SASKAT TOO ON

The Domtar plant located in the northern industrial section of Saskatoon is another operation certified to Local 1-184 IWA, Saskatchewan. The plant manufactures a softboard panel much in demand for roofing, sound control and insulation purposes.

The Company also produced a hardboard but phased this operation out when it proved uneconomical.

The plant usually operates on a 3-shift basis 5 days a week. Approximately 50 cords of wood per day are processed into panels. An unusual feature is that the Company is mainly dependent on the farmers in the area for its source of wood.

As may be seen by the Company’s flow sheet manufacturing the panels requires a number of various operations. The flow starts with the poplar logs (9” in diameter and 4’ in length) going to the chipper from the outside log conveyor. This machine slices the logs into chips about 1” x %” x 1/16” thick.

- From the chipper they go to the chip storage bin. From there they are moved to the asplund defibrator where they are subjected to steam pressure from 2 to 4 minutes to soften them. The chips are then passed between refining plates to extract the fibres which are about tooth- pick in size.

The next process is the disc refiner to further refine the fibres before they are dumped in the pulp storage tanks. There the refined fibres are mixed with water to facilitate pumping. The measurement is approximately 97 percent water, 3 percent fibre, with sizing added.

The fibres which are now a pulp go to the 4 foot wide forming machine. In this machine the pulp flows onto a continuous wire where the water is separated out by gravity. More water is taken out by suction and squeezing between rollers leaving the wet mat about 60 percent water.

- The wet mats or boards are then sent to the dryer which has 6 decks and is 130 feet long by 8 feet wide. The boards are fed alternately into the decks by an automatic tipple. It takes approximately 2 hours for a board 4’ x 8'x ¥2" to pass through the dryer.

The dry boards are automatically unloaded from the dryer and move through a two pass trim saw which trims them to the proper width and length. The finished product is then examined for defects before going to the

laminating and/or wrapping operation and storage.

<= 1