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CAMAK, Georgia—The Timbermen, Inc., is a vertically integrated, new pallet manufacturing operation based in Camak, Georgia. Located about 110 miles east of Atlanta and roughly 40 miles west of Augusta, The Timbermen pallet plant has a plant capacity of about 50,000 units weekly, powered by five tandem nailing machines, including two recent additions from Pallet Machinery Group (PMG). The company also recently expanded with a second SII kiln to meet the increasing demand from sensitive customers for mold-free pallets.
The company, currently celebrating its fiftieth year, was founded in 1973 by Jim Hicks Sr. as a timber procurement company, and in 1978, it entered the wood products manufacturing industry when it purchased a pallet and crate plant. The pallet operation moved to its present site in 1984 and has continued to grow. Today, The Timbermen has a reputation as being one of the best and largest pallet producers in the region. It supplies new standard sizes as well as custom pallets, with the bulk of its customers located in Georgia and South Carolina. It also has some penetration into eastern Alabama and northern Florida.
The Timbermen, Inc. is owned by Jim Hicks Jr. and other members of the Hicks family. The company’s activities span forestry operations, the sawmill and pallet plant in Camak, as well as a planer mill in Johnston, South Carolina. The planer mill purchases rough 1" pine from area sawmills. It dries and dresses it, primarily producing 1×4 and 1×6 grade mark material. The company also purchases green pine lumber to supplement its pallet material needs.
The Warrenton Sawmill features two Cooper double end overhead dog scragg mills with Lewis Controls optimization. The logs are bucked into pallet component lengths before sawing. The cants are dropped from the scragg saws after two passes and then conveyed through a layout of twenty-two Brewco band saws where they are broken down into ready-to-nail pallet parts. Two AIT stackers provided by PMG package up everything on the back end, where it is then loaded onto trucks and shipped to the Camak Pallet Plant.
A lumber remanufacturing department at Camak features three lines including a Pendu gangsaw, a McDonough band-saw system, and a ripsaw line. The McDonough breaks down four quarter and five quarter material into half and 5/8” deckboards. The ripsaw is used for making stringers out of four quarter and five quarter material as well as for processing 2×6 and 2×8 stock.
Two PMG Nailing Lines Added
The company runs five tandem nailing machines. They include a Viking 606, two Viking 505s (including a Silver Anniversary model) and two PMG LZ2000 lines. One of the PMG units is a new five-stringer nailing machine built by PMG, while the other is a Viking 505 that the company upgraded with new electrical and hydraulic systems.
“We had run it two shifts for 12 years and it was time,” Hicks said of the decision to have one of its old 505s updated by PMG. As part of their due diligence, The Timbermen team visited PalletOne in Mocksville, NC to watch a LZ2000 machine run. “They were happy with theirs,” he recalled, and that was all the endorsement The Timbermen needed.
With the upgraded unit back in service, the company has found that its performance and production are comparable to its newer 505s. “We like that they’re heavier built,” Hicks said. “Bigger hydraulic packages and heavier cylinders.” According to PMG, the LZ2000 electrical upgrade improves the controls of the units, allowing for faster changeovers, increased productivity and longer machine life. Another one of the benefits of the LZ2000 is the much faster turnaround versus ordering a new tandem nailer.
The Timbermen has been pleased with the PMG machines as well as the service. “They’re doing a good job for us,” he said of PMG. “We’re happy with the machines and the service that we’ve gotten from them.” The pallet manufacturer also has three M2L stackers and one TS300 stacker from PMG. The Timbermen buys nails from Viking, Legacy Fasteners and Viper Industrial Products.
Hicks stressed that planning for capital projects, equipment and even parts has become a crucial process, with new machinery requiring considerable order lead times. For example, it can take a year to receive a new forklift. “You can’t just wait until your forklifts are almost shot to order new ones because they are a year out,” he said.
Likewise, they have found that they have to keep more repair parts on hand because of shortages. “Planning ahead is becoming much more important,” he said, “keeping spare parts on the shelf.” While maintenance staff used to be able to run down to Augusta and pick up parts such as bearings, motors and other parts as needed, shortages have led the company to keep more items in inventory.
Like many other pallet companies, The Timbermen has transitioned from a mix of softwood and hardwood to 100% softwood over the last several years. Converting customers from a hardwood pallet to a softwood pallet is not always an easy proposition for some pallet providers, but the company has had positive results leaning on the Pallet Design System™ (PDS) to demonstrate to customers the effectiveness of softwood pallets.
“We’ve been successful at using the PDS program to show customers that yes, I can design a pine pallet that will do the job,” he said. “And a lot of times, we’ll go from a three-stringer hardwood design to a four-stringer pine, and I can still save money and produce a pallet that will get the job done.”
SII Dry Kilns Doubles Camak Drying Capacity
Another recent improvement for Timbermen has been the addition of a second set of SII dry kilns to double its pallet drying capacity. The original kilns were installed in 2018. Its performance was such that The Timbermen team chose not to explore other options. “We didn’t need to look at anybody else,” Jim said. “We were very happy with the first set of kilns we put in here, as well as the track kiln we have at the planer mill.”
The pallets are dried on a 17-hour cycle. “Each of the SII kilns will hold two full loads, so I can dry eight loads at once,” Hicks explained. After the dried pallets are removed from the kilns, they are placed in the fan shed to cool. There is ample storage space to keep pallets dry prior to shipment.
Many customers have become more conscious of mold on pallets, and the addition of the new SII kilns helps The Timbermen meet the need for dry pallets. “The new SII kilns enable us to produce more KD pallets for mold-sensitive customers,” he said, “particularly in the food and consumer goods industries that are very mold-sensitive.”
The company also dips its green pallet parts to help inhibit mold growth. It uses PQ-8 from ISK Biocides. Of course, even with precautions such as dipping and drying, things can go wrong at the customer’s end if pallets are left on a hot trailer too long or otherwise exposed to conditions conducive to mold growth. “We have to educate our customers about the proper storage of pallets,” he said. “It’s an ongoing issue.”
Why Dry-Finished Pallets Rather Than Pallet Parts?
One thing that The Timbermen does differently than many other pallet companies is kiln drying finished pallets versus pallet components. The rationale for this, Hicks explained, is to reduce the amount of touch labor required to dry the lumber first.
“It saves a lot of expense,” he elaborated, comparing their process to the alternative of drying lumber first. “You take your lumber, and you have to put it on stacking sticks, put it in a kiln, dry it, take it out, get it off the sticks and then cut it up into pallet parts – that’s a lot more steps. Whereas if I’m building the pallets first, they’re ready to go in the kiln, and I eliminate those other steps.”
Impressively, the pallet operation has gone without a lost-time accident for 16 months. Hicks singled out the pallet plant manager, Tyler Champion, as being a key catalyst. “He came to us from Georgia Pacific, and he is a stickler about safety.”
A teamwork approach has been key to the company’s success, even as the industry continues to face challenges such as mold and supply problems. “I’m a very fortunate man,” Hicks said of his experienced management team. “We’re pretty open about sharing operating results with our managers, and I’m lucky to have a good group of people who work together to achieve company objectives. Everybody’s on the same page.”
