FORTC502- Timber conversion
Introduction
Before any wooden material is put into any engineering use, it has to go through some processes
aimed at refining the wooden material so that it will be more stable and more durable. Most
milling operations and processing start in the forest. Once the tree is felled, the crown and
branches are removed. And then cross cut logs are sent to a saw mill for conversion to sawn
timber and sawn timber products. Logs are pretty difficult to handle because of their cylindrical
shape, so the first steps in a normal saw mill operation involves cutting the logs to provide flat
surfaces. There are many different cutting patterns used to produce timber. There are also many
different ways of handling timber in saw mills, but the steps outlined in this module are the
most common ones.