Innovatively Designed Saws Make Big Difference for Pacific Trail’s Customers
The innovative designs of saws by Pacific Trail Manufacturing help its customers to increase productivity with consistent cuts and less downtime.
Pacific Trail Manufacturing Inc. helps its customers to solve problems every day by providing them with innovatively designed saws that offer consistent cutting tolerances with fewer wearable parts.
“We have been told time again that our saws become so important to production that the customers many times call us to say, ‘I wished I had bought the saw from you guys two years ago!’” commented Tom Langton, president of the company.
Pacific Trail’s saws have a big impact in helping its customers to be more competitive and to increase sales by being able to stay on top of customer demand. One company spokesperson said, “Even in a down economy, the Pacific Trail Exacta-Cut has taken our sales to the next level. These were orders we have never been able to handle before.”
Another customer raved that its Pacific Trail saw purchased over a decade ago had “become the heart and soul of production of our company. It is asked to cut softwoods and hardwoods all day long every day. To say we are pleased with the design, production, ease of maintenance and after-the-sale service is an understatement.”
Pacific Trail’s typical customers include lumber remanufacturers, and manufacturers of pallets, trusses, and studs for housing and residential. “Any company using high volumes of cut-to-length wood products can benefit from our specialized saws,” said Langton.
“Our most popular products are the crosscut unit saws we manufacture. There are three main models. Each is suitable for different facets of the wood products industry,” said Langton. “We also build deck saws for the mills to buck tree-length logs, and paper roll saws for the paper mills and paper converters.”
“Consistent finished products come from our saws for less operating costs,” suggested Langton, giving this example of why consistency is so important. “With a unit saw, you can create 200-plus 92-5/8” studs in 1½ minutes. But if the cutting tolerance of the saw isn’t consistent in holding 92-5/8″, you’ve created a finished product very quickly that you can’t use or sell.”
Since its saws have fewer wearable parts, its customers experience little or no downtime due to the saws. “Downtime is not an option once one of ours saws becomes a true production piece of machinery,” commented Langton. “However, if something out of the ordinary was to happen, most everything is on the shelf for immediate shipping.”
“Labor and production go hand in hand in the wood products industry,” said Langton. “For example, as a pallet company grows, the owner has a choice to throw more bodies and pop-up saws at creating deck boards and stringers or buy one of our saws to increase production while decreasing labor at the same time.”
When it comes to operator training on Pacific Trail’s saws, that can vary a great deal depending on the type of saw, but training primarily pertains to taking care of the saw chain and saw bars so they maintain consistent cutting tolerance.
Steve Varnado of Contract Lumber in Statesville, North Carolina, after installation of a second Accu-Cut saw, said, “So far so good. We are in full production mode and have been since early in the week. Of course we are still learning and trying to be more efficient, but we are very happy at this point.”
Varnado added that Bruce Wold, field technician with Pacific Trail, “was a huge help and a wealth of knowledge and left no stone unturned when it came to instructing us on the saw and scenanrios he had encountered over the years. All in all, I would give an ‘A’ grade at this point.”
“The method and frequency of attending to the wear items for a yard saw is different than for one of our Accu-Cut 132-20C’s; saw chains and saw bars are looked after to hold precision end trim tolerances of ±1/32″,” explained Langton. “And certainly, starting the engine on one of our Mobil-Cut 014-GMM yard saws cutting away on engineered-wood products is a little different than learning our fully auto-control panel option on the Accu-Cut. However, every saw we build is supported with information and training for taking care of the saw so it consistently holds the cutting tolerance required by our customers.”
“While first learning to build these incredibly useful machines in 1988, Pacific Trail Manufacturing Inc., as we exist today, was started in 1996,” he said. Located in Portland, Oregon, the company has occupied two separate buildings since then, and has remained small, with between 7 to 10 employees.
For more information on Pacific Trail, contact us here:
Pacific Trail Mfg. Inc.
6532 SE Crosswhite Way
Portland, OR 97206
(503) 233-8952
