Sutton, WV -- Timber Industries in WV

On our follow up trip we went to Sutton, WV.  We drove up the evening before our tours and had a WONDERFUL dinner at a Bed and Breakfast called Cafe Cimino.

Rise and shine . . . the next morning we were off to the Weyerhauser Sutton OSB plant for our first tour of the day. 

The plant was started in 1996 and now employs 135.  At its peak, the plant employed 170 local people (in 2006).  It is the only OSB Weyerhauser plant in WV.  They pull logs from as many local timber companies but can pull as far as North Carolina. The plant runs most all kinds of wood but tries to do no more than 10% pine.

In the log yard, they could have a storage of logs of 110,00 tons that can last 6weeks.  They have a crane that unloads the logs in bites onto log decks (there are two).  On the chain conveyers, the logs are debarked with chains that hang and sort of "beat" the bark off .  The conveyor then carries the logs into what are called "Thaw tunnels".  The logs are in the tunnel for 30 minutes at 150 degrees.  The bark from the debarking is used to generate the heat for the thaw tunnel.

The logs are then cut into strands by a strander that is 84" in diameter and has 46 knives with a 22 second cycle.  The stranders are rebuilt in house which helps save money.  Once the logs have been cut into strands, they are screened two ways:  rotating and shaking.  Once sorted the strands will be used according to their sizes and grouped as either core strands or surface strands.

The strands are then put in a blender and an infrared sensor is used to determine moisture is used to get the right amount of resin added to each batch.

The strands are oriented and then put into forms.  They use 4 large forms (12 X 24 feet) which, after pressing, can yield 108 4X8 panels..... in 4 to 6 minutes.

A typical 7 day production week the plant can produce 90 trucks and 48 rail cars a day.  But since the plant is only working a 4 day work week right now, they are producing about 60 trucks and 24 rail cars a day.

There is a lot of recycling in the plant and as a matter of fact, it was desigend from the beginning to be a zero discharge facility.

The plant ships to the states of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indianna and Maryland.

July 20 C&O Museum, Clifton Forge, VA

We left on this rainy morning to make our final water quality testing in the Greenbrier. After all the results we have gathered, our group came to the conclusion that the water quality of the Greenbrier was "Medium". Not a bad rating for a river that runs through some industrial areas as it snakes through southern WV.

Then we made our way to our last stop.... the C&O museum. What an awesome place to visit and a wonderful way to culminate all we've learned. From the various tools and procedures that started on steam engines and ended on deisels, it was neat to see the improvements to them over the years. Comparing the steam engines on site (The Greenbrier Express) to the steam engines at Cass and Durbin was quite interesting.

Why would there be such a difference between the two steam engines?

What were each of the engines built to do?

Another interesting thing I found out about was the Depots that C&O used and the fact that they had "standard" plans for them.  Depending on the community, the type of depot that was built usually had separate waiting rooms for ladies to help keep them "safe".  Most depots were wooden but larger communities had brick ones that were built.

We had lunch in the restored dining car which was such a neat experience.... to sit and imagine what it would have been like for people to ride and dine in "those days". 

Looking at the pictures of railroad in times past and seeing what they are like today was a good way to end our trip.  Seeing how important railroading was to West Virginia before major roadways were built, was important in preparing lessons for my classroom. 

Timber and Rail Lessons

As part of our study of the timber and rail course, we have come up with lessons to use in our classroom.  There are so many aspects of science that I can use the information learned this summer but I have come up with three activities that I believe will correlate well with my curriculum.  From having the students to search for items in their house that are products of the timber/wood or wood by-products industry, to finding how Newton's laws  explain how a locomotive can carry a load up and down a hill.  I hope that the lessons we share on our main blog page will help you to find something useful in your classroom!

July 19, 2012 - The Durbin Rocket

Today we drove to Gaudineer Knob to look at the second strand of virgin forest.  This forest is only in existance because of a surveyors error.  It is also home to the Cheat Mountain Salamander.  What kind of wildlife and biodiversity would you expect to see in a virgin forest near the top of a mountain?  Take a look at some of the pictures below and see if you can identify different species of trees.

 "The Durbin Rocket"--

We finished up the day riding on another restored logging steam train.  This was different from Cass in the fact that there were no steep grades for the engine to pull and push the cars.  We followed along the Greenbrier river and were able to see some of the foundations of a lumber company that used to sit on the banks of the river. 

Another difference on this train was the fact that you did not have to stay on one car, you could travel between an open car, an old dining car, a passenger car and a caboose.  It was neat to be able to experience the ride in a variety of ways. 

