Wood processing - France

Integrated chipping line boosts sawmill efficiency

The Steinbourg sawmill in northwest France, which has specialized in beech wood for over fifty years, needed a new byproduct handling solution to enhance efficiency and mitigate unplanned downtime. It called upon Germany-based Bruks Siwertell Group company, Bruks Klöckner, for its market-leading hardwood chipping expertise.

Customer need

For over fifty years, the Steinbourg sawmill, Scierie et Caisserie de Steinbourg, located in northwest France has specialized in beech wood products. It needed a new chipping solution to enhance production efficiency and mitigate unplanned downtime, as its older disc chipper could no longer meet the demands of its current capacity requirements.

The new solution not only had to meet the challenge of chipping high-density hardwoods, but also had to be able to deliver consistently high-quality chips from a varied feedstock of differently sized dry or fresh beech wood.

Additionally, limited space and structural constraints posed challenges for any equipment installation, including that a chip screen and secondary drum chipper needed to be fitted on top of an 8m-high concrete wood chip silo. 

To maintain redundancy, the new equipment needed to be installed alongside the sawmill’s existing disc chipper. Furthermore, maintaining operational continuity during the upgrade was critical, as any interruptions could significantly impact production capacity and customer commitments.

Our solution

Steinbourg is a long-standing customer for Bruks Klöckner and it trusted the company to design and integrate a wood chipping solution that would not only meet its current byproduct handling needs but enable it to adapt to future ones.

Bruks Klöckner supplied a horizontal-fed RH 2000 disc chipper with a 470mm infeed and a 160kW motor, delivering precise, reliable efficient hardwood chipping. Equipped with five precision-engineered knives, the chipping disc has a substantial diameter of 1,990mm. To ensure consistent, high-quality chip sizes, an SH 8/2 free-swinging chip screen and a DG 200 x 400 secondary drum chipper were also delivered and integrated into the design. 

“The new Bruks line didn’t just meet our expectations, it exceeded them,” says Francois Schnepf, Managing Director, Steinbourg sawmill. “For our wood chip production, we need consistently high quality, which can only be achieved with a machine like the one from Bruks Klöckner. After more than ten years of collaboration, we see Bruks as a European reference for such technologies. We were particularly impressed by the machine’s ability to easily process even challenging materials, such as pieces of dry or fresh beech wood in different sizes.

“Communication with Bruks was outstanding from day one,” adds Schnepf. “The team was highly flexible in implementing necessary adjustments and overcoming structural challenges. Their efficiency and reliability ensured that the project was completed on time, which was a key factor for us.”

The system’s design accounted for the significant structural height differences, energy efficiency was optimized with frequency converters, while flexible infeed technology allowed seamless operation alongside the existing chipping line and long-term reliability. Careful planning minimized disruption, ensuring a smooth transition to the new line.

To meet the changing requirements of potential future markets, wood chip lengths can be adjusted on the disc chipper, enabling the Steinbourg sawmill to expand its customer base and adapt.