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Border Timbers owns three medium sized sawmills, namely, Sheba, Tilbury and Charter. The sawmills are designed to cut both pine and eucalyptus saw logs. All the three sawmills are located within the company’s own sustainably managed plantations.
Larger diameter Pine timber is milled using frame saw machines whilst the smaller diameter material is milled on either double log edger circular saws or on state of the art chipper canter technology. Eucalyptus saw logs are sawn using either Lucas, Bandsaw or Frame saw machines depending on the log diameters.
All the timber produced at the sawmills is kiln dried to a moisture content ranging from 8-15% depending on the end-users requirements. Drying schedules are drawn for each species. Eucalyptus is first air stacked for three months before being kiln dried to improve timber stability and to reduce drying defects. The primary focus of the sawmills is on quality with an overall emphasis being on yield recovery to meet customer requirements.
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All the sawn timber is graded after drying and this is done either visually or mechanically depending on the end use. The graded material comprises S5, Furniture Grade, and Clears whilst the balance of the material consists of Crating, Industrial and General Grade material. A large percentage of the finished material is sent for the further processing at the company's value addition factories with the balance being distributed between the local and export markets. Structural lumber is sold either in a rough sawn or moulded state, whilst the shorter length timber is fingerjointed into required lengths and cross sections.
All the timber is pressed, bundled and packaged to the highest standard before dispatch.
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