On our trip back, we had to stop and fill up the tank from the local creek.  Using the same process that the Shay engine used to "siphon" the water into the tank.

I found it just as interesting as Cass but in different ways.

 

Filling up in the creek . . .

 

July 18, 2012 - Cass Scenic Railroad

Today we went to Cass to ride the train that is using one of three types of geared locomotives that were designed specifically for better traction on the rails.  An all wheel drive train . . . did you know there was such a thing?  If you look on the page above about steam geared locomotives you'll get to see pictures of each one and a brief description of them. 

Cass uses both Shay and Heisler engines on their rails.  Shay engine 11 is the one that pulled us today.

She was designed to prevent the train wheels from slipping on the track.  All the wheels were attached to gears that helped all the wheels from slipping.  The Shay 11 had three trucks and three large pistons on the side.  You can see them in the picture above on the left side of the engine and a close up shot of the gears below.

The drive shaft on the Shay was located on the side of the train.  As you can see in the picture below, it runs the length of the engine.

Moving on to the timber part of Cass, it was once a timber company that made paper.  Most of the hills surrounding Cass had been cut and used to make the paper.  At the first stop on the ride we were able to get off the train to look at some of the models of camp life.  Below is a picture of a typical camp shantie that the lumberjacks would stay in while cutting timber on the mountain.

The skidder that was used to pull logs up the hill was also on display. 

As we were making out way to the top of Bald Knob, you could see the change in eleveation through the changes in the types of trees in the forest.  Can you see in the picture below where the line of tree species begins to change. 

July 17, 2012 - Colonial Millworks and Armstrong/Bruce Hardwood flooring plant and Historic Beverly

The millworks company we visited today was much larger than the one we saw yesterday.  They made mainly casings, mouldings and trim. The company had been in business since 1958.  As lumber comes in, it is graded to determine that the shipment they ordered is correct.  The lumber is then sorted and restacked according to the type and amount needed to fulfill orders.

Once the boards have been sorted they are sent into the plant to be cut at appropriate widths.  Lasers are used to show the workers where the cuts on the board will be made as they send it through the saw to be cut into appropriate width with less waste.

Once the board has been cut, the strips are sorted according to size and sent out to the different parts of the plant to be cut, sanded and stained.

This plant, as well as the others we've visited, also did some recycling.  Any scrap wood they had were sent out to the shredder to be made into saw dust which is used to sell to other companies like Hamer Pellet fuels.

 

July 16, 2012 - Tour or Hamer Pellet Fuel plant and Wilson Lumber

We started off the day visiting the Hamer Pellet Fuel Company.  Being in the lumber business to begin with, the company realized at one point that they were spending a million dollars to have their waste sawdust disposed of.  They decided to take their waste and turn it into usable fuel my making pellets.

The making of pellets begins with saw dust.  Truck loads are brought in (at $60-$100 a ton) and the type of saw dust (oak, walnut, maple, etc) is logged in.  The different types of saw dust are then "mixed" by a loader and then put into a large dryer.  The dryer is a 55 million BTU burner that runs on saw dust.  (Click here to find out what BTUs are).  The dryer is capable of drying 15 ton of saw dust in an hour.  They also use wood chips BUT, they are chopped up and turned into saw dust as well.

Picture of the dryer (big blue drum)

When the saw dust is dry, then sent by conveyor to the building where it is mixed with vegetable oil and water and then put into the extrusion machine.  During this process the mixture is pressed out small holes which produces the pellets.

This is the large machine that produces the pellets

These are the pressing wheels inside that "squeeze" the saw dust mixture through small holes (at the bottom).

Here is an "outside" view of the small holes with pellets sticking out.

These pellet machines can produce up to 6 tons of pellets per hour.  How many pellets can they make in a normal 8 hour shift?

Once the pellets are made they are sent to be bagged.  The quality control is to check 1 in 50 bags to look for size of pellets and amount of dust particles per bag.  If too much dust is being created, they slow the process down. Why do you think slowing the process down would help with the amount of dust particles in the pellets?

Here is a video of the bagging process.

After bagging, the bags continue down the conveyor where a robot stacks them on a pallet and then the pallet is wrapped to keep it togetehr and keep the weather out.  Here is a video of that process.

This company was able to find a way to reduce both their waste and make money from their waste.  How is this helpful to our environment?

