Despite our reservations about Southern Pine lumber, the timber industry is betting billions that we’ll buy it. Soon the output of SYP mills will race past other domestic species. Fortunately, technological improvements, both at the saw mill and in our component plants, aim to overcome our objections.
The ascendance of Southern Pine is owed in large part to our wood truss industry. Until mid-century, most U.S. homes, even those near the pine forests, were framed with Western woods. With the advent of plate connected trusses in the deep South in the Sixties, local SYP mills became the logical source of supply. By 1970, SYP use had spread rapidly northward, where our company is headquartered, and I was hired to test truss plates in this denser, harder species.
As 2x4 truss chords began replacing wider rafters and ceiling joists, the southern forests were ideally suited to supply truss manufacturers. Timber companies like Weyerhaeuser invested heavily in the woodlands of the South, to escape government restrictions in the West. Their new tree farms produced 2x4s in half the time required in Northern climes. Soon the SYP supply was abundant, but its marginal quality encouraged many CMs outside of the South to switch to Canadian SPF. However, high grade Southern Pine chords, especially 2x8s and wider, are the mainstay in most truss plants east of the Rockies.
Technological advancements at saw mills, described on these pages last year (https://componentadvertiser.com/in-our-pages/library/straightening-crooked-southern-pine-1) have continued at a record pace. Eighteen brand new SYP mills were either completed in 2018 or will be in service by 2020. In addition, the Canadians continue to retrofit many of their 50 SYP mills with technology like that shown here from Canfor’s Conway, SC mill. This equipment determines lumber strength by firing Sonar pulses through the length of the board (see blue arrow) and measures defects via Vision technology in the “GradExpert” machine (shown at the top). After this automated grading, boards are conveyed and dropped into one of dozens of sorting bins. When the bin contains a full unit of material, say 208 2x4s, the boards drop down onto a conveyor and are banded without human intervention.
At truss plants, hundreds of newly installed linear saws cut SYP with unprecedented accuracy, rejecting boards that formerly sailed through component cutters. Many of our new Blade saws feature automated crowning of boards, further enhancing truss quality and consistency.
Fortunately, the Southern Pine resource is abundant, and much more is growing than is being harvested. SYP production will grow by 30% in the next 5 years according to projections by the Beck Group, while Canadian timber output will decline. Indicative of its bright future, SYP is now being incorporated in higher rise structures, in the form of Cross Laminated Timber (CLT) that is being supplied from International Beam’s Alabama plant. Stay tuned for more SYP innovations…made in the U.S.A.!