Job Title: Mechanical Engineer

Job Description: Perform engineering duties in planning and designing tools and machines. Design Sawmill machinery using Cad that are utilized in the manufacturing of products and the construction of sawmills. Collaborated with customers and engineers to discuss design ideas utilizing skills in Mechanical System Vibration, Advanced mechanics – materials & Friction science and apps.

Job Location: Will work in Wadley, GA.

Contact: Interested applicants may send their resumes to Cooper Machine Company, Inc., Attn: Human Resources, 50 W Smith St., Wadley, GA 30477. Resume must, specifically identify all education relevant to job offered.

Cooper Machine Company, a long-established manufacturer of quality sawmill equipment located in Wadley, Georgia, announces that it is partnering with the sawmill machine manufacturer EWD Sagetechnik, of Altötting, Germany, as of February 2023.

We at Cooper Machine have been offering our customers located in the US, Canada, and other countries, wood processing equipment for sawmill, pallet, and post and pole mills since 1965. This equipment has set new standards in the industry for quality, efficiency, and productivity. All Cooper Machine equipment is built with our customers in mind to minimize labor and to get the most out of each log. Our company, now in its third generation of successful management, covers all services from technical development, to commissioning, to sawmill staff training on our machines. Cooper Machine’s focus is always on customer success.

Since 1862, the premier European innovative company EWD, with 250 employees in Germany, is one of the world’s leading companies in sawmill plant construction. Quality awareness, reliability, and customer orientation are among the most important values of the company and represent an extremely positive success factor.

The partnership with EWD Sagetechnik, allows Cooper Machine to expand its portfolio and take advantage of the opportunity to offer an expanded range of sawmill equipment to further serve our customers’ needs.

“In the future, with labor getting more expensive and harder to find, we want to offer our customers fully automated sawmills. With the same shared beliefs, we believe we have found the ideal partner in EWD Sagetechnik” explains Frances Cooper, CEO of Cooper Machine.

Working with EWD will offer many advantages for Cooper Machine customers since we will be able to offer their wide array of well-designed, German engineered sawmill equipment, along with service and parts located here in the US. Cooper Machine has committed to providing successful customer service on all EWD equipment it sells and will stock the parts needed to back the service. We at Cooper Machine are excited to be able to offer this new world of opportunities to our North American customers.

The primary objective of both companies is to offer customers the best and most efficient sawmill solutions to promote long-term customer loyalty. This can only be achieved with trust, good teamwork, and positive results for our customers.

For information on both Cooper Machine and EWD offerings, please give Cooper Machine a call at 478-252-5885.

Cooper Machine Company, Inc. of Wadley, Georgia, would like to announce that it has promoted Daniel Sherrod to Vice President of Manufacturing. We would also like to announce that in January 2023 Robert Cooper plans to hand ownership of the business to his daughter and CEO Frances Cooper, and to Daniel Sherrod, who began at Cooper Machine in 1996 and who has been in charge of the shop floor for many years. Robert has no plans to retire. Instead, he will continue working with the company indefinitely, both from his office at the business and his home office located in his workshop, where he enjoys making barrel and other wood furniture. He will also still be on the road visiting customers just as he has been doing. Although Robert hopes to spend more time in his workshop and less time at the business, he appreciates his customers, many of whom he has worked with for decades, and wants them to know that they can still count on him and the Cooper Machine team to take care of their equipment and service needs.

Timberline Magazine December 2019

HOLLY SPRINGS, Arkansas —

Chad Sorrells had been looking for a supplier to build an optimized edger for his family’s hardwood sawmill for a long time.

“For our size mill, I’d been looking for optimized edgers, but I felt they were too expensive for our production,” explained Chad. He had weighed the options for 10 years but was put off by the high capital cost.

He finally chose Cooper Machine for the project. The project for Sorrells Sawmill was Cooper Machine’s first optimized edger, which now is being offered to other sawmills. “This machine was designed for the mid-size sawmill market so more mills can afford an optimized edger,” said Frances Cooper, CEO of Cooper Machine. It is designed to edge 12 boards per minute although Sorrells Sawmill has reported doing up to 14 per minute,

Cooper Machine has a newer version that will edge closer to 20 boards per minute.

Sorrells Sawmill is in the community of Holly Springs although its mailing address, Sparkman, is about 10 miles north. Holly Springs is in south-central Arkansas, just over 80 miles southwest of Little Rock.

