Hickory Handle Mill Process
Hickory logs are trucked into the mill site and then stacked on the yard until they are ready to be washed. After the logs are on site, they are moved onto skids in groups of 5 or 6. On the skids, the logs are washed with a garden hose attached to a pressure unit. The logs have to be washed to get all of the dirt, mud and rocks out of the bark.
After the logs are washed, they are moved to another stack of waiting logs until they are ready to be sawed. The logs are then placed on a motorized rack that feeds the logs under a hydrolic chainsaw that cuts the logs into the desired length. After that, the cut logs are ran through a "buster" that cuts them into half, quarter and smaller sections.
The sections are then slid onto a rack awaiting the sawyer to place them on the saw table. Once on the table, the sawyer cuts them into the desired dimensions for the type of tool blank that is being cut. The blanks are then stacked onto pallets grouped by like tool type.
During this same process, the bark and odd pieces are stacked seperate. These pieces are great for smoking meats.
After the pallets are stacked to capacity, they are banded with metal straps to hold the contents in place. The pallets are then loaded onto semi-trailers and shipped to the desire warehouse to be turned into the specified tool handle.
