0ords Lurnbor Oompilny

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Gardiner Lumber Company Makes First Shipment of Plywood

Plywood production from one of the most modern plywood mills' on the Pacific Coast was announced in December by The Long-Bell Lumber Company. The new mill, located at Gardiner, Oregon, will be operated under the name of The Gardiner Lumber Company, a Long-Bell subsidiary. Douglas Fir interior and exterior types of plywood will be the principal products of the new plant.

Peeling of the first logs in the new operation took place on December 3, and first shipments from the plant were made late in the month. Logs for the new plywood mill will come from Company timber lands which are being managed on a perpetual yield basis.

The plant with a capacity of four and a half million square feet of z/g inch basis per month, is lo,cated on a site adjoining the sawmill of the Gardiner Lumber Company. A railroad spur connecting with Coos Bay Branch of the Southern Pacific at East Gardiner, Oregon, has recently been completed to make shipments from the plant.

An eight-foot Merritt-Solem lathe of latest design peels tl-re old gror,vth Douglas Fir veneer which is made into all the standard sizes of plywood. The hot p:ess method is used exclusively and two 16-opening Columbia presses have been installed to form the sheets. Eight-drum Yates-American sanders give the final finish to the sheets of plywood.

Plyrvood manufacturing is not nerv to Long-Bell. In I9l2 at Weed, California, the company established the first Ponderosa Pine plywood mill on the Pacific Coast to produce panels for the Long-Bell door factory, but the demand soon placed the plant in the plywood market. The Weed operation was modernized in 1945.

The Long-Bell sales organization will handle the entire rrroduction of the new Gardiner mill.

fmport Firm Expects Increase In Hardwood Plywood Sales in 1952

Ziel & Co., fnc., San Francisco, reports having had a very successful year in the importation and sale of plywood manufactured in Japan, through channels of wholesale plywood jobbers.

R. S. (Bob) Reid, sales manager of this firm's lumber department, says they got a very good distribution of their plylvood including all the area from the Pacific Coast to Chicago. "Because of this wide distribution we feel that our plywood business should increase in 1952. We have received nothing but praise on the quality. The two predominating species in our importations are Philippine lauan, both light and dark, and Japanese sen, which is light colored ash." Mr. Reid stated.

Two-thirds of the owned by farmers. acreage in Christmas tree plantations