The sawmill was started by Chad’s father, Winfred, in 1972. At 74 and now retired, he still finds himself at the mill most days. Chad, 51, oversees the sawmill business with a brother, Mark, 44, who also oversees a cattle farm they have. Another brother, Rodney, 53, oversees logging operations. They all live within about a mile of the mill.

Sorrells Sawmill has 29 employees, a number that includes truck drivers and those who work on the logging crew. Thirteen employees work in the sawmill, 10 on the logging crew, and six are truck drivers. The company also contracts with two truckers to haul for the sawmill and another one to haul for the logging crew.

Chad and Mark share duties at the sawmill, although Chad tends to be in the office a lot managing the business and handling sales. He also can work on the sawmill machinery and takes turns as the sawyer. “Anything imaginable, basically,” he said.

The mill is in the same location as when Winfred launched it. All the other machine centers were built around the head saw, which was an old hand-set mill when Winfred began. The sawmill is housed in a building that Chad estimated is about 80 feet by 130 feet, and the grading shed is about 30 feet by 100 feet. The company also has a shop.

The mill cuts about 30-35,000 board feet of logs per day. All grade lumber production is rough-sawn 4/4 and sold green in random widths. The company’s customers for grade lumber include concentration yards, flooring mills, and millwork businesses. Customers range from 40-50 miles away to 200-250 miles.

“We cut towards the market,” explained Chad. If prices for grade lumber are strong, the company saws more grade material. If the market for railroad ties is better, the mill will saw more cross ties. “Right now, cross ties are a whole lot better than grade lumber,” noted Chad. When sawing grade, the company sometimes will cut the log down to a pallet cant.

When asked what the mill was sawing lately, Chad said, “Sadly, right now it’s red oak, which is kind of hard to sell.” Other common species are white oak, gum, hickory, mixed hardwoods.

Before starting the sawmill, Winfred had worked in a sawmill after graduating from high school, then worked for a company that constructed dry kilns, and finally ran a mill for another company before deciding to start his own.

Chad became involved in the family business after graduating with a business degree from Henderson State University, and his brothers joined not long after graduating from high school.

The company buys logs in multiples of 9-foot and down to a 12-inch top. Although the head rig can accommodate a 40-inch diameter log, the mill usually does not cut anything bigger than 36 inches.

Incoming logs are unloaded and stacked in the yard with a John Deere track loader. Two Volvo wheel loaders are used to move logs in the yard and stage them next to a stationary John Deere knuckleboom loader with a slasher saw that bucks the logs to length in multiples of 9-foot-6-inches.

After being bucked to length the logs are placed on an infeed to an HMC rosserhead debarker. Once the bark is removed, the logs are fed to a Hurdle Magnum series two-knee carriage with a Corley ‘shotgun’ feed that drives the carriage with two hydraulic cylinders. A Sering Sawmill Machinery log turner positions the log on the carriage.

The Hurdle carriage was added 13 years ago. “It really helps our production,” said Chad. The saw husk, which the Sorrells built years ago, runs Simonds solid tooth circular saw blades.
Finished board exits Cooper Machine edger at right. Cants or cross ties are kicked off at left after coming off the head rig, which is visible in far background. Material handling equipment was supplied by Mellott Manufacturing when new Cooper edger was installed.

The head rig has been upgraded a couple times with a scanning system and optimization. At the recommendation of Hurdle, the company initially added a photo cell scanning system. “That really opened up our eyes to a scanner and what we could do with optimization,” said Chad. “You don’t know you need it until you get it.” They upgraded later to a 3D scanner and optimizer from Automation & Electronics.

The mill is not equipped with a resaw, so the entire log is cut on the head rig. The slabs are caught by a conveyor and routed to a Precision chipper. Flitches and boards coming off the log are conveyed to one of three destinations by a Mellott rollcase and offbearing system. A flitch that needs edging is routed to the edger, boards go to the green chain, and an electronic eye detects cross ties that go to another green chain.

The Mellott material handling system was installed last summer when Cooper installed the new edger. Mellott personnel still had drawings of the mill dimensions and layout from when they supplied material handling equipment in 1990.

The Cooper optimized edger replaced a Crosby edger that was installed in 1992. The Crosby edger required an operator to manually move the saws, following a laser line as a guide. “The idea with the optimized edger is for the computer to determine the wane, not the man,” observed Chad. “The man usually cuts off too much board.”

