Commonwealth Conversion
This Quebec-based company saw a mill conversion in New York state as a way to expand capacity in the U.S.
by Jennifer McCary
In 2001, Commonwealth Plywood Inc. (CPI), headquartered in Ste. Therese, Que., purchased a New York sheathing mill sandwiched between two extensive wood baskets—the Adirondacks to the west and the Green Mountains to the east. The ultimate goal for the Whitehall, N.Y., facility was to convert it to a hardwood plywood mill producing inner core veneer stock and laying up panels with outsourced face veneers. The acquisition is one of three plywood production facilities owned by CPI, and its first located in the U.S.
Over a seven-decade-long history, CPI’s mission has been to be a premier quality supplier of decorative rotary veneer, plywood and lumber products. In addition to the above plywood mills, CPI today also has seven rotary mills and two specialized veneer splicing plants, plus several sawmills, a chipping facility and distribution warehouses serving the eastern markets of Canada and the U.S.
The single-line production facility in Whitehall was built in 1982, when it was disassembled and moved from the West Coast to New York. “Conversions are usually driven by economics,” notes vice-president Bob Lessels, who came out of retirement to head the effort. “This mill no doubt enjoyed many good years in the sheathing market, but it got tougher as OSB gained market share. CPI already has two hardwood plywood mills in Canada, so they had the expertise and saw this as an opportunity to expand capacity in the U.S.,” adds the transplanted Canadian, who still keeps a home in New Brunswick.
Conversion has required some production and machine adjustments and a whole lot of training—especially in grading decorative veneers and panels, he notes. “It has been a lengthy process, but we finally made it about two years ago.” Production went to 100% veneer core in September 2008. Prior to that, the plant had continued to produce some subflooring, sheathing and other exterior panel products.
Hardwood face veneers are supplied by CPI’s other veneer operations in Canada and Columbia Forest Products mills in Vermont and Maine, as well as Timber Products Co. in Michigan. Among the biggest challenges was making the transition in mindset. “When you’re making sheathing, you’re running wide open and quality is not so much the issue,” Lessels explains. “With hardwood plywood it’s completely reversed. We talk quality every day because quality is number 1.”
Proving Ground
“Starting in this game, you have to prove everything to see that it works (in the new application),” says Lessels. “You have to make sure the lathe is cutting quality veneer, that the press platens are in good shape, and then start seeing what the present equipment will do. After that you gradually start adding the minimal equipment, like the initial two-head sander, which let us finish sand the panels. As the business grows, then you start looking at improving from there, getting better equipment. That is what we have done here.”
Among the first areas to receive attention was the Columbia 30-opening press. Platens were refurnished to remove any blemish that could cause indentations in the panel face. This is critical for decorative hardwood plywood because face veneers are so thin it leaves very little margin for sanding out indentations. Purchased face veneers can range from .022 in. for sliced veneers like cherry, mahogany and walnut, and up to .28 in. for rotary veneers like birch and maple.
Considerable efforts have been focused on the 1960s vintage Coe 263 lathe, which has essentially been rebuilt over the course of the last five or six years. It is critical to peel a veneer ribbon that is consistent in both thickness and flatness, Lessels observes, when dealing with the thin face thicknesses. All lathe production goes into inner ply core veneer so they run just one thickness.
“The key in a hardwood mill like this is that you have to peel to a pretty close tolerance to be able to lay it up in the press. In our case we’re peeling .144 in. thickness and my target is +/- .005 in.,” he states, noting the difficulty of achieving that when peeling the thicker veneer.
Most lathe improvements were completed in-house. CPI contracted with Wayne Feltham of Feltham-McClure Co., Oviedo, Fla., to inspect and service the lathe annually, making recommendations for performance improvements. Head millwright Kyle Porter and his staff have rebuilt the charger, and installed new spindles and carriage assemblies.
A key upgrade was the installation of a diamond pattern roller bar and the addition of a core drive backup roll. The diamond pattern bar helps to improve veneer quality and seems to reduce the number of plug ups between the knife and bar, according to mill manager Paul Campney. Plug-ups were costing as much as two hours in downtime.
“The biggest benefit of the diamond pattern is that it holds a good thickness tolerance and the veneer lays flat,” Campney says. The previously run fluted bar seemed to have issues with both.
The final stage in the conversion was to eliminate the bottleneck at the finishing line.
