Ron Gillespie

These drawings are for an edger, a special machine that is part of a modern sawmill. When the logs go through the sawmill, they are cut into two-sided pieces, or 'flitch'. Each flitch is flat on two sides and has edges which are the outside of the orginal log, and these can often taper in width from 30 to 4 inches. The edger cuts the flitches into four-sided boards, some of which are still tapered in width and which must be cut to length. This is an automated process run by computers, and the 18-foot long board are processes at about two seconds per board.

This edger was designed in PowerCADD 7, and Ron made good use of the transparency capability. Instead of using dashed lines to show one machine behind another, he just showed them as transparent, simplifying the drawing process and also making the drawing more readable.

Note the topo contours at the top right of this drawing. Ron shot his own survey points and then used TopoTools to create the contours.