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Lumber Manufacturing
SBP 4123/6123

MSU Lumber Students

Course Description

(Prerequisites: None).  Two hours lecture. Three hours laboratory. Raw materials, production methods and product specifications for sawn wood products. Machinery and plant layout. Operation, control, and analysis of lumber manufacturing systems; markets

What can I expect to learn in this course?

  • Master lumber industry vocabulary and specifications.

  • Survey uses and applications for lumber. 

  • Discover machinery, tools, equipment and systems used in the lumber industry.

  • Differentiate between the manufacturing processes and uses of hardwood and softwood lumber.

  • Understand plant layout and manufacturing process flow.

  • Learn concepts, strategies and best practices for sawing lumber from logs, lumber grading and lumber drying.

  • Practice in the lab species identification, log scaling, log sawing, lumber stickering, kiln drying, moisture content measurement, lumber grading, lumber tallying and mechanical testing.

  • Comprehend the science behind moisture content, dimensional change, lumber drying, and the impact of moisture on mechanical properties and decay.

  • Calculate yield, board footage, moisture content, dimensional change, tally conversions, and volume conversions.

  • Develop a working knowledge of trade publications.

  • Explore lumber marketing with packaging, logistics, pricing, and export.

Topics

Topics

Log truck
Sawing

  • Timber harvesting

  • Log scaling

  • Sawing equipment

  • Sawing methods

  • Headrig and primary breakdown

  • Resaws and curve saws

  • Edging and trimming

  • Yield analysis

Drying

  • Moisture content

  • Moisture meters

  • Air drying

  • Kiln drying

  • Kiln schedules

  • Dry kilns

  • Dimensional change

  • Drying defects

Grading

  • Hardwood lumber grading

  • ​Softwood dimension lumber grading

  • Lumber defects

  • Knot types

  • Lumber rules

  • Mechanically graded lumber

  • Automated lumber grading

Face-to-face
(Starkville Campus)

Sawing lumber

Sawing Lumber 

Sawmill visits

Samill Visits

Lumber grading

Grading Lumber

Manufacturing processes

Manufacturing Processes

F2F

Instructor

Frank Owens.jpg
Frank C. Owens, PhD

Associate Professor

Dept. of Sustainable Bioproducts

Mississippi State University

Since 2001, Frank Owens has been involved in the global marketing and sourcing of wood products. Fluent in Japanese, he has lived abroad for eight years in East Asia and the Middle East. He holds a bachelor's degree in international relations from the University of Minnesota, a master's degree in East Asian languages from UCLA, and a doctoral degree in forest resources from Mississippi State University, where he currently serves as an Associate Professor in the Department of Sustainable Bioproducts. He teaches courses in wood anatomy, forest products marketing and lumber manufacturing and conducts research on lumber properties and computer vision applications for wood identification. He is currently a member the Council of the International Association of Wood Anatomists (IAWA) and has previously served as both President and Vice President of the Forest Products Society (FPS) and on the Board of Directors of the National Association of Floor Covering Technicians (NAFCT).

Instructor

Contact

Email & Phone:

frank.owens@msstate.edu

Tel: +1-662-325-6698

Address:

  • LinkedIn

Dept. of Sustainable Bioproducts

201 Locksley Way

Starkville, MS 39759

Contact
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