July 21, 2014 2:16 pm Leave your thoughts
Hello again folks,
The summer heat is making it far too hot to survive in the mill today, so I figured it is the perfect day to touch base with the Bloggers out there. A lot has happened since the last time I wrote, including a shutdown and a visit from a company with an interesting method of displaying their products.
July 21, 2014 1:28 pm Leave your thoughts
Busy, Busy, Busy! Lately, so much has been going on in my department. It’s been hard to find some time to sit down and reflect on the last two weeks and write about my experiences, but, alas, I have found a few minutes.
Recently, I picked up a project that was started by last year’s Green Dream intern,
July 21, 2014 12:01 pm Leave your thoughts
Planer in feed:
The Planer:
Planner out feed:
Grading:
Packaging and final product:
The End
July 21, 2014 11:27 am Leave your thoughts
From the Scanning:
From the scans a program decides how to turn the logs and what boards it can create from the log.
Rotation:
Second Scanning:
From scanning comes chipping and sawing :
Sideboard separator:
Gang Saws:
Drop Gate:
Edger:
Transfer:
JBAR:
July 18, 2014 11:42 am Leave your thoughts
I have started working on an Energy Survey project for the Mackenzie sawmill. For this independent project, I will be responsible for collecting amperage and voltage readings from different motors to calculate power consumption for 3-phase motors. The purpose of this survey will be to understand the energy consumption at the site and propose new methods to decrease energy consumption.
July 16, 2014 2:06 pm Leave your thoughts
Today, I just about drove into the back of a moose while quadding; I guess he just didn’t hear me coming. This sighting puts the total to 5 moose, 8 bears, 2 elk, countless deer, and hundreds of tracks from other animals (including wolf, lynx, fox and coyote) that I have encountered. I was hoping to hold off on this blog post until I got an actual picture of an animal,
July 16, 2014 1:21 pm Leave your thoughts
The tree plant is going very well, and I have been working very hard for the past couple weeks. Checking trees can be very physically demanding, because you have to walk all day in the summer heat and get to at least 40 plots in for the day. The most plots I have gotten to is around 70 plots in one day.
July 15, 2014 4:11 pm Leave your thoughts
One of the greatest parts about this internship has been the range of different parts of the forestry sector that I have had the opportunity to gain experience in. For the most part I have been spending time in the silviculture department, which handles the task of returning the log site to the way it once was. It is essentially the end stage of the logging process.
July 11, 2014 9:21 am Leave your thoughts
Hello everyone, what a busy past few weeks! I just finished a project that I have been working on for quite some time. My job was to create an energy monitoring screen that shows the current conditions of what is going on in a particular area of the mill. Like any sophisticated computer program, the learning curve was steep, but once I got the hang of using MOPS it was a breeze to create new components and edit existing ones whenever necessary.
July 9, 2014 11:30 am Leave your thoughts
Sustainability is an issue that the entire world is grappling with. The term pops up everywhere in our society, including the world of forestry. How to even define what the word means changes with the passage of time; thereby, changing how it is that we are able to achieve the idea. During the late 80s and early 90s, numerous conferences and protests were attended all over the world to determine what sustainability would mean to our economy,
July 7, 2014 10:17 am Leave your thoughts
Even though I love words, it is true that pictures can say thousands of them in an instant. These are some moments in my day that stopped me in my tracks to capture the beauty of that moment. Enjoy!
Raging water during the snow melt in Nebskawshi River near my home for the summer.
Trees reflected in a thawing bog along a hiking trail.
July 3, 2014 10:34 am Leave your thoughts
The past couple of weeks have been some of the busiest so far. The 2014 planting season is now officially completed, with over 2 million trees planted throughout the last two months. While the planting season was winding down the site preparation program was just starting up.
One of the tasks that has been taking up the bulk of my time lately has been going out to recently harvested cut blocks,
July 3, 2014 9:48 am Leave your thoughts
I’m having such a great experience working for Millar Western this summer. I am grateful not only for this internship opportunity but as well for the other awesome things that have come with moving out here to Alberta.
I’ve spent some time camping with my friends up north on Freeman Lake. We we’re lucky enough to get some great weather,
June 30, 2014 11:08 am Leave your thoughts
Hey guys, sorry I’ve been a little behind on the blog posts lately but as per usual it’s easy to stay busy around here. These past few weeks have been all about new experiences for me. I went in my first helicopter ride; unfortunately I was way too excited about the whole situation and it never even cross my mind to take any pictures,
June 30, 2014 10:00 am Leave your thoughts
This past two weeks I have been fairly busy. I am also starting to get more comfortable with my role and I am starting to adjust well. I get feedback from the machine monitoring and make adjustments as needed in order to keep the lumber on target size. I have also made a few work instruction manuals for other employees to trouble shoot the machinery when management or myself are not around to help.