Mellott Manufacturing designed and built its first tilt hoist in 1992 to unstack stickered packages of lumber with the idea of creating a simple design throughout in order to keep maintenance and downtime to a minimum. This philosophy still stands across the Mellott product lines.
Mellott recently introduced a redesigned tilt hoist that is basically the same although it incorporates some major improvements. Mellott also offers the Bundle Dumper, an alternative design for companies with limited space.
Mellott offers standard machine designs in a 7-ton tilt hoist and a 15-ton tilt hoist. The 7-ton tilt hoist is designed for lumber packages 66 inches high by 72 inches wide and 18 feet long, and the 15-ton model will handle packages 72 inches high by 96 inches wide and 18 feet long. Both models can be customized as required.
The Mellott tilt hoist design features a base frame constructed in two pieces so that the forks are able to be assembled onto the columns for shipping and ease of installation. The steel columns are welded to a 10-inch diameter pivot tube on the 7-ton tilt hoist and a 16-inch diameter pivot tube on the 15-ton tilt hoist with flame-cut plates that completely wrap the tube. At the top is a 3-inch square tube to tie all the columns together for extra strength. Steel rollers are used in each of the forks in order to distribute the load to all of the columns.
The lift cylinders, lift chains, and leveling chains are protected behind removable steel plates. This prevents kiln sticks from sliding into this area, limiting damaged and broken sticks.
Hydraulically powered by dual-lift and dual-tilt cylinders, the hydraulic cylinders are cushioned and rated at 3,000 psi. Dual, heavy leaf chains are used in an ‘X’ arrangement for load leveling. Packages are lifted using RC240 roller chains on the 15-ton tilt hoist and RC160 roller chains on the 7-ton tilt hoist.
The tilt hoist can be operated with manual or automatic controls. The automatic control package includes a PLC and necessary limit switches for automatic unloading of layers from the tilt hoist to deliver one course of stickered lumber at a time and two-speed raising of the tilt hoist arms. Complete control systems including the main disconnect, and all motor controls can be provided and fully tested at the factory.
Mellott also provides conveyors to complete the system. Mellott is capable of providing engineering and custom designs to create infeed and outfeed conveyors for a new project or integrate into an existing system. The stick removal belt conveyors with slide will remove the sticks, and they can be transferred to a manual or automatic stick stacking system. The Mellott stick stacking system includes a 2-chain aluminum bar type stick unscrambler with chain transfer sorted to stick carts.
Mellott also offers unscrambler systems for breakdown of non-stickered lumber packages. These systems include package decks, waterfall decks, normal and singulating unscramblers.
Mellott Manufacturing has an on-site engineering and design team capable of meeting the specific needs of each application. Their product line covers log and lumber equipment for sawmills, resaw and grading systems, tie dapping, sorting and stacking, along with a wide variety of custom projects.
The Bundle Dumper system falls into the last category. It is a combination tilt hoist/unscrambler for use in applications with limited space. This standard unit is designed for packages up to 40 inches high, 48 inches wide, and 16 feet long.
For more information, visit www.mellottmfg.com, email sales@mellottmfg.com, or call (717) 369-3125.