“The name of the game is getting the human judgment out of where the saw needs to cut,” he added.

Optimization certainly improves yield, he acknowledged, although there is no way to gauge how much yield has increased.

The company chose Automation & Electronics for a scanner and optimization system for the new edger based on A&E’s experience upgrading the head rig. “We had good luck with the head rig scanner, and we wanted to go with them on the edger also,” said Chad. The system can scan both the top and bottom of the board.
The head rig includes a Hurdle Magnum series two-knee carriage with a Corley ‘shotgun’ feed that drives the carriage with two hydraulic cylinders. A Sering Sawmill Machinery log turner positions the log on the carriage.

Automation & Electronics USA is an engineering company that specializes in sawmill controls and optimization. It utilizes the latest technology in PLC controls and scanner hardware to provide customers with a high end and cost effective solution. The company has offices in Asheville, N.C., and New Zealand, which allows for 24/7 support with engineers in offices up to 18 hours between time zones. (For more information, call the company’s North Carolina office at (318) 548-5138, email joe@automationelecusa.com, or visit the website at www.automationelecusa.com.)

When it came to considering a company to build an edger, Chad was inclined to go with a company — Cooper — that would integrate with Automation & Electronics. He discussed the project with Cooper representatives. Chad and Mark attended the Richmond Expo (the East Coast Sawmill and Equipment Exposition) in Richmond, Va., in 2017 and continued to discuss the project with the Cooper team, which exhibited at the trade show.

Chad was attracted to Cooper in part because the company has a long history as a supplier of quality machinery and equipment for the sawmill industry. “I felt like they could do it,” he said.

“They had one that wouldn’t quit fit,” noted Chad. “We had a certain footprint to work in, and a lot of edgers are stretched out pretty long.” Cooper was willing to design and build one to fit the mill’s requirements, and Chad and Mark made a final decision after the trade show and selected Cooper to build the new edger.

Cooper Machine now offers optimized linear or transverse edgers. For sawmills with very tight space limitations, Cooper can provide a combination while edging up to 15 boards per minute. Cooper optimized edgers can be either a two or three-saw machine, able to feed from one or both sides.

Cooper partners with Automation & Electronics for its IRIS advanced 3-D optimizing software. The optimization system is paired with JoeScan 25MX scanners — one of the fastest and most accurate — configured in a triangulated position that has the capability to scan from the top or both top and bottom. The operating system is user friendly. Cooper optimized edgers currently are available for logs from 6-20 feet.

Cooper manufactures two, three, or four saw edgers that are able to edge boards, slabs, or cants. The most popular 6-inch edger features two moveable saws that can process material from 3-18 inches wide. Custom configurations are available as well as various options. Cooper now offers an all-electric version of its most popular edger.

Georgia-based Cooper Machine Co. manufactures a wide range of equipment for sawmills and for the pallet and railroad tie industries in order to process logs to finished wood products, including scraggs, band saws, carriages, gang saws, and much more. The company also manufactures material handling machinery and equipment.

Cooper is focused on building machinery designed to maximize efficiency in wood processing operations. The company uses the latest in computer and laser technology to design and manufacture machines that will get the most from every log, slab and board.

Grade material is collected at the green chain by a Volvo wheel loader and moved to the grading shed and loaded onto an unscrambler. After the lumber is graded and pulled and stacked, it is dipped in a tank with chemicals from Buckman Laboratories to protect the wood from staining and to ensure brightness.

A paper mill operated by Georgia Pacific in Crossett recently closed after the shutdown was announced earlier this year. The mill had been buying chips from Sorrells Sawmill. “We’re trying to find other markets,” said Chad.

In the past the mill has had markets for bark and sawdust, but now it is being supplied to paper mills for boiler fuel at little to no revenue. “The mills are paying the freight, that’s about all,” said Chad. Nevertheless, he is glad he has a ‘home’ for his residuals. “We feel fortunate to get that,” he added. “We’re not complaining.” He is more concerned that in the future the mill may not have a way to dispose of bark and sawdust.

The Great Recession inaugurated by the collapse of the housing industry in 2009-2010 “was a pretty tough time,” acknowledged Chad. “We laid off some people and got as lean as we could,” recalled Chad. “We’re pretty lean anyway…Everybody has a job to do.”

