EAST CORINTH, Maine -- If you drive 20 miles northwest from Bangor, Maine on Route 15, you come to the small community of East Corinth. This is the home of Corinth Products, a family-owned pallet manufacturing and sawmill business.

            The company was founded in the early 1960s and is today owned by Peter Higgins, who bought it from the original owner in 1979. Peter manages the day-to-day operations of the company with the help of his son, Burley, and daughter, Stephanie, both vice presidents.

            Corinth Products manufactures pallets and lumber. The company buys hardwood logs from timberlands owned by John Hancock Insurance Co., including beech, maple, oak and yellow birch. Timber harvesting is done by Wagner Forest Products in Bangor. Corinth Products also buys kiln dried, planed pine boards from a sawmill in Quebec.

            Every pallet produced is made to order. “We can supply 200 different sizes, and some customers order 10 or 15 different sizes at a time,” said Peter.

            One of the company’s strengths is that it can respond very quickly and efficiently to urgent orders. Peter cited a recent example. “We were asked to supply 300 pallets of a particular type, and we delivered them the next day.”

            “We have never let a customer down,” he added.

            A big reason the company can respond so quickly and fill orders on a ‘just-in-time’ basis is its two Viking nailing machines, which can be reprogrammed readily for a different pallet, Peter noted. “We can change the machine set-up so that 15 minutes later, a different pallet is being made on the (Viking) auto assembly machines.”

            When Peter bought the company, customers were complaining about pallet and lumber quality. At the time, Corinth Products was equipped with bandsaws for resawing material into pallet components. “There is so much black magic involved in maintaining bandsaws that I changed over to circular carbide saws,” said Peter, “and the quality problem went away.” For blades and blade service, Peter does business with New England-based Sharp Tool Co., and he recommends the supplier. Other principal suppliers to Corinth Products, beside Viking, are Pendu Manufacturing, Cornell Industrial, and Brewer-Golden Eagle Inc.

            Peter came to the pallet industry by an unusual route. He was born in England and graduated from Sheffield University with a degree in mechanical engineering. Bell Telephone-Canada recruited him in 1955, and he moved to Montreal. He subsequently did engineering work for Raytheon on missiles and then for Cutler Hammer on aircraft switches. Later he was named a general manager for Cutler Hammer in Philadelphia. A career move that took him to Boston didn’t work out, and Peter started looking in the Wall Street Journal for business opportunities. He found it in Maine and spent the following year learning the pallet business at Corinth Products.

Plant Description

            Corinth Products has about 25 employees, including the Higgins family. In addition to Peter’s engineering expertise, Burley is an electrical engineering graduate of Norwich University in Vermont. Among his other responsibilities, Burley, an Air Force veteran who was an F-15 fighter pilot, is the company computer and hydraulic systems specialist. Stephanie is a graduate of Wheaton College in Massachusetts, where she majored in economics and minored in mathematics. She takes care of production scheduling, much of customer service and accounting.

            Basically the mill comprises the following equipment:

§         Hood F182 log loader to unload arriving log trucks

§         Morbark 628 Rosser-head debarker and bark conveyor

§         Chainsaw with movable laser line for cutting logs to length

§         Pendu end-dogging scragg mill; the scragg has two saws, and logs make two passes to square off four sides

§         Pendu 1800 slab recovery machine with two vertical  and three horizontal blades

§         Pendu 3000 splitter saw

§         Morbark 48-inch chipper to process waste wood into chips

§         Pendu 6600 double-end trimmer

§         Brewer-Golden Eagle double-arbor gang saw with planer head for cants

§         Two Brewer-Golden Eagle bandsaws

§         Cornell VS1 automatic board stacker

§         Viking Duo-Max automatic pallet assembly machine

§         Viking Champion II automatic pallet assembly machine

            The Pendu scragg mill is used to process logs into cants in such sizes as 6x6, 4x4, 6x4 and 8x4. The Brewer gang saw then resaws them down to 3/8-inch, ½-inch, 5/8-inch, or ¾-inch boards as required for the pallets on order.

            The company usually buys hardwood logs ranging from 8 inches to 14 inches in diameter and from 8 feet to 16 feet long, but it has run logs up to 26 feet. “That way we can make almost any size pallet a customer wants,” said Peter.

            “We also bring in kiln dried and planed pine, spruce and fir in 8, 10 and 12-foot lengths from Quebec for special order pallets,” said Peter. The special order pallets are manufactured for a customer that requires kiln dried pine to prevent moisture from migrating from the pallet lumber to the company’s product.

