Saw Mill News
Cleereman and McDonough partner to supply complete new sawmill
Over 120 years ago, Frank McDonough took his sawmill experience as a millwright down the street to make sawmill machinery.
Over 50 years ago, Francis Cleereman Sr., a sawmiller, built his first Carriage for his sawmill. Word spread about its quality and soon Cleereman was making more carriages than lumber.
These two great companies, rich in history with over 200 years in business are now partnering to provide a complete line of sawmill machinery. This partnership has been showcased at Pine River Hardwoods where a new sawmill was built in 2008. From the Log Deck to the Green Chain, all equipment was provided by McDonough and Cleereman, as was the sawmill design and layout.
The new Pine River Hardwoods sawmill is located in Amasa, MI. McDonough provided the following: 7' Band Headrig, 7' Linebar Resaw System, Thin Kerf Gang Edger System and a Lineal Board Edger complete with USNR Optimization. Cleereman provided: 42" Linear Carriage, 150 HP AC Vector Carriage Drive, Log Turner, Timmer with Grading Stations and all of the Material Handling Equipment throughout the sawmill.
This new mill allows Pine River to take advantage of a great timber base to produce lumber in a state-of-the art facility that is designed for optimal grade and yield/recovery. Optimization on the Cleereman Carriage system positions the log in the optimal position to get a minimum opening face. Cants then go to the McDonough Linebar Resaw system with Pre-Positioning Station in the Runaround to recover the best grade. Boards from the Carriage or Resaw are sent to a McDonough Optimized Linear Edger. The operator enters the proper grade decision and the USNR Optimizer scans each board for the best Edging solution. All boards are then put through a Cleereman Drop Saw Trimmer where up to two graders enter grade solutions from operator’s chairs.
All of this happened as the result of several meetings between the Cleereman and McDonough team and Pine River owner, Peter Connor. Mill visits to see various machining centers in operation were also made. Unique requests, like inputting the Trimmer grade decisions were thoroughly discussed between Pine River and the Cleereman / McDonough team. By having virtually one machinery vendor, Pine River was able to communicate what they wanted, then many of the details on the mill were done behind the scenes by the McDonough and Cleereman Team. They were able to achieve the best possible outcome from the layout of the mill to the final performance of the equipment. The communication between McDonough and Cleereman resulted in less coordination required by the customer.
Production levels at the mill are around 40,000 board feet per shift and the mill continues to ramp up production.