As bad as that period was, he is afraid the coming months and next summer could be even worse for hardwood lumber producers. The reason: the impact of tariffs on Chinese imports of hardwood lumber. As much as half of U.S. grade lumber production was being shipped to China, noted Chad. Even though not much of the Sorrells’ production ended up being exported to China, the country’s tariffs on lumber from the U.S. and the resulting cutback in the volume of lumber it is importing has been creating an oversupply of hardwood in the U.S, — notably red oak.

“There’s a huge supply of lumber on the market right now,” noted Chad, and the market for red oak is down about 35 percent from previous highs, he indicated.

“Tariffs are a good thing,” he added. “We’re just hoping something can be worked out and we can go back to some kind of market.”

“We’ve always had our own logging crew,” said Chad, even though it does not harvest timber for the sawmill. The logging crew harvests pine. In the past Georgia-
Pacific operated a plywood plant in the region, and the companies bought timber together; the logging unit harvested the timber and supplied the pine logs to George-Pacific and the hardwood logs to Sorrells Sawmill. After the plywood mill closed, the loggers supply pine logs to other sawmills.

The logging crew is equipped with a John Deere feller buncher, a John Deere track harvester paired with a Waratah processor attachment, two John Deere grapple skidders, and a John Deere knuckleboom loader. “We have pretty good luck with the machines,” said Chad, and have relied on Stribling Equipment, a John Deere dealer with locations in Arkansas, Mississippi, and Tennessee.

Sorrells Sawmill buys timber and contracts with loggers to cut it; in addition, it buys some logs from other logging contractors. Their region of Arkansas has about the highest log prices of anywhere in the state, according to Chad.

Chad is president of the Westside Hardwood Club, an affiliation of hardwood lumber manufacturers located on the west side of the Mississippi River. He has served as president of the group for a few years. Members meet about eight times annually, he said. The company also participates in the Railway Tie Association.

The mill recently has been operating 45 hours a week, and Chad works on the same schedule. In his free time he enjoys hunting for squirrels, deer, and ducks.

(For more information about Cooper Machine, visit www.coopermachine.com or call (478) 252-5885.)

Cooper Machine is proud to be a member of the Associated Cooperage Industries of America. We are now offering a Splayer and a Barrel Sander to sand barrels with the hoops still on. We are in the process of designing some other new equipment, including a de-hooper to automatically remove hoops from barrels as well. So if you have a need for a specific machine, give us a call and see what we can do!

We all lost a very special person Saturday. Hot, as her grandchildren lovingly called her, worked hard along side her husband Billy to start Cooper Machine in 1965. We will always remember their hard work and sacrifices to make Cooper Machine succesful.

Obituary:

Mrs. Mary Ruth Brown Cooper died February 9th at Marshall Pines Assisted Living in Evans, Georgia. Mrs. Cooper was born in Emanuel County, daughter of the late Harley Daniel Brown and Ruth Beasley Brown. Mrs. Cooper was preceded in death by her parents, her husband Billy Cooper, and her siblings. She was a graduate of Swainsboro High School and had attended Abraham Baldwin College in Tifton, Georgia. She and her husband Billy owned and operated Cooper Machine Company for many years. Mary Ruth was a member of Wadley Baptist Church.

Funeral services for Mrs. Cooper will be held Wednesday afternoon at 2:00 P.M. at the Wadley Baptist Church with Reverend Tom Harrison and Reverend Gene McCoy officiating. Interment will follow in the Wadley Cemetery. Pallbearers will be: Mark Workman, Matthew McKamey, David Cooper, Daniel Cooper, Andrew Cooper, and Jeremiah Byrd. The Family will receive friends Tuesday evening at Wadley Baptist Church between the hours of 6-8 P.M. In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to the Wadley Baptist Church or the American Cancer Society in memory of Mary Ruth.

Sims Forest Products: Southern sawmill shifts focus from low-grade hardwoods to sawing pine, installs new equipment. Operates equipment from some of the biggest names in sawmill and resawing sector, including Cooper Machine.

By Tim Cox
Date Posted: 4/2/2018

Sims Forest Products
Southern sawmill shifts focus from low-grade hardwoods to sawing pine, installs new equipment. Operates equipment from some of the biggest names in sawmill and resawing sector, including Cooper Machine.

TUSCUMBIA, Alabama — When Sims Forest Products started up a new sawmill in 2015, it was all set up to cut low-grade hardwood logs into pallet components and other industrial lumber products. About a year later, however, the company transitioned to sawing pine for the same markets and also added some new products for other markets.

