Kane Processes ‘Good,
Kane Processes ‘Good, Old’ Hardwoods through State-of-the-Art Equipment This unscrambler for the MOCO stacker helps to increase speed and sorting capacity at Kane Hardwood. Kane, PA—According to Sales Manager Bo Hammond, Kane Hardwood, located here, is known for “good, old Allegheny Forest, Northwest Pennsylvania Cherry, Maple and Oak,” other species and Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified lumber. Now Kane, a division of Collins, is processing its good, old lumber with newly acquired, state-of-the-art equipment. The company recently bought, rebuilt, and installed a sorter-stacker combination for its sawmill, to eliminate the heavy manual labor of pulling lumber, increasing speed and sorting capacity. Hand-pull jobs will be eliminated, and some of those employees will be moved to other jobs at the plant. “It is a 38-bay sling sorter and package stacker with automatic stick placing,” Hammond stated. “Sorting, sticking and stacking are now one process.” According to plant manager Rick Engebretsen, “About 10,000 board feet of mill production lumber per hour are going to the sling sorter, which sorts by grade, thickness, width, and length. The slings gently lower full units on to haul-out chains that transfer the lumber to our stacker. The stacker creates 72-inch wide stickered packs for drying or 42-inch wide solid pack materials for direct sales. Timbers and railroad ties bypass the new sorter system. “The new stacker will improve the alignment issue Please turn to page 29 20 CHRISTMAS 2020 n NATIONAL HARDWOOD MAGAZINE
“The new stacker will improve the alignment issue when laying sticks by hand and will help us produce a nice uniform package, consistently. The sorting line will also improve miss-pulls as it is taking direction from the Lucidyne Grademark Reader that gives it the instructions for correct bin assignment.” —Rick Engebretsen, plant manager, Kane Hardwood This MOCO stacker hoist creates solid packs and stickered packs. This MOCO stacker fork assembly is one of the new pieces of equipment at Kane. CHRISTMAS 2020 n NATIONAL HARDWOOD MAGAZINE 21