At the outset, CPI installed an older twohead top belt Timesavers sander. Panels were fed through, then turned and fed through again to surface both faces. In 2009, a new Timesavers triple-head bottom belt sander and a refurbished Timesavers triple-head top belt sander replaced the original machine. Depending on species, belt sander grits progress from 150 grit to 180 and 220 grit to achieve the smooth surface needed in the decorative market.
Startup began in March 2009, which eliminated the production- strangling process of manually re-feeding panels at one machine. Now panels are loaded on a Kimwood feeder table that advances them through the bottom sander then the top sander. On the outfeed, panels are graded and stacked at a four-station Durand automatic stacker. Forklifts transfer stacks to a manual packaging line to prepare bundles for shipping. CPI uses low cost plastic strapping bands.
The mill suffered a small setback a few months later when an electrical fire broke out in the finishing area. CPI’s well-trained employees responded in an efficient and responsible way to contain it until help arrived. Damages to the wiring and a wall section brought the loss to about $30,000. Production was down about four days.
Production
The company purchases logs from hundreds of New England wood suppliers stretching from Maine to Pennsylvania. However, about 90% of it is supplied by a core of about 30 producers who buy mostly private timber sales. Species mix includes aspen (poplar), tulip (yellow poplar) and red pine mainly, though they also peel some basswood, spruce and hemlock. Butt cut logs are accepted in 8 ft. 6 in. and 17 ft. lengths.
Logs feed through a Nicholson 30 in. debarker, then to an in-house built cut-off saw where the doubles are cut to 8 ft. 6 in. lengths. They are conditioned in one of six above-ground steam vats, which are heated to bring log core temperature to 75-80 F. In winter months, care must be taken to ensure that no frozen logs are fed to the Coe lathe. Each vat holds 25,000 bd.-ft.
Forklifts unload the vats and feed the infeed deck of the lathe. Logs are manually cleaned and prepared before being positioned in the charger. A tipple opens to drop roundup to a waste conveyor belt as the log begins to spin. This material and other process byproducts are ground up and used to fire a Babcock and Wilcox boiler, which supplies steam heat to the press and vats, and a Wellons furnace that heats the dryer. Veneer ribbon passes under a Ventek scanner, which provides defect, width and other data for a Durand-Raute rotary clipper. It clips full sheets at 54 in., half sheets at 27 in. and random widths down to 10 in. Vacuum pickups move full sheets to an overhead tray and three automatic stacker bins. Half sheets and random widths continue on the bottom deck and are hand stacked into veneer carts.
Sheets are fed into a Moore six-deck hot air dryer with air temperatures roughly 400 F. Cycle times vary with the species and moisture content of the veneer sheets. It is a high production dryer with straight flow-through decks. An Elliot Bay moisture meter checks exiting veneer sheets and marks pieces that are still wet. These go back through the dryer. Target moisture content is 4-5%.
A four-deck Plymac jet dryer with an Elliot Bay moisture meter, automatic stacker and six sorter bins was purchased from a British Columbia mill and installed by Commonwealth shortly after purchasing the mill. It is used to provide extra drying capacity as needed.
Veneers are graded at dryer outfeeds and routed to either a Raimann patching station to insert patches and grade the sheet; or to a Hashimoto core composer to splice and assemble full sheets. Veneer sheets are manually assembled at two 4 ft. Globe glue spreader and layup lines. Each line assembles 15-sheet bundles, which converge into one line with 30 sheets per bundle as it enters an Ederer prepress, 30-opening American charger and Columbia steam-heated hot press. Cycle time on a 3/4 in. panel is 71/2 minutes at 250 F.
Plywood panels are trimmed at a Globe skinner saw and trim saw, which trims them to 4x8 ft. panels. Panels are puttied, as needed, and sent to the new finishing line and Durand automatic stacker.
The facility employs 120 hourly and salaried employees. It runs a five-day week with three shifts on the dryers, two shifts on the press and layup lines, and one shift on the green end and finishing line.
Key managers include Campney, mill manager; Cliff Winney, green end supervisor; George Card, dry end supervisor; Zack Lanphere, plywood lead and quality control; Porter, head millwright; and Grayson Michaud, head electrician.
The next projects in the mill’s continuous improvement strategy are the installation of a new knife grinder to replace a wornout unit; new lathe drive; completion of a seventh steam vat and installation of an X-Y charger scheduled for next spring.
