NEWS
Highlands Sawmill prospers
with Wood-Mizer
A Wood-Mizer MP360 Planer Moulder combine forces with two
Wood-Mizer sawmilling lines at Highlands Sawmill in KwaZulu-Natal
– to drive profitability up even more.
By Wood-Mizer | Photo by Wood-Mizer
pine and eucalyptus produce
logs for furniture and structural
grade timber. CCA treated poles
that are produced on the farm
are for agricultural applications
and fibre for paper production as
part of Highlands Sawmills’
membership of Sappi’s out-
grower scheme.
WOOD-MIZER SAWMILLS
AND MP360 PLANER
MOULDER DRIVE
PRODUCTION
The 2018 start-up of the
Wood-Mizer MP360 Planer
Moulder at Highlands Sawmill
added to the sharp increase in
production capacity that
followed the mill’s
commissioning of two Wood-
Mizer sawmilling lines in 2016
and 2017.
Gerhard Pretorius, Highland
Sawmills’ sawmill manager,
Lee Pauls, Wood-Mizer RSA machine sales manager with Jeff Hogg of Highlands Sawmill.
fast-tracked the process to use
Wood-Mizer technology as the
he road to Harding in KwaZulu-Natal where Highlands
backbone for the increases in output and recovery at the
Sawmill is located, passes through some of the most
mill. The two sawmill lines work in tandem to produce sawn
scenic landscapes in South Africa. Green pastures and
timber for distribution to factories and hardware centres
plantations are framed by the Ingeli and Drakensberg
throughout KwaZulu-Natal, Eastern Cape and beyond.
Mountain ranges in the distance with timber and cattle
Line 1 uses a Wood-Mizer LT70 Remote with an outfeed
farms dotting the banks of the wide rivers that cross
conveyor and transfer deck to a Wood-Mizer EG300 edger
through the area.
to produce accurately sawn, 6m structural timber lengths
Highlands Sawmill is located in one of the many fertile
from maximum log diameters of up to 950mm.
valleys outside Harding, an inland farming town, that is also
Line 2 is built around a Wood-Mizer Twin Vertical Saw
home to the vast Weza and Singisi Forests from where large
(TVS) and HR700 Multi-Head resaw. This line processes
amounts of sawn timber depart for trade both locally and
Highland Timber’s small diameter pine logs that range in
internationally.
size from 150 to 250mm and up to 4.8m in length to make
The sawmill is located on a third-generation timber and
furniture grade sawn timber.
cattle farm owned by the Hogg family. Geoff Hogg, the
Progressive and compartment kilns are used for drying
current custodian of the farm, added to timber that his
while Wood-Mizer blade maintenance equipment allows
father first planted with some 740 hectares now set aside
Highlands Sawmill to maintain their own blades to the high
for timber production. The areas on the farm planted to
standards that they require.
T
www.timberiq.co.za
// JUNE / JULY 2019
5