A key partner in launching this mill has been Cooper Machine, which manufactures a wide range of sawmill machinery. Cooper supplied the Tuscumbia mill with two new machine centers, including a Cooper log merchandising and sorting system in the log yard and a Cooper auto edger.

Sims Forest Products operates several manufacturing facilities and has two sawmills operating in Alabama. The company specializes in cutting industrial lumber products.

The company’s pine sawmill is located in Tuscumbia in northwest Alabama, adjacent to Muscle Shoals, where Sims Forest Products has its corporate headquarters.



Changing the Mill Focus

Last year, Sims management transitioned the facility to pine as low-grade hardwood logs became increasingly difficult to obtain. Pine is much more abundant and has made it easier to keep the mill supplied with logs, and many pallet manufacturers have been moving their customers to pallets made of softwood lumber.

During this plant evolution, Sims added some new equipment, including a second scragg mill — a Baker Products system — to increase production. The company’s operations are equipped with other well-known names of pallet and sawmill machinery manufacturers.

The Tuscumbia plant is comprised of four buildings with a combined 30,000 square feet. Forty employees produce 1.4 million board feet of finished lumber products per month. Cutting all low-grade pine logs, the mill manufactures pallet parts, fence pickets, and it also has operations to produce fence posts, a new product line. About 50% of the mill’s production is pallet components, 25% fence pickets, and 25% fence posts.

The mill can cut “whatever a customer wants” for pallet stock, said assistant mill manager Jeff Lindsey, from 7/16-inch deck boards to 3-inch stringers with lengths ranging from 36 to 72 inches. Most stringers coming out of the plant already are notched for four-way pallets.

The mill, which began operating in 2014, transitioned to pine as low-grade hardwood logs became increasingly difficult to obtain. Sims Forest Products has pallet manufacturing customers in such states as Mississippi, Georgia, Tennessee, and Kentucky.



Exploring the Mill Process

The mill buys tree-length pine logs down to a 4-8-inch top. The company gets most of its logs locally, but it buys from contractors up to 200 miles away, which includes southern Tennessee and Mississippi. In the log yard, a knuckleboom loader unloads and stacks incoming logs. A front-end loader is used to feed logs to either scragg mill.

For fence post production, the logs are fed first to a Cooper merchandising system that was added last year. It bucks the logs to lengths of 6, 7, or 8 feet. Logs continue along a trough and are automatically kicked out into bins according to length and diameter and then can be picked up and staged at the pole operations.

The Baker Products scragg mill, acquired used and added in early 2017, is a sharp chain system and runs two 48-inch circle saws to remove two sides of the log. The two-sided cant then is turned on its side 90 degrees.

The two-sided cant then goes to another Cooper addition, a 6-inch, two-saw auto edger. The Cooper machine, with automated infeed, replaced an older edger that required a worker to manually feed it material. The Cooper auto edger centers the cant, and two saws are adjusted automatically and remove the remaining sides to produce a four-sided cant.

The Cooper auto edger has been a good addition to the mill, noted Jeff. “It has worked out well,” he said.

The other production line, in place when the mill first began operating, starts with a Big Jake scragg system originally built by Timberland Machinery, which later was acquired by Brewco. It is a four-saw system with sharp chain infeed that processes the log into a four-sided cant. After twin circular saw blades remove the first two sides, the log continues along to a set of rollers and is turned on its side 90 degrees. The two-sided cant is clamped, measured and centered for the next two saws and exits the machine as a four-sided cant.

Cants produced by both scragg mills are conveyed the length of the building to a cant dumper, then stacked with a forklift, banded, and put in storage until they will be resawn.

The mill relies entirely on gang saws for resawing the pine cants. They are housed in the other mill building and put on a deck feeding to a Timberland double-end trimmer before being resawn.

The company has three gang saws and is in the process of adding a fourth. It has a Brewer, a Brewco, and a Quality Machine, and it will be adding a second Brewer. All the machines have been purchased used — except for the Brewco — and rebuilt by the Sims maintenance staff. The additional Brewer will be a used machine that is being refurbished.

Each gang saw has a planer head sizer on the front to trim the top of the cant down to the correct height. Of the three gang saws, one normally is set up to cut stringers and one for fence pickets. The third machine usually cuts deck boards or other material.

