In the past 18 months Kuhmo Oy has invested heavily in the kilning and handling of its seasoned timber. It is an integral part of the com-pany’s ongoing £11m investment programme that is already showing a marked measure of success in improved quality control and increased production capacity.
Decisive among these improvements has been the introduction of the company’s unique FinScan camera grading system. Installed to meet the expanding demands of today’s timber users, Kuhmo’s full-colour grading system provides the sawmill’s production unit with the capability to match a far greater range of grading rules and strictures than was previously possible.
Versatile and limitless
In scope, the system is both versatile and limitless. It comprises five different sets of digital cameras, each positioned to ‘shoot’ a piece of timber from four different angles, so that each of the piece’s four faces may be scanned and transmitted to the computer for sorting, printing out and/or storing, as required.
In this way, the system can be simply and accurately programmed to separate grades of timber by knot quality, knot size or by any other wood feature – all in a variety of timber sizes – all at a speed of 160 pieces per minute.
The images shown (above right) typify the criteria provided by this new computer-controlled, digital camera technology. For example, the red boxes signify dead knots, the green boxes depict sound knots.
As the four faces of each piece of timber can be appraised separately, the system can be automatically programmed to apply a different quality criteria from face to face. This enables Kuhmo’s experienced graders to adjust and readjust quickly and precisely to a variety of different grading rules and, therefore, to a varying range of different customer requirements. As a direct result, Kuhmo can now guarantee timber users a product where each and every piece will give a higher minimum yield.
FinScan’s assured grading refinement also provides the customer with a greater working flexibility and, in many instances, a resultant reduction in material costs. Furniture manufacturers may, for example, achieve savings in the production of window and door frames, where the concealed faces of the units can be cut from a lesser quality piece.
Drying improvements
The company’s comprehensive advances in product handling resulted last year in the installation of a number of new kilns, taking the collective total to eight progressive kilns and 20 chamber kilns.
It is a development that reinforces the ‘Kuhmo promise’ that quality pine with the right degree of moisture content is readily available, whether the customer needs timber to arrive with 8-10% or 12-14% moisture content for the manufacture of fine furniture, or 20% moisture content for use in joinery and construction.
