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Record SCE open days attracted a wide section of timber industry

Australian Timberman, May 2003

BRISBANE: More than 70 visitors from four states and New Zealand inspected the cream of new generation remanufacturing equipment at the Southern Cross Eegineering open days held at the company's Tingalpa showrooms on April 10 and 11.
Breaking all records for attendance and variety of machinery on display, the event saw many sales contracts signed on the spot with many more orders written into the delivery pipeline.
SCE managing director from New Zealand Graeme McMaster joined the Queensland sales team to welcome sawmillers, wood processors, lattice manufacturers, sawdoctors and industry consultants to the busy program.
The machinery showcase included new multi-head resawing technology, moulders, optimising crosscut saws, in-feed/out-feed docking systems, sorters, knife grinders and ink-jet branding units.
Australian and overseas companies included UK-based Stenner Ltd, System TM of Denmark, Spida New Zealand, Wadkin UK, Leadermac Machinery Taiwan, Windsor, Linx and Western Pneumatics, A star attraction was a new range of Leadermac four-sided moulders featuring the Speedmac, Hupermac and Platinum heavy-duty machines. Managing director of Leadermac Machinery Michael Chang from Taiwan was on hand to assist with demonstrations.
Leadermac's wide variety of heavy duty four-sided moulders are designed to provide fast cutting speed and high accuracy. Special interest centered on the Leadermac Programmable controller allowing easy setting of width and thickness that are pre-set and displayed on an LED.

Darrin Milnes, Queensland manager, SCE, Syd Mather, marketing manager, Stenner Ltd, Devon, UK, and Garry Bondfield, sawdoctor from Bayswater, Vic, with the Stenner ST 130 Resaw, a popular attration at the SCE open days.

After a brief but well-earned rest, Graeme McMaster has returned to his old post as managing director of SCE to 'resume the challenges the timber industry represents'.

A choice of machine models from Speedmac LMC-623 (6 spindle) to LMC-1023(10 spindle) offers faster feed speeds up to 36 m a minute as standard. Exclusive, separate adjustment of the vertical spindles and the feeding table allows the feeding table to be positioned extremely close to the cutterhead to provide added cutting stability.
Syd Mather, marketing manager, Stenner Ltd, Devon, UK, fielded inquiries on the high performance ST130 Stenner Resaw featuring 40 hp motor and several 36 in. ST9 bandsaws. Also on display were the Stenner ST9 resaw, MHS 9 4-head tilting horizontal saw and the VHE self-centering saw.
Stenner recently installed a second-hand VBT 105 roller bed resaw at Cedar Sales in Brisbane, fully reconditioned at the Stenner factory in the UK.
The bandsaw was originally installed at he family-owned sawmill of James Kingan and Sons in the Lowlands of Scotland. The VBT, the second saw after a Stenner VQT, a twin primary breakdown unit, was replaced with a new VBTT, the twin saw version of the VBT.
The VBT 105 at Cedar Sales is an extremely flexible bandsaw. The fence has a microscopic controlled setting system with 10 presets controlled by individual buttons. If other sizes are required, the fence can be moved to the correct positions by means of a joystick and size display readout. This enables each piece of timber to be resawn to final requirement or sized to pass through a multiple resaw.
Sized timber pieces travel straight on through the saw. The piece between the radial arm and the saw may also continue straight on or be returned automatically back past the saw to the infeed for further resawing.
The flexibility of the VBT is further increased by a driven roller bed constructed to an accuracy that allows the machine to edge round back material, passing it through the saw without the use of the fence or radial arm.
Per Juul Jensen of System TM in Denmark promoted the OtiKap 2000 optimising crosscut saw. This series of optimising crosscut saws feature optional defect marking and grading of the board into a maximum of eight different qualities. Cutting and defecting various species of timber, rough sawn or finished components, the saw represents the most modern technology designed to deliver a high output reliably or smaller volumes with great flexibility.
The Spida team of Bevan Lines, business manager, Ken Lines, managing director, and Dale Still, Marketing manager, demonstrated the Spida CXM auto-stop radial arm saw, a quick-setting manual saw for angle and length component cutting.
The CXM is ideal for fabrication plants looking for an accurate, proven radial arm saw and a constant performer with angle and length cutting features.
The saw can be fitted with a Spida measuring table to further increase efficiencey and an optional laser light is an added safety feature.
Grinding, moulding equipment and tooling from Wadkin Ultracare was enthusiastically received during the open days. described as the toughest moulder in its class- "processing anything from Burmese teak to Southern pine" - the Premier 5-head machine features individual drive motors to all spindles. with 230 x 130 mm capacity, 6-28 m/minute, the Premier is most suited for applications when the run is less than 2000 linear metres.
SCE Queensland manager Darrin Milnes said the open days attracted a wide section of industry, from small lattice maufacturers up to big industry players like Hyne Tiber and Carter Holt Harvey. He said the event was a "taste" of the company's multi-product exhibit booked for AusTimber 2004 at Albury, NSW.
Southern Cross Engineering started 2003 with two major projects - a new log yard at Claymark Industries' Katikati sawmill in New Zealand and a new multi-saw trimmer and 30-bin sling sorter line for Weyerhaueser's Caboolture softwood mill outside Brisbane. The Katikati installation included a log deck and step feeder into the mill's new VK110 debarker, log outfeed conveyors to the sawmill and a new bark conveyor to a new Western Pneumatics bark bin.
After a brief but well-earned rest, Graeme McMaster has returned to his old post as managing director of Southern cross engineering to "resume the challenges that the timber industry represents".
Timber has always been in Graeme's blood; his family owned and operated a sawmill for many years and most of his 35 year'experience in the industry has been with Southern Cross.

Focusing on the Wadkin GD 220 moulder at the SCE open days are, from left, Hyne Timber personnel from Mary Valley Ron Marsh, Cornelis Marquart (Hyne's general manager, Araucaria division, Imbil), Phil D'ath, Glenn Franklin and Gavin Duce.

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