Material exiting the gang saws is graded by a couple of workers and fed to one of four stackers, two AIT lumber stackers and two Timberland Machinery stackers.

The company has a Timberland Machinery double-head notching machine for notching stringers and is getting ready to add a second machine, a West Plains two-head notcher. Profile Technology cutting tools are used for the notching heads.



Fencing Operations & Other Markets

Sims Forest Products is equipped with a Holtec package saw that is mainly used to cut material to length that is manufactured into fence posts. It also may be used to cut cants to length if needed.

The pole operations, contained in a shed, produce 6- and 8- foot fence posts that are perfectly round, without any taper.

The mill has one customer for whom it makes a small quantity of pallets; they’re assembled by hand with pneumatic nailing tools.

All slabs from the Cooper auto edger and the Big Jake scragg system are routed to a Montgomery hog grinder along with other scrap material. The grindings and sawdust are supplied to the nearby affiliated parent company and is processed into mulch.

Most stringers are 48 inches long by 1-1/4x3-½, and nearly all of them are notched before leaving the plant. The company cuts some custom dunnage, too. It also is equipped to cut banding grooves and supplies some grooved dunnage, but most of it is done for its own shipments of fence pickets.

Fencing is sold to markets in Florida, Georgia, Ohio, and Kentucky, and most of it ends up being treated before eventual sale to building contractors and homeowners.

The mill relies on two suppliers for saw blades and service, a local company, Miner Saw, and also Superior Saw Service in Tennessee.

Sims Forest Products is a family business, and the owners treat their employees like family, according to Jeff. “We try to get as many local people as possible. We try to help our community around here grow.”



Growing with Cooper Equipment

Although the cut-up system and auto edger are the first two Cooper machines at the Tuscumbia mill, Sims Forest Products has been no stranger when it comes to turning to the machinery manufacturer for equipment. Cooper has supplied machine centers to the company’s other Alabama mill, including an overhead scragg, a MIT 4-inch vertical band head rig, and a 3-inch edger.

Cooper Machine, in Wadley, Georgia, manufactures a wide range of machinery and equipment for the sawmill industry and also is a distributor of some lines of sawmill machinery.

For more information, visit www.coopermachine.com or call (478) 252-5885.

Robert and Frances from Cooper Machine will be in booth #1003 at the Timber Processing Expo being held September 28-30 in Portland at the Portland Expo Center.

Felipe and Jesus from MIT S.A located in Santiago, Chile, who are best known for their heavy duty carriages and resaws, will also be there. In addition to the carriages and resaws, we are also now offering their line of pallet and cooperage equipment as well.

We will also have Forcus Martinez from Prodesa with us. For those who don't know, Prodesa is an engineering and manufacturing firm located in Zaragoza, Spain, with an office in Atlanta. They have solutions for thermal drying , pellet production, wood processing, Biomass CHP and gas treatment. On September 29, Forcus will be presenting at the Lumber Manufacturing Workshop at 3:00 p.m. on "Pellets: How to Get More from Your Wood Chips and Sawdust". Don't forget to stop by this one; it should prove to be quite interesting.

Also, Roberto De Joannon from Incomac Dry Kilns will also be there in Booth #403 in the Italian Trade Pavilion.

To receive a complimentary expo floor pass please contact us at 478-252-5885 or info@coopermachine.com

For more general information visit: http://www.timberprocessingandenergyexpo.com/

We look forward to seeing you there!

View our newest newsletter here:

http://myemail.constantcontact.com/Happy-4th-of-July-and-Other-Updates-from-Cooper-Machine.html?soid=1108931208525&aid=NDiUhzfMC3E

Cooper Machine is excited to announce that we are now offering MIT's line of Pallet Equipment including a Carousel Block Cutter, Chamfering Machine and Pallet Trimmer. More information on this equipment can be found on our website at http://www.coopermachine.com/Sawmill-Equipment/59/PalletMachinery.

Cooper Machine also has great options for sawmills looking to produce pallet stock including an Overhead Scragg with Vertical Edgers, Yield Champ (Sharp Chain Scragg with Cant Edger), Cutup Systems, Unscramblers, Edgers, Automated Cant Trimmers, Slab Recovery Systems/Resaws, Handling Equipment, Sorting Systems and Kilns.

We are also honored to now be a member of the National Wooden Pallet and Container Association. We're looking forward to seeing everyone in Tucson next Spring.

