AMELIA, Virginia Jerry Long knows the value of a good saw blade one
that has been designed for the cutting job it performs. And he knows the
value of a good saw blade supplier. That is why he has relied for more than
20 years on Sharp Tool to keep his company's saws running and cutting with
the right circular saw blades. Jerry started Swift Creek Forest Products 30
years ago and now has 40 years of experience in the pallet and sawmill
industries. He launched Swift Creek Forest Products as a full-time endeavor
after working in industrial sales. He began with three employees,
manufacturing custom pallets. It was a very simple operation to start:
buying lumber, cutting it to size, and nailing together the components.
The company has grown steadily since Jerry started it in the mid-1970s.
Swift Creek is located on about 50 acres and now has about 50 employees.
Swift Creek is located in Amelia, Va., in the county of the same name, a
rural community about 60 miles west and slightly south of Richmond. Although
Swift Creek manufactures some 48x40 pallets, it is essentially a specialty
pallet and wood packaging manufacturer. The number of footprints and pallet
sizes is in the hundreds, according to Jerry. The company also manufactures
skids and dunnage and in the past has also manufactured wood containers. The
company sells to manufacturing companies mainly in Virginia although in the
past it has supplied customers as far north as New York City and as far
south as South Carolina. Industries represented by customers include
printing, chemicals and groceries.
One of the companys milestones over the years was investing in automated
pallet assembly equipment. The company first purchased a Campbell nailing
machine in 1981 and later added a Viking pallet assembly system. It has
upgraded its Viking machines regularly since then and currently is running a
Viking Turbo 505 that was purchased in the late 1990s. In addition, a few
years ago the company invested in a nailing machine supplied by Storti, the
Italian pallet and sawmill machinery manufacturer. Swift Creek works mainly
with hardwoods. The company buys mainly logs and cants. It purchases
tree-length logs from logging contractors at the gate and buys cants from
sawmills in Virginia. It also buys some heat-treated pine and plywood and a
small volume of pre-cut stock.
Jerry has relied on Sharp Tool for circular saw blades for about 20
years. He has continued to do business with the supplier because of the
"quality of the blades," he said. As an example of the kind of service and
products Swift Creek has received from Sharp Tool, Jerry recalled when he
installed a Tipton scragg mill in 1992. Swift Creek was experiencing some
difficulty related to the saws of the new scragg mill. Paul Morette,
president of Sharp Tool, designed a super strobe saw blade for the scragg
mill, and the blade was a success. In fact, Swift Creek continues to run the
same blade today.
The company buys logs up to 15 inches on the butt end and a 7 inch top
and 4-inch, 6-inch and 8-inch cants in random lengths. In the log yard,
tree-length logs are loaded onto a deck and cut to bolt length by a large
circular bucking saw. The bolts feed to the Tipton scragg mill. The scragg
mill consists of two pairs of two circular saw blades; the first set of
blades removes two slabs, the logs is advanced and turned 90 degrees, and
the second set of blades removes two other slabs. The scragg mill feeds
inline to a West Plains Resaw Systems end-trim saw. Cants are sized, if
necessary, on a Baker Products two-head horizontal band resaw system. Wood
has been plentiful this year, Jerry noted. "Our cant inventory is real
good."
The plant has two main resaw lines a Brewer Inc.-Golden Eagle gang saw
line and a Pendu Manufacturing gang saw line. The Brewer Inc.-Golden Eagle
gang saw is located in the same mill with the scragg saw. Cants are
singulated by an unscrambler and feed directly inline to a Brewer cut-off
saw and then inline to the gang saw. The Pendu gang saw line is located in
the companys other main building; it operates similarly with an unscrambler
and cut-off saw and also feeds inline to a Pendu automatic stacker.
In addition to an assortment of cut-off saws for cutting material to
length, the company also is equipped with a Storti machine to reclaim boards
from slabs, a Newman chamfering machine, West Plains notcher, and an L-M
Equipment Co. (U.S.) cross-cut package saw. The company operates three
machines for grinding or chipping residual material: a Cresswood grinder,
Morbark chipper and WHO tub grinder. Along with sawdust, the material is
sold for boiler fuel.Swift Creek is heavily involved in heat-treating
pallets for export applications in order to meet global phytosanitary
standards. The company has two pallet heat-treating systems supplied by
Kiln-Direct, and it heat-treats pallets on a daily basis.
Notching heads and other carbide insert cutters for chamfering and other
tasks are supplied by Econotool. Bulk nails for the Storti and Viking
nailing machines are supplied by Mid-continent Nail Corp. Stanley-Bostitch
collated fasteners are used for pneumatic nailing tools. Swift Creek
operates its own file room to maintain its saw blades. Blades that require
additional maintenance are sent out to a North Carolina company for work.
Jerrys first experience with Storti was the slab recovery system he
purchased four years ago. Storti is represented exclusively in North America
by G. Wine Sales, and it has a Canadian-based technician who services its
machinery. "Weve been very satisfied," said Jerry. Sharp Tool has a
business relationship with Storti, too. Storti is using Sharp Tool blades on
its sawmill equipment and is recommending Sharp Tool as a saw supplier.
Swift Creek tries to ship in truck-load quantities. The company has three
tractors that pull 53-foot flatbed trailers and trailer vans. Swift Creek
offers a health insurance program for employees, and the company is active
in a number of ways to provide special services to all employees. "In
everything you treat them like family," said Tom Reynolds, who came to the
company 10 years ago to help manage operations and employee
responsibilities. Tom previously worked for DuPont, where his background
included safety and management.
Over the years, pallet prices have not risen proportionately to offset
higher prices for raw material, Jerry observed. However, Swift Creek and
other companies have been able to continue to profit by improving efficiency
and increasing yield in wood processing operations through investments in
machinery.
Jerry grew up in the sawmill industry and has witnessed a lot of change
for the better. His parents and grandparents operated rough-cut sawmills in
the early 1900s. Ironically, the sawmills in the region eventually were
forced to close because of a lack of timber. Jerry remembers the days,
before forklifts and other machinery, when mills ran half a day, and then
men loaded trucks by hand. "The industry is more of a quality place to
work," he noted, and safety has improved significantly, too.
Jerry experimented with pallet recycling at various times over the years
but has remained focused on manufacturing new pallets. One of the obstacles
to pallet recycling was the large volume of waste wood material the
operations generated. Like other businesses, Swift Creek has been hurt
recently by escalating fuel prices. The company has added fuel surcharges to
make up the difference, and customers aware of the rising fuel prices
have by and large accepted them. Swift Creek is a family business, and
Jerrys son, Scott, is in line for family succession. Scott, who has worked
in the business for 18 years, is responsible for sales, costing, and
overseeing manufacturing and production schedules. Jerry, 64, who also is an
aviation enthusiast of propeller aircraft who owns and pilots his own plane,
is focusing his business efforts at this stage on decisions related to
investments in new equipment, installations, and plant maintenance.
Jerry currently is considering replacing the Pendu gang saw line with a
new gang saw line and also is planning to invest in a new sawdust collection
system. In the long-term, Jerry believes there will be significant change in
the pallet industry. It will become more accepting of pine and other
substitutes for hardwood, he predicted, for several reasons. One is simply
the abundance of pine, particularly in the South, where pine plantations are
routinely planted where timber has been harvested. Nevertheless, he is
optimistic about the future. The industry is better equipped and more able
to deal with lumber and pallet quality issues. "The industry has a bright
future," said Jerry. "There is so much you can do with wood."
