Using portable sawmills to produce high value timber from farm trees in the semi-arid zone A report for the RIRDC/ Land & Water Australia/FWPRDC/MDBC Joint Venture Agroforestry Program and the Natural Heritage Trust by P. Blackwell & M. Stewart October 2003 RIRDC Publication No 03/046 RIRDC Project No PN99.2001 © 2003 Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation. All rights reserved. ISBN 0642 58614 4 ISSN 1440-6845 Using portable sawmills to produce high value timber from farm trees in the semi-arid zone Publication No. 03/046 Project No. PN99.2001 The views expressed and the conclusions reached in this publication are those of the author and not necessarily those of persons consulted. RIRDC shall not be responsible in any way whatsoever to any person who relies in whole or in part on the contents of this report. This publication is copyright. However, RIRDC encourages wide dissemination of its research, providing the Corporation is clearly acknowledged. For any other enquiries concerning reproduction, contact the Publications Manager on phone 02 6272 3186. Researcher Contact Details Philip Blackwell Mark Stewart Forestry Campus Forestry Campus University of Melbourne University of Melbourne Creswick VIC 3363 Creswick VIC 3363 Phone: 0353214150 Phone: 0353214150 Fax:0353214135 Fax:0353214135 Email:[email protected] Email:[email protected] In submitting this report, the researchers have agreed to RIRDC publishing this material in its edited form. RIRDC Contact Details Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation Level 1, AMA House 42 Macquarie Street BARTON ACT 2600 PO Box 4776 KINGSTON ACT 2604 Phone: 02 6272 4539 Fax: 02 6272 5877 Email: [email protected] Website: http://www.rirdc.gov.au Published in October 2003 Printed on environmentally friendly paper by Canprint - ii - Foreword Australian farmers have generally embraced tree planting on their properties for environmental benefit for some time and these benefits are, more or less, well understood and accepted. However, over the last decade or so, there has also been a move to integrate trees more into the farming enterprise in commercial terms as well as for environmental amelioration. The production of wood from farm-grown trees has also become an issue of increasing interest for the community generally, both for its potential to broaden the economic base of rural communities as well as a perceived benefit in an alternative source of wood to native forests. This has given rise to many programs and initiatives to assist farmers in their endeavours to become tree growers and managers in addition to their more traditional farming activities. However, for the adoption of commercial tree growing to succeed, farmers need to have information, and the matching skills, on the whole commercial chain of production from tree growing and management to the technical issues relating to wood and timber processing. The former has been reasonably well catered for – albeit it with a concentration in areas receiving more than ~600mm p.a. rainfall. Because of this concentration of activity in farm forestry, processing of farm grown trees has tended to be picked up by the larger established industrial operations – although not entirely. However, in the lower rainfall areas there is a scarcity of resource and little established processing infrastructure and the situation is not likely to change in the foreseeable future due to the scattered and diverse nature of any timber resource that does exist. The major difference for farm forestry in the lower rainfall areas is that the species suitable for growing there – especially native species – tend to be much harder and denser than those commonly used for timber production in higher rainfall areas. This raises important issues with respect to the primary processing phase given that large processing infrastructure is unlikely to be established and hence the use of portable sawmills for this task has to be considered. There is a general lack of information on quality standards or processing operations relating to portable mills in these species and this project was set up to investigate the role of portable mills in processing the potentially high value wood grown in the lower rainfall areas to suitable quality standards. If this can be achieved then it should provide an essential step towards making it possible to capture the potentially high value, low rainfall resource for this purpose. This project was funded by the Natural Heritage Trust, through the Forest and Wood Products R&D Corporation, and the Joint Venture Agroforestry Program partners — RIRDC, Land & Water Australia, Forest and Wood Products R&D Corporation and the Murray-Darling Basin Commission. These organisations are funded principally by the Australian Government. This report, a new addition to RIRDC’s diverse range of over 900 research publications, forms part of our Agroforestry and Farm Forestry R&D program, which aims to integrate sustainable and productive agroforestry within Australian farming systems. Most of our publications are available for viewing, downloading or purchasing online through our website: downloads at www.rirdc.gov.au/reports/Index.htm purchases at www.rirdc.gov.au/pub/cat/contents.html Simon Hearn Managing Director Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation - iii - Acknowledgements Bill McKenzie for some very good advice and all the difficult to obtain literature CSIRO and the team involved with a parallel project into the drying of timber obtained from the low rainfall areas. Also, for the selection and supply of logs used in the species trials. Greg Venn, Australian Recycled Timber, Campbellfield, Vic, for the discussions on blade design. John Wirth, Lenox Saws, for technical advice and the supply of a tension gauge. Lucas Mills Pty. Ltd., Beechworth, Vic., for the use of the Lucas Portable circular saw mill at the VTITC. The Stewarts for the use of their Laidlaw horizontal bandsaw mill. Department of Natural Resources & Environment, Victoria, for the supply of logs for the project Michael Thomas, Ballarat Saw Service for technical advice and supply of various blades. Pacific Saw International for the supply of the carbon steel bandsaw blades. Peter Plews for assistance with the sawing and measuring process. Philip Blakemore, CSIRO for the use of photos and assistance with log selection. Robert Martin, Automation 2000 Pty. Ltd., Sebastopol Vic., for the supply of Motor and Variable Speed Controller. VTITC Creswick for the use of the facilities for sawing and storing the logs. Finally to Betty Wale a thank you for reviewing the drafts from a non-technical perspective. - iv - Table of contents Foreword........................................................................................................................ iii Acknowledgements.........................................................................................................iv Table of contents .............................................................................................................v List of Figures........................................................................................................... vii List of Tables ..............................................................................................................xi Executive Summary ..................................................................................................... xii 1 Introduction..............................................................................................................1 1.1 Farm forestry development ..................................................................................1 1.2 Resource issues ....................................................................................................3 1.3 Processing issues..................................................................................................4 1.4 Structure of the research project ..........................................................................6 2 Literature Review ....................................................................................................7 2.1 The supply and markets. ......................................................................................7 2.2 Wood Characteristics .........................................................................................13 2.3 Potential products from the trees .......................................................................16 2.4 Sawing Technology............................................................................................18 2.5 Portable milling..................................................................................................21 3 Sawing Equipment and Timber Species ..............................................................23 3.1 Portable Sawmills ..............................................................................................23 3.2 Equipment ..........................................................................................................33 3.3 Sawing procedures .............................................................................................36 3.4 Species selection criteria....................................................................................39 3.5 General characteristics of species used in trials.................................................42 4 Initial Sawing Trials ..............................................................................................49