The 35th East Coast Logging and Equipment Exposition will be here before we know it! This year's event will be held Friday May 13, 2016 from 8:30am - 5pm and Saturday May 14, 2016 from 8:30am - 5pm.

Stop by and see us in booth #228/#230. We will have information on the addition of chipping heads to our line of Scraggs and Edgers (we currently have a Twin Band Skewing Overhead with chipping heads in production)and also our newest offering, a Two Saw Optimized Edger. And for our pallet customers, we now offer a slab recovery system that can be operated with only one person.

Felipe and Sergio Echeverria from MIT (they make those great resaws, headrigs and carriages we import from Santiago, Chile) will also be at the Expo this year. We have now been doing business with MIT for 20 years. In addition to the standard fare, we will also have information on their newest addition to their product line, the True Lumber. The True Lumber is a double cut stationary carriage with movable headrig. We are also now selling their line of cooperage equipment. You can find more information on our website: http://www.coopermachine.com/Sawmill-Equipment/38/Cooperage%20Equipment.

Give us a call at 478-252-5885 if you'd like any information or a quote prior to the show.

For more information on registration and hotels the place to visit is www.exporichmond.com.

We are less than a week away from the Forest Products Machinery and Equipment Expo. The event is being held in Atlanta, GA June 10-12. Robert, Wes and Frances will be there, so stop by booth #549 and see what is new at Cooper Machine!

Cooper Machine Company of Wadley, Georgia is excited to announce the new stationary carriage/mobile headrig, True Lumber mill is now available in North America from MIT S.A. This exciting breakthrough in sawmill design is the perfect choice for any mill, hardwood or softwood, that requires increased production with a very small footprint. Thin kerf mills looking to increase production and scragg or low grade operators seeking an affordable way to process high profit grade lumber are just two of the most obvious applications.
The True Lumber mill comes loaded with standard features like a 6” double cut band, 17.5* slant carriage, operators cab, computerized setworks, all hydraulics, 36” log diameter and lengths from 8-17’. The True Lumber is no one size fits all mill. It offers flexible options of either 4” or 8” single or double cut bands, longer lengths and a host of other options. If your operation needs more production and yield, but doesn’t have the space for a conventional carriage, look at the True Lumber.

Cooper Machine Company of Wadley, Georgia recently unveiled the new CooperMachine.com website. The new site offers current customers and potential buyers complete specifications, features, video, client testimonials and printable product information on every Cooper machine offered, plus details on high quality sawmill machinery and dry kilns represented by Cooper. At the new CooperMachine.com you’ll also find an up-to-date Used Machinery page to showcase Cooper trade-ins and reconditioned machines when available. Cooper Machine CEO Frances Cooper stated, “The new CooperMachine.com site, created by the design team at LumbermenOnline.com, will better serve Cooper sawmill, scragg mill and dry kiln customers worldwide and be much simpler to update and maintain insuring more accurate information.”
Find out more about the complete line of Cooper products by visiting www.CooperMachine.com or call 478-252-5885.

Effective 8/15/14, Frances Cooper is taking over as CEO of Cooper Machine. Frances graduated from the University of Georgia in 2004 with a BBA in Finance. She has experience in management, sales and marketing and has been using these skills at Cooper Machine since 2008. She will continue to use these skills to build on the solid foundation that her grandparents began in 1965.

I would like to welcome Frances at this new position as she takes the helm as CEO of Cooper Machine. Thank you for your support as we continue to build a business focused on our customers and the innovative sawmill solutions needed for the sawmill industry.

Robert Cooper, President

Frances Cooper will be exhibiting along with Roberto De Joannon of Incomac Dry Kilns (Italy)at the IWF show August 20-23 in Atlanta, Georgia. We'll be in booth #4321.

We will also be exhibiting at the NHLA Convention in Las Vegas, NV October 8-10 in booth 220.

We will also be exhibiting at the Timber Processing and Energy Expo in Portland, Oregon October 15-17 in booth #17.

Stop by and see us if you are attending any of these events. If you'd like to make an appointment to meet at any of these events, please give Frances a call at 478-252-5885.

Crosscut Hardwoods Boosts Production with New Cooper Scragg Featuring a Cross Cut 8-12' Overhead with Faster Loading and Vertical Edgers.

To view online article to go http://www.timberlinemag.com/articledatabase/view.asp?articleID=4133