A part of the Wooden-Mizer line at New Heights Sawmill.
Press Workplace: Wood-Mizer
The southern slopes of the Drakensberg or Dragon Mountain vary within the Jap Cape Province, is house to New Heights Sawmill and a Wooden-Mizer sawmill line that governs the mill’s output.
The magnificent Drakensberg Mountain vary straddles the japanese aspect of the southern African escarpment like a large reclining dragon.
The tail within the Jap Cape, the physique in KwaZulu-Natal additionally known as Ukhahlamba or Barrier of Spears in Zulu, and the top 1,000 kilometers away within the Limpopo Province, attracts a large divide throughout South Africa.
It’s within the shadow of the dragon that New Heights Sawmill close to Elliott within the Jap Cape lies.
The farm and sawmill that each trades as New Heights is proof of John and Fiona Schenk’s abiding romance with the soil, nature and timber.
John’s father and uncle had been already milling timber within the Fifties close to Alice, some 350 kms southwest of Khowa (Elliott) the place New Heights Sawmill is predicated.
“My Dad, who owned a buying and selling retailer in Alice, milled timber with transportable mills. He often spoke about bushes that had been 1.5m in diameter,” John Schenk says, talking fondly about his Dad.
The Schenk clan’s persevering with involvement with timber stays true in 2024.
Schenk Enterprises, a vertically built-in timber processing group with vast pursuits throughout the timber worth chain is a part of it, and so too New Heights Sawmill.
John’s function as a contractor for Mondi, the place he milled fire-damaged logs from the corporate’s business forestry operations within the space, was a stepping-stone in direction of New Heights Sawmill.
When the contract led to 2012, John and Fiona used the chance to purchase land and construct a sawmill.
Constructing the spine of a sawmill.
“The interval between beginning the sawmill and the place it’s now, was a bumpy one,” says John Schenk.
“Securing a gradual log provide into the mill was the primary problem.”
He initially harvested poplar bushes from riverine areas to complement log provides into the mill. Log provide agreements with business tree growers within the space adopted subsequent.
Regardless of ongoing log provide challenges, New Heights now has sufficient log reserves in place to push out 61m3 of sawn materials per day.
Log sizes into the mill consists of C and D-Class (Ø260-340+ mm) sizes, with a sprinkling of B-Class logs (Ø190-230 mm).
The capability wanted to supply these volumes additionally grew over time. Sawmilling gear from Wooden-Mizer now types the spine of the operation.
Sawn product enroute to markets throughout South Africa.
Constructing volumes with Wooden-Mizer
New Heights is exceptional for a number of causes.
Though the mill is distant, slick logistics into and out of the mill make sure that logs transfer in and completed product out with none hitch.
The polished logistics is much more putting when it’s thought-about that the mill takes in 100 logs per day and strikes out 120,000 pallets frequently.
The road configuration at New Heights’ can be distinctive.
It has two log infeed’s that mix to ship one and two-face logs to a Wooden-Mizer HR700 4-head resaw.
The primary infeed takes logs right into a Wooden-Mizer HR500 single-head resaw to supply one open face, whereas the second infeed goes to a Wooden-Mizer LX450 that squares the go online two sides.
The slabs with wane that exit the resaw then feeds to a Linck multirip to supply blocks and boards with sideboards from every main breakdown level passing cross via a restoration line that consists of a Wooden-MizerEG800 and 2-head resaw.
The majority of the sawn product goes into New Heights’ pallet manufacturing course of, with the remainder of the sawn output going to producers within the Western Cape and elsewhere within the nation.
Constructing into the longer term
70-year-old John Schenk’s eyes gentle up when he talks in regards to the future.
“Agriculture’s been struggling within the space, however we’ve maintained an excellent keel regardless of the challenges by combining timber with agriculture.
“We’re additionally increasing our drying capability to enter the profitable pallet export market,” John says.
Pallets used for export functions should adjust to the stringent phytosanitary necessities of the Worldwide Plant Safety Conference (IPPC) of the UN’s Meals and Agriculture Organisation.
Warmth handled or kiln-dried timber is a crucial option to management the introduction and unfold of pests coming from crops or plant-based merchandise throughout borders.
“Our purpose is to extend our kiln-dried output to 78 m3, and in doing so, we’ll have extra alternative to supply IPPC compliant export pallets that promote for extra,” John says proudly.
A closing phrase
The truth that John and Fiona Schenck have constructed New Heights as much as the place it’s now with out caving into the challenges that they’ve confronted, speaks to their can-do-attitude and indominable spirit.
Right here’s to the subsequent technology of sawmillers to construct on their proudly legacy.