Fixing a misaligned gang saw decreases waste and increases revenue.

The Situation

Recently, a large sawmill came to promac for assistance. The mill’s vision is to provide the most sustainable building materials on the planet. And, a long-standing issue was getting in their way of achieving this.

The issue was a misaligned feed system in one of their gang saw boxes. This misalignment was causing excessive taper on boards and significant wood waste, costing the mill hundreds of thousands of dollars in potential profits each year. Promac was brought in to find a solution.

“Before we hired Promac, we had a 1/8” taper on every board costing us thousands of dollars daily. The Promac team had the resources and technology needed in order to find the solution.” – Kyle

Our Process

Over the years, Promac has worked with this client on a number of significant and complex projects. For this project, Promac partnered with Rory Mitchell Consulting to engineer, manufacture and oversee the installation of the proposed repair parts.

New parts were designed, and a schedule was developed that minimized downtime and staggered installs over the weekends.

“To keep our production schedule, Joe and Rory spent almost every weekend at our mill. They were really committed to this project and came up with the perfect solution that fit our needs and schedule.” – Mark

Promac designed and built companion plates, an adapted chain drive, press roll frames, air cylinder towers, eccentric shafts, jackshafts, self-aligning door locks, and a new feedline drive system.

The Results

With a customized approach, the machine is now precisely aligned. The taper has decreased from 1/8” to <.005”, which has drastically reduced wood waste and has significantly increased the final board value. This not only supports the mill’s commitment to sustainability but also results in huge financial savings.

“We’re not wasting nearly as much wood as we were before this project. The running joke is that this project paid for itself on the first day! We’re so thrilled with how it’s performing that we’ve started to divert cants from the other gang saw to this one.” – Kyle