Wood-Mizer TITAN Hybrid sawmill units go live at Tekwani’s Normandien Sawmill, located near Newcastle, in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.
Tekwani is an integrated, family-owned agri-industrial group in South Africa, with operations including cattle, water-bottling, forestry and sawmilling. The sawmilling arm of the group supplies sawn timber to both local and export markets.
Wood-Mizer TITAN hybrid units were commissioned for Tekwani’s Normandien sawmill in late 2018, with the goal of integrating and improving efficiencies between the company’s many agri-industrial divisions.
Normandien Sawmill is part of a forestry, cattle and water-bottling operation. These divisions have been combined to improve efficiencies within the business, and the new industrial timber line has proved integral to this process.
Initially, Tekwani was having to pay for the pallets used in its water-bottling operation. Despite having a source of small diameter logs from plantation thinnings, Tekwani was unable to get useable structural material from these logs. However, these logs could be converted into pallet material with the correct machinery.
Prior to the installation of the TITAN Hybrid units, a single structural sawing line was used to mill both structural- and industrial-grade timber, but this process reduced the volume of higher value structural material that could be produced by the mill.
To avoid taking capacity from the primary sawmill line, the Wood-Mizer TITAN hybrid line was installed to facilitate sawing the pallet material.
The addition of the second line has resulted in increased output from the mill: the existing line is now dedicated to structural material only, and the new TITAN hybrid line is dedicated to industrial and pallet material. Splitting the lines has brought input on the TITAN line to 73m³per shift with 80m³ the end objective.
The Wood-Mizer TITAN Hybrid units that have been incorporated into Normandien Sawmill’s industrial timber line consist of one TV2000 Twin Vertical saw and two HR2000 horizontal resaws.
TITAN Hybrid: a general overview
The TITAN Hybrid range bridges the gap between narrow-band and wide-band technologies in the small to medium sized sawmilling sector. This range consists of primary- and secondary-breakdown solutions, and provides customers with the flexibility to run wider blades for more performance, or narrower band profiles for those looking for a simpler saw doctoring process.
Features of the range includes:
- Affordability: by offering heavy-duty sawmilling capacity at an affordable price, the range is accessible to small- and medium-sized sawmills
- Customizable: the range empowers sawmillers to widen margins and extend efficiencies.
- Varying blade widths: the units are able to run varying blade widths (50 to 80 mm) and can be customised further by opting for spring set, swage set or Stellite tipped (65 to 80mm wide) blades.
- Heavy duty feed mechanics is standard for the entire range
- Simple maintenance and operation
- Easy integration into existing lines with minimal disruption
- The Hybrid range also slots in neatly between Wood-Mizer’s narrow bandsaw portable and industrial ranges and the TITAN 4 & 6-inch Twinband and Resaw bandsaw range.
Sawmillers benefit from the wider product choice, increased flexibility to integrate different solutions from the same producer in one line, and the ability to do so in the most affordable manner possible.
The Hybrid range unpacked: Twinbands
The Wood-Mizer TITAN Hybrid Twinband range is an efficient and affordable twin vertical primary breakdown solution to cut the log into a two-sided cant. The range offers two models, the TV2000 and TV2000-AFL. Both are suitable for log diameters of between 120 – 400 mm and up to 4.2 m in length.
Features that can be highlighted are feed speeds of up to 40 m/min, manual or automated log loading, various sharp chain options, pressurised feed rollers to ensure a stable cut, automated sideboard discharge, heavy duty construction for high strain sawing and electronic cut size control.
With the automated cut size control, the operator simply selects a cut size and the machine will automatically adjust to that size. This removes the need to sort the logs before sawing.
The Hybrid range unpacked: Resaw
Wood-Mizer’s TITAN Hybrid HR2000 Resaw is a high-performance, industrial capacity resaw that is available in a single or back-to-back twin-head configuration.
It is suitable for processing sideboards and cants or blocks measuring up to 350 mm wide and 290 mm high.
Factors that contribute to its productivity and efficiency include:
- Feed speeds of up to 40 m/min
- A heavy-duty head-rig construction for high strain, high speed accurate sawmilling
- Pneumatically assisted powered hold-down rollers
- Heavy-duty in and outfeed slat-chain bed with variable speed.
The unit can easily integrate into existing lines. Low power consumption adds to the utility of the product.
For more information, visit www.woodmizerafrica.com
Source: Wood-Mizer