            The circular saw blades are maintained regularly by Sharp Tool, which sends a service truck to pick up and deliver blades on a weekly basis. Blades normally are changed at the end of each shift or when a pallet order requires a different size.

            Two workers operate each of the Viking nailing machines, one feeding top deck boards and the other, the bottom deck boards. Finished pallets are stacked by a Viking stacker.

            Pallet production is increasing and will soon reach $3.5 million annually. Two tractor-trailers leave the plant every day to deliver orders to customers, and additional trucks deliver small orders. Corinth Products has customers throughout the Northeast.

Sharp Tool Co.

            Corinth Products, like many other pallet plants and sawmills, uses and recommends Sharp Tool saw blades and service. Any mill relies on its saws and blades to provide good quality lumber – a good finish and accurately sawn. In some ways, a sawmill is in partnership with its blade supplier and sharpening service in order to be successful. In this respect, Corinth Products is no different and relies strongly on Sharp Tool.

            “Sharp is utterly reliable and very good technically,” said Peter. For example, when he first built the sawmill, he experienced some problems with the scragg mill, which was running blades provided by a different supplier. “Sharp came up with a different saw recommendation, which not only solved our problem, but Pendu adopted the specs for their other customers as well.”

            Sharp Tool is located in Hudson, Mass., about 35 miles west of Boston. It has been in business since 1959, when Walter Morrette and a partner first started up with a combination trucking and saw blade service. The company originally was based in Newton, which is less than 10 miles west of Boston. Walter launched the company when carbide saw blades were the newest saw blade technology. Carbide actually was first used in the early 1940s, but like all new ideas, it took a while to prove itself. Sharp Tool found a niche in the industry, repairing and servicing the new carbide circular saw blades. Walter’s partner left the business after a few years. Walter later added bandsaws and chipper knives to the product line and eventually dropped the trucking side of the business to concentrate fully on saws and cutting tools.

            Sharp Tool today is owned and operated by Walter’s son, Paul, who bought the company from his father and became president in 1982. Paul made it his mission to increase sales and expand the distribution network. He has led Sharp Tool to become a nationwide saw blade supplier.

            With customers across the U. S. and Canada and overseas, Sharp Tool has annual sales approaching $5 million. The company, which moved into a modern 16,800-square-foot building in 1993, has nearly 30 employees. Carbide circular saw blades and carbide narrow and wide bandsaw blades remain the company’s main focus. Sharp Tool also has separate departments to perform pre-tinning of tool tips and to repair and service tools, some of which can be difficult to replace.

            “We can pretty much repair any saw blade as long as it is cost effective for the customer,” said Paul. If a tool is beyond repair, Sharp Tool often can replace it from stock. It also can custom manufacture a replacement. Reconditioned blades and tools are delivered to customers by one of several service trucks on a weekly basis.

            Sharp Tool recently developed a new type of carbide blade that is designed to cut through nails and other metal, which is encountered in used lumber in pallet recycling operations and also in some logs that may originate from farms.

            Sharp Tool also distributes and services Wright Machine and Simonds saw grinding and sharpening machines. Sharp Tool’s staff of technicians can train filers in the use of the new machines and issue operator certification.

            When asked what Sharp Tool’s biggest advantage is, Paul replied, “I feel it’s our experience. We hire good people and keep them. A lot of our staff has been with us for a very long time.”

Pendu Manufacturing

            Pendu, which supplied a great deal of the mill’s equipment, was established 25 years ago in Pennsylvania Dutch country. Its manufacturing plant is located west of Philadelphia in Lancaster County. The company, which has been owned by Marlin Hurst since 1993, specializes in equipment for the pallet, sawmill, and other wood processing industries. Pendu builds a large range of machines, including cut-off saws, gang resaws, notchers and stackers. It can supply complete machine centers for log breakdown using scragg mills and slab recovery machines and also resaw or cut-up lines for making pallet components. In the case of Corinth Products, Pendu also supplied the Morbark debarker and chipper. Pendu also builds log cut-off saws as well as complete log and lumber handling systems and equipment. It will custom design or adapt machines to suit customer specifications, including automated computer controls. Pendu sells and services equipment across the entire U.S., including Alaska.

Corinth Expanding

            Corinth Products Inc. is embarking on a mill expansion project to increase production capacity. The company recently added several major new customers, and it is operating on 10-hour shifts instead of eight and also running Saturday mornings to keep up with demand. Peter plans to increase the mill building and add another nailing machine and other equipment.

            The quality pallets manufactured by Corinth Products and its strong commitment to customers to provide ‘just-in-time’ service is obviously paying off.