WILSON LUMBER COMPANY

Our next stop was just next door at the Wilson Lumber Company.  The company started in the early 1960's.  They got their first wood drying kiln in 1961 and by 1987 their kiln capacity was 250,000 board feet.   They buy their boards directly from the saw mills.

In 2004, automated stickers came out that helped speed up their process.  Sticks are used to separate the boards to help the drying process while in the kiln.  The picture below shows a stack of boards with stickers ready to go in the kiln.

This is a picture of one of the kilns being filled.

Enjoyable trip to the pellet plant today! Cool!!

Will be back shortly to comment on today's tours.  Meanwhile, check out the pictures from today on the facebook page I've created!

July 15, 2012 - Cathedral State Park

The start of our trip began at Cathedral State Park, one of only two virgin timber forests in West Virginia.  Back in the early days when timbering was prevalent, someone chose NOT to allow timbering to occur on their land and now we have this small plot of land with timber that has been allowed to naturally grow, prosper and die without the help of human intervention.

One of the first things I noticed as I entered the forest was that a lot of the trees had very few (if any) lower limbs within reach.  I was expecting to be able to reach for a limb and look closely at leaves so that I would be able to identify them more closely but . . . . there were very few close enough to reach (As you can see in the picture below).  This made it more difficult to look at the leaves to determine the type of trees we were looking at.

Another thing that I noticed was how thick the canopy of the forest was.  This may be the reason why the lower limbs were not present . . . no sun to reach them.

The types of trees most abundant in this forest were hemlock.  There were also a lot of maple and oak trees.  The first picture below is of a large hemlock tree.  You can see the massiveness of its base compared to Mr. Colegrove standing to the side.

Here is a large oak tree located near the edge of the forest. Notice the difference of the underbrush at the edge of the forest compared to the picture above with the hemlock.  The amount of sunlight coming to the forest floor at the edge of the forest definitely makes a difference.

We also did testing on the pH of the soil.  We chose 4 different places to test the pH.  We had to dig down about 3 inches through the leaf litter and peat to get to the soil.  The picture below shows the difference between the peat (on the right) and the soil (on the left).

We found that the acidity of the soil fell in a range of 3.5 to 4.5.  Proving that the acidic soil is perfect for the type of trees and shrubs growing here. . . hemlock and rhododendron for example. 

One of the things we've been doing is calculating the board feet that can be found in trees so we picked a large hemlock and did the calculations.  They're shown in the picture below.

WV Mapping

I found this while searching for resources to use in class.  Might come in handy so I thought I would share the link.  

WV Mapping

Additional Pages

Check out the links at the top of this blog that will take you to other pages.  One page is dedicated to the geared steam engines that were used in the logging process in the late 1800's and early 1900's. 

The other page is dedicated to tree identification and historic aspect of the use of each tree.

Hope you can find something useful.  Keep checking back because there is more to come!!

Saturday Hands on Learning

On Saturday, April 28, we went to Ritter park in Huntington to learn about tree identification.  What I found most interesting during this hands on lesson, was the fact that I really don't know a lot about identifying trees like I thought I did.  I also learned a great deal behind the history of different types of trees as well as their uses. 

I've taken pictures of the different types and I'm in the process of creating collages (kind of like I did with the trains) for each type of tree.  So keep coming back and checking for updates.  With school winding down some now, I may have more time to devote to this project.  Please have patience!  I'm planning to use my blog and the pages attached to it for a "webquest" for my students next year. 

Guest Speaker

Tonight we had Bob Withers. author and railroad historian, talk to us about the history behind the railroads and logging in WV.  He explained the difference between traditional steam engines and steam engines used in logging.  As many times as I've ridden the train at Cass, I didn't realize that the trucks were different.  I've learned so much AGAIN about WV that I had no clue about!  I think this class is going to be just as interesting as the Coal project!

Neat Apps to use. . .

I found a couple of cool apps that I think would be awesome to use.  The first one is called camscanner.  You can take pics with your tablet and save it as a pdf.  Whether it is a document or an actual picture, I think it can be used in this class.  For instance, you can take a picture of a leaf and create a pdf to use in class for classification purposes.  It also comes with a link directly to dropbox.

WV Forestry and Rail Project

This is my first blog on my new project that I am working on for this summer.  I am really looking forward to learning about logging in WV and the railroads that are so common place in our communities.  Usually it's something so near and in our view every day of our life that we know the least about.  I'm looking forward to learning more about something that has a lot of history in my state.  I went to a site to look up lumberjack terms to come up with something "catchy" for my blog . . . I couldn't resist using "Yardmaster"!!