Opens Two New Wood Preserving Plants

Embodying the most advanced engineering technique and the latest in equipment design, the two new plants of the American Lumber & Treating Company at Weed, California, and Joplin, Missouri, are considered among the most efficient wood-preserving plants in existence.

The plant at Weed lvas completed and began operation in December, 1937. The Joplin plant treated its first charge of timber on January 7, 1938.

The Weed, California, plant, while operated in conjunction rvith the Long-Bell Lumber Company sawmill there. offers commercial treatment to all manufacturers and dealers in the territory. The plant comprises two 100inch treating cylinders, one of 65-foot length, the other 120-foot. The cylinders are used for pressure treatment with "WOLMAN SALTS" preservative and creosote, and are equipped rvith duplicate lines to be used interchangeably. An auxiliary tank, used in the Rueping or "empty cell" process, is built directly above and parallel to one of the cylinders. Six welded steel tanks for storage of preservative stand behind the building which houses the retorts, operating machinery and the recording instruments necessary for accurate control of the processes. For protection as vvell as smart appearance, all tanks, pipes and exposed steel equipment are finished in gleaming aluminum paint.

A double-track Moore dry kiln has been built at Weed expressly for conditioning "WOLMANIZED LUMBER" after treatment. in cylindrical loads eight feet in diam- eter. Fans and mechanical equipment are installed overhead, above the loads of lumber, and the elements of heat, humidity and circulation are under close automatic control. The kiln buildings themselves are of all-wood construction. with six-inch laminated rvalls and roof.

The daily capacity of the treating plant is approxirnately ten carloads of lurnber, arid the kiln is designed to handle the proportion of "WOLMANIZED LUMBER" requiring conditioning rvhen the plant is operating at capacity. Fir is the species treated in greatest volume at Weed, although considerable quantities of the Western pines are handled through the plant.

The Joplin, I\{issouri, operation is of the same size and design as the Weed plant, but treatment at Joplin will be chiefly of Southern pine. A large proportion of ties, poles, piling and heavy timber will be treated at Joplin, where sixty-five acres of storage yard, equipped with tracks and switching facilities, have been laid out. It is anticipated that a considerable volume of material will be stocked for prompt shipment from Joplin by the Long-Bell Lumber Company. No dry kiln has been erected at Joplin as vet, but it is contemplated that the same facilities which exist at Weed will be duplicated at the Missouri plant.

Both of the new plants were fabricated and erected by the Chicago Bridge & Iron Company, which firm is at the pfesent time engaged in building two more new plants for the American Lumber & Treating Company at DeRidder, La., and El Paso, Texas.

Lell: Interior view ol new Americcn Lumber d Trecriing Co. plcni ct Ioplin, Mo. Below: Exterior view oI new plcnt at Weed, Calilornic.

With the completion, scheduled for early spring, of the El Paso plant, the American Lumber and Treating Company will have built, purchased or leased fourteen pressure-treating plants during the past five years. This rapid growth has been due to many factors, but the primary reasons are the company's policy of offering only a treating service, leaving sales and distribution to the Iumber industry, and the fact that the company's wood-preservative, "WOLMAN SALTS," has proved the real ansrver to a growing demand for clean, paintable protective treatment. By means of national advertising, a well-trained and competent staff of field representatives, and close co-operation with the lumber industry, the American Lumber & Treating Company has developed sales of "WOLMANIZED LUMBER" to the point 'ivhere, today, sales of "WOLMANIZED LUMBER" are three times the sales of all other types of salt-treated building and construction lumber combined.