DEFEATING NATURE

Hokitika Guardian, 9 July 1931, Page 2

DEFEATING NATURE

NEW ZEALAND MILL METHODS. DIFFICULTIES OVER COME. ■ iiThe high standard of efficiency now existing in the. best New Zealand timber mills, and the difficulties overcome to secure that efficiency, are described in a booklet issued monthly by Ellas and Burnqpd, Ltd., one of the largestj milling enterprises in the Dominion. The initial step in the establishment of Ellis and Buruand, Ltd., was taken in 1886, when the late- Air J. W. Ellis J started a small mill in a.'white pine hush near Kihdkilii, which was then the frontier township on the borders of the King Count-”, The plant consisted of an eiglit horse power portable engine and two saw benches. Four men were employed sin the bush and mill, and the daily output was not much over a thousand feet. To-day the company has timber rights over many thousands of acres of forest country, with five modern sawmills with a total cutting capacity of over 100,000 feet per day, besides planing mills, box factories, joinery works, and a veneer factory. When working to full capacity the company’s employees number between 500 and 600 men.

AMAZING DIFFICULTIES, The visitor who comes in ignorance is a«to«nd«d at the difficulty of the country through which the bush railways have been built. EUis and Burpand: have private railways in use at their Manunui, Ongaruo, and Ma.ngapeehi holdings, and the eighty miles represent an outlay of about £IBO,OOO. Travelling from the mills over the bush railways, by the approved passenger vehicle, the motor jigger, one passes first through miles of farm land, from which the timber was taken years ago. After miles of travel one reaches the underscrub and trees not suitably for milling are still standing. Then comes the virgin bush itself, glorious to see, but doomed to be sacrificed for the most part to the service of man.

In the Ongarue area the company has met with almost insurmountable objects. A considerable length of track has been hewn out of the sides of rocky precipices. Towering rocks, like crude monuments, stand on one side of the line, nnd on the other there is a clear drop of hundreds of’feet. Numerous bridges have had to be built, the most •important being the curved bridge over the Mangatukutuku Stream. This bridge rises ninety feet above the bed of the stream. Many hundreds of pounds had to be spent in making a solid concrete base for the trestles. The structure;, itself cost over ‘£3500.

SPIRAL RAILWAY LINE. One hoars much of the spiral on the Main Trunk Railway at Raurjmu, but few people know that the same plan has been followed on the Ongarue bush line. Not far from the precipitous region already mentioned, the company’s engineers were faced with country where no easy grade could he obtained save by tunnelling through a hill, then carrying the track right round the shoulder of the hill till it came and crossed the line of the tunnel entrance at a higher level. To the stranger watching the workings of a modern sawmill, it looks like a single vast machine taking in its logs at one end and passing out boards at the other, The floor seems, alive. Flitches of timber, large and small, are borne, hither and thither by unseen power on moving platforms, revolving endless chains, and rotating rollers. Everywhere 'beneath the flour one hears the whdri'ing of shafting and pulleys. It would appear that nii'chnrry does all the work, but this is noi so. Man and his skill .play a bigger part than at first appears. Man has to watch and guide. Not a moment while the machinery is working can a; man slacken his attention.

VE'ENER PRODUCTION. In the veneer ivories giant logs of selected quality are conveyed to the works, cut to suitable lengths and prepared for cutting into veneers on a rotary lathe, the veneer being taken off in long tlun sheets resembling cardhoard, by means of a- keen knife of the guillotine type, These sheets are next trjmmcd to size, dried, and when dry three sheets of veneer are glued together to form three-ply. In gluing the grain of the centre sheet crosses that ■of the two outside- sheets thus adding tremendously to the strength and resistance qf the plywood. Next the plywood is submitted to a pressure of two- tons to the square inch in a large steam press, after which the manufactured article as trimmed, graded, sanded, a.nd is then ready for use.