My visit to Simonds International new Showroom

Last week, I had the privilege to visit Simonds facility and new show room in Florence, South Carolina. They have been in this new location about a year now and as far as the warehouse, I can tell you it’s very well organized with inventory that takes care of a lot of mills in the south. I made this visit with customers of both Smith Sawmill Service and Simonds International. The main reason for the visit was to see the Automatic Band Saw Bench operate. We were very impressed... with Simonds ideas and goals for their showroom and training center. Eddie Collins, Dave Puritan, Phil Marsh and an on-site technician guided us through the warehouse and showroom. The showroom has a couple of Vari-Sharps, an Auto Swage, a manual band saw bench and the Auto Bench. All of these are installed and ready to operate. They shared their goal of having all the equipment, both for bands and circles, displayed and available for training. We had the opportunity to watch the Auto Bench operate and work on a band. We had hands on, light training, and were shown all the features of this machine and how it can help the filer get his job done both efficiently and accurately. No doubt, every bandsaw filer needs this in his filing room. Dave was happy to show us training rooms for working with saw filers, demonstrating not only new, high-tech ways of filing but also tried and true techniques that have been used in the industry for many years. Simonds has worked to create a school of knowledge that will help train filers both in the operations of particular equipment and hands on “saw repair”. This much needed facility and training center will help many mills and give many filers the opportunity to increase their knowledge. I want to take this opportunity to personally commend Simonds for providing this to our industry and do hope and expect this to be a success. We at Smith Sawmill Service would be glad to accompany any of our customers to see this showroom and invite you to our facility to see the new machines we have available for circle saws. We look forward to any opportunity to share this or other opportunities with our customers and fellow filers.

Paul Smith / Smith Sawmill Service