overall sawing solution and goes into motion. The operator, watching the BOF closely, can concur with the system or override it if he sees something in the log that requires a different sawing pattern.

Installed during a July 4 shutdown in 2003, the new system's hardware package is easily serviceable. The scan heads are made of solid state electronics, capable of more than 100 scans per second and are able to communicate via ethernet. Control is handled by standard Allen-Bradley PLCs. Of the two desktop PCs included with the system, one functions as the "real-time" computer operating the headrig optimization system, while the other is a "supervisor" PC, acting as a backup for the system's settings, calibrations and cutting data. Operators can also review past performance and generate other system reports from the supervisor PC.

According to Robinson, except for some trouble with scanning recognition on the very largest log sizes, "The system has performed fine and done a great job for us. You can't think of every possibility."

Robinson adds that the system's off-the-shelf design is easy to service, and post-startup support has been excellent. "It was a big leap for us," he says,  "and for a while the employees were always comparing it to the old system, but you don't hear that anymore."

ADDING VALUE

Another big improvement for Starfire was the addition of a Stetson-Ross timber sizer in 2003, which gives the mill four-sided surfacing capability on even its largest products. This gives the mill's sales staff an even higher value product to pitch in premium timbers markets, including framing timbers.

"There's a pretty big trophy house market out there," Robinson says of the mill's timber framing business.

The pursuit of quality at the mill is paying off with sales into premium markets. Robinson says Starfire's large, clear products are popular all over the Pacific Rim, and Western Europe is also a big destination, with Italy being best at the moment.

"That business has been really good for us," Robinson says.

In fact, the mill pursues a variety of custom items and special orders and urges potential customers to name their desired products. A slogan on the Starfire web site states: "If it's in the grade book, we make it. If it's not in the grade book, we make it!"

Timber thicknesses range from 3-36 in., in lengths from 6-26 ft. Other products include vertical grain clears and shop material, clear slicing cants, scaffold planks and ship decking. Starfire is also the largest independent supplier for Simpson's door components operations.

MILL FLOW

In procuring timber and finding large logs to feed the mill, "No deal's too small or too big," Robinson says. "We look at them all."

The mill has its own timberlands, but most logs are procured on the open market. As the go-to buyer for mills and timber companies that need to sell large logs, Starfire has developed long-term relationships with local mills and timber owners Rosboro Lumber, Weyerhaeuser and Avery Trust, among others. If the logs fit, the company also buys occasional state timber sales as well as less frequent Indian reservation and federal timber sales.

"We try to do a combination of things," Robinson says, noting that Starfire has even trucked logs in from Washington. "We're a lot different than your basic commodity mill. We have to look at each log almost by itself."

Log specs are nothing smaller than 16 in. on the small end; there is no diameter maximum, as oversize logs are split and quartered with an L&M bar/chain log splitter and debarked with a rosserhead debarker. The mill cuts lengths up to 26 ft.; incoming logs are up to 40 ft. Scaling is performed by the Columbia River Log Scaling Bureau.

Incoming loads and logs are handled by two LeTourneau log loaders. A Terex fork loader feeds the mill.

Logs entering the mill first go through a set of Rens metal detectors (hand-held units are also used at the mill), then through a Nicholson 50 in. debarker. An in-line rosserhead debarker is used for quartered or halved stems of oversize logs.

Approaching the headrig, logs are loaded onto the Salem four-knee carriage, scanned by the Nelson Bros. scanning system, then sawn with an Albany double-cut bandmill. Large timbers are sent to a set of chains feeding a timber deck and removed via forklift. Cants flow to a Ukiah edger, and a Salem resaw handles multiples, including any off-size material or pieces that need ripping. (Drop-outs behind each machine center allow pieces requiring additional sawing to be routed to the resaw.)

Boards flow under an Irvington-Moore trimmer, then onto a six-man green chain. Small timbers flow straight through and are collected at the end.

All dry kiln work is contracted out, Robinson says, adding that "Everything that goes into Europe has to be dried nowadays." Depending on markets, as much as 30% of Starfire's output is kiln-dried, an amount Robinson believes will increase over time.

Starfire's planer mill is an older facility, anchored by a Stetson-Ross unit. As part of the move toward higher-end markets, much more production is being surfaced than in the past - more than 60% currently, Robinson says.

An anti-stain dip tank handles the balance of production. "Basically, everything that isn't dried gets dipped," says Robinson. Anti-stain agents used include NP-1 from Kop-Coat and Britewood from Contechem.

The mill's filing room features Armstrong and Wright grinding equipment. All levelling and tensioning is done manually. Both band saws and circles are provided by Pacific/Hoe. The round saws run with hand-soldered carbide tips; band saws cut with swage tooth tips.

Headrig kerf begins at .203 and is worked down to .180. Resaw kerfs are .165 and go to .148. Board edger saw kerfs are .190; gang edger kerfs are .170. Edger saw guides are standard lead babbit; band saw guides are molycarb.