RIDGEVILLE, South Carolina — Andrew Branton knows that a business has to adapt to respond to changing markets. Yet, he is still staying true to the roots of his family business, Ashley River Lumber. His company is adopting technology from Baker Products to improve efficiency.
Ashley River Lumber is located in Ridgeville, South Carolina, about 35 miles northwest of Charleston. The company has good access to I-95, which is only about 20 miles further northwest. Today, the company has 11 employees, including a small logging crew. The mill cuts mainly hardwood lumber products.
Evolving Business Strategy
The business has evolved and changed over the years. For example, in the past it cut a lot of grade material it supplied to furniture makers in Virginia and North Carolina, although that market withered since the companies moved their manufacturing operations overseas.
In recent years Ashley River Lumber’s focus was high-volume production of grade lumber that was supplied to large flooring plants. In addition, it had contracts to supply large quantities of low-grade material for dunnage, shoring and blocking to a major steel company and other businesses. The mill cut about 60,000 board feet per week and generated a little over $1 million in annual revenues.
However, the company is making a major strategic change in its markets and operations. “We’re kind of changing over,” said Branton. He has elected to no longer operate as a production-oriented sawmill. “It got to the point where it was hard to compete with production mills that are larger,” he explained.
One factor in the decision was the price of timber. In the Charleston region, as landowners have been selling to developers who clear the property and build neighborhoods, timber has become more expensive. In order to be profitable, Branton observed, the company would need a plentiful supply of cheap timber and also would have to run the sawmill continuously.
“We decided to cut back and do more high-end products,” said Branton, who began leading the company in the new direction last fall. “It was kind of a big step for us…It was a little nerve-wracking to do it, but it seems to be working out pretty well.”
Finding the Right Suppliers, Machines for the Job
Ashley River Lumber has an assortment of equipment for its operations, including several machines supplied by Baker Products and more by some other equipment companies that are well known to the pallet and sawmill industry.
When Branton added production of wide live-edge slabs, the company began producing some on a Brewco band mill with automated run-around. (Joe Branton, Andrew’s father, had added the Brewco mill earlier to use as a resaw; it doubled production and enabled the company to cut more and better lumber products.)
When the Brantons decided to replace their old carriage saw with a Helle overhead end-dogging scragg mill from Sawmill Hydraulics, first they added a 30-foot Baker BP Dominator band mill to keep production going during the change-over to the new scragg mill. With the Baker BP Dominator, the company began using it to produce slabs up to 27 inches wide. “That mill also helps cut custom orders,” said Branton. “It can cut a lot of different ways.”
As the company began producing more slabs, it added a Peterson dedicated wide slabber mill, which uses a bar saw to cut logs up to 78 inches wide and 25 feet long. “We ran that for a while,” said Branton, but the Peterson mill is manually operated and cuts slowly; in addition, the saw chain needs to be changed out frequently as it dulls, and it has a significantly wider saw kerf.
Last summer they added a Baker LQ72 bandsaw slabber mill — which was a show machine built to handle logs up to 12 ft. max in length. In June it was being replaced by Baker with a new custom version of the LQ72, a 30 ft. max. length capacity mill that will be the permanent solution for cutting slabs from large logs.
The company’s Helle scragg mill, installed at the end of 2013, is “very fast,” said Branton. However, it runs very little now since the company has shifted away from a production-oriented sawmill. “Right now, I’m on the fence about whether to keep it or sell it,” said Branton.
The Baker BP Dominator is the company’s go-to mill for cutting long decking, beams, and other custom orders. “With that band sawmill and the Meadows Mill edger behind it, we have become effective at cutting pretty much any size,” said Branton.
Ashley River Lumber added a Holtec package saw about 15 years ago. It is used for cutting 12×12 timbers into 2- and 3-foot blocks for shoring and similar products.
The company’s collection of equipment also includes a Wood-Mizer single-head band resaw and a Brewco single-head band resaw for cutting small orders or splitting lumber. Besides the Meadows Mills three-saw edger, the company also has a Brewco two-saw edger.
As sales and production of slabs increased, Branton received more interest from customers who wanted to know how they could surface them and sand them for a finished surface. “No one has planers that wide,” he noted.
He found the solution with a machine that Baker Products imports from Australia and distributes, the Wood Wizz model 6X, which was delivered at the beginning of 2017. It is essentially a cutter head on a movable gantry that makes multiple passes over a slab automatically to surface it — one side at a time. The Wood Wizz features both a planer head and a sanding head. It can handle slabs up to 8 inches thick and 6 feet wide and 17 feet long.
Company Background
The lumber business was started by Andrew’s grandfather, Henry, in 1962 after five years of operating his own logging business. Henry bought his first sawmill from his brother, who was getting out of the business, and moved the equipment to land he bought in Ridgeville, where the company is still based today.
Andrew’s father, Joe, eventually took the helm of the business, but he is phasing out some of his duties since Andrew Branton decided to come into the family business in 2009 after the death of his grandfather. A mechanical engineer by profession, Branton worked briefly for a government contractor building vehicles for the military, but he was laid off in 2009. His father was thinking of shutting down the company because he didn’t want to run it alone, but Branton decided he would rather be involved in the family business instead of seeking a job back in the corporate world. Joe remains the company president and majority owner and continues to work full-time; his duties include trouble-shooting machinery, buying timber and overseeing the logging crew, and responsibility for most major financial decisions.
Ashley River Lumber is located in the same place where Andrew’s grandfather started the original sawmill. It is a collection of 12 buildings, including open air-drying sheds, with about 100,000 square feet under roof.
Returning to Its Roots
Since changing business strategy, the company’s primary products are items like long oak boards for trailer decking or hardwood beams as well as 4×4 material for dunnage. Trailer decking is supplied for low-boy and other semi-tractor trailers that haul heavy equipment. “We can cut a 2×12 by 20 or 30 feet,” said Branton. Other popular items include hardwood or pine lumber for planter boxes and fencing. These type of products, which are sold green, account for about 75% of revenues.
Slabs are the company’s second-biggest product — live edge slabs of hardwood, cypress and pine. They account for 15-20% of revenues. Branton also is marketing old, excess lumber the company produced and stored over the years.
One of the first things Branton did since joining the family business was to invest in a shaving mill from Hutto Wood Products to process scrap pine material and poor pine logs into wood shavings, increasing a revenue stream.
In one sense, Ashley River Lumber has returned to its roots. In the early years of the business, the company harvested hardwoods in swamps, including a lot of cypress. The company sold mostly at retail to customers in the region who were building barns, stables, as well as material for fencing, siding, and flooring.
Charleston is a prosperous city and also has a port. “So, we always had smaller customers buying specialty products and small orders,” recalled Branton.”
