Increment Borers

Increment Borers	Edward Frank
	October 11, 2007

== 1 of 1 ==
Date: Thurs, Oct 11 2007 4:40 pm
From: DON BERTOLETTE

Ed-
For a start, I recommend:

http://www.forestry-suppliers.com or http://www.benmeadows.com

where you'll find an array, from which there are decisions to be made...

Teflon coated or not? (Teflon is easier to turn, cleans easier, but eventually will wear)
2 thread or 3 thread? (Allows different pitch (or 'gear') for easier catching of first turn, subsequent turns.
Small,Large Diameter? (Hardwood, Softwood)
Length? (Anticipated maximum diameter of trees to be bored)

Ultimately, price drives the last decision, as these are fairly expensive items. For my use, I found an 18 inch to be best bang for the boring buck. For those just interested in the last inch of growth, the 4 incher or increment hammer serve well, and carry easily.Haglof has been the borer of choice through most of my career, although I suspect one could do well with Suunto, to.
-DonB

== 2 of 5 ==
Date: Sun, Oct 14 2007 7:29 am
From: Lee Frelich

Andy:

Welcome to the ENTS listserve. See answers to questions below.

Lee

>1) What possible short and long term impact does coring have on the
>health of the tree? Health impacts are rarely significant. Resinous trees
>fill in the hole with pitch, and other species such as hardwoods surround
>the wound with gums that wall it off from the rest of the tree so that
>wood-rotting fungi rarely cause serious infection. I try to have a slight
>negative slope (1 or 2 degrees) when I core a tree so that water will not
>collect in the hole. There is a slight chance that you will break through
>a pocket of rot in the trunk that the tree had previously contained, and
>it may then infect more of the trunk. I have cored hundreds of trees on
>permanent plots in Sylvania Wilderness and the Porcupine Mountains during
>the 1980s and they all still look OK today. Their mortality rates have not
>been different than the rest of the trees not cored.

>2) Is there anything that needs to be done to the tree after the core
>is taken? No.

>3) What steps can be taken to prevent disease transmission? If you are
>worried about a specific disease you can dip the corer bit in alcohol
>between trees, but I have never done that. I did dip them in 2-heptanol
>while doing a study of tree ring chemistry, which takes ions such as NO2
>off the metal, because I didn't want to contaminate cores with nutrients
>from the previous tree. It turns out that 2-heptanol is a bee attack
>pheromone--need I say more?

>4) What is the best way to store and preserve core samples, both in
>the field and long term? I store cores in straws with masking tape on the
>ends in the field, and group them by plot with rubber bands and put the
>whole group in a larger tube or container of some sort. You need straws
>with a slightly larger diameter than you corer, like the ones McDonalds
>uses for milkshakes. Large diameter straws are not always easy to find.
>You can tape two straws together for large trees with long cores. Paper
>straws are best if you can get them because the wood will start drying
>right away. Plastic straws are OK, but cores will start to rot if not
>dried within a few days. If you are doing tree ring chemistry work,
>plastic straws that have been washed are essential to prevent
>contamination with chemicals. In the lab most cores are glued to grooved
>wood holders for sanding and permanent storage. I prefer wood 1/2 inch
>thick and 1.5 inches wide with two groves in it for two cores, since I
>often take two from the same tree.

>5) Is there a research database for core data that the information can
>be stored and accessed? Yes, Neil Pederson would probably be able to
>answer this question (and maybe some of the previous ones as well) better.
>
>Sorry, I guess the list was a little longer than I expected, but
>again, any information would be greatly appreciated.
>
>Andy Sawyer
>

== 3 of 5 ==
Date: Sun, Oct 14 2007 8:10 am
From: Andrew Sawyer

Thanks Lee, though I can't imagine better answers. Is Neil an ENTS
Member?

Andy

== 4 of 5 ==
Date: Sun, Oct 14 2007 10:22 pm
From: "Russ Carlson"

Lee, have you followed up with any post-mortems on the trees you cored?
Have you studied the spread of internal decay in the cored trees? Thee
is still a lot of discussion and disagreement on the effects of coring
into decay, and how quickly the fungus can spread along the the bore
hole. I'm curious what you have found on this.

It helps to think of two trees in one--the structural and the
physiological. One part can be in trouble while the other remains in
good condition. A hollow tree can look healthy, and a dying tree can be
solid.

--
Russ Carlson
Bear, DE USA

*
On Sunday, October 14, 2007 at 9:29 AM, the corporeal entity designated
on Terra as Lee Frelich transmitted the following communication:

> I have cored hundreds of trees on
>>permanent plots in Sylvania Wilderness and the Porcupine Mountains during
>>the 1980s and they all still look OK today. Their mortality rates have not
>>been different than the rest of the trees not cored.

== 5 of 5 ==
Date: Sun, Oct 14 2007 10:37 pm
From: "Russ Carlson"

Responses inserted below.

*
On Sunday, October 14, 2007 at 6:44 AM, the corporeal entity designated
on Terra as Andrew Sawyer transmitted the following communication:

> I have a few questions about corers
>that haven't been covered yet in this thread. Thanks in advance for
>the replies.
>
>1) What possible short and long term impact does coring have on the
>health of the tree?

Short term, probably no significant impact. Unless you are boring into
very small trees, the damage is minimal, and the tree will quickly
respond to the injury. The long term effect is the possibility of
internal decay. The tree attempts to compartmentalize decay following
injury, and if healthy, will usually successfully prevent any
significant spread. The problem usually occurs when, as Lee pointed
out, you breach a previously compartmentalized pocket of decay. The
tree can't respond to that type of infection very well. The deeper you
go, the greater the possibility of hitting decay.

>2) Is there anything that needs to be done to the tree after the core
>is taken?

There is no recommended treatment now. Anything that will really keep
any decay fungus out is usually toxic to the tree.

>3) What steps can be taken to prevent disease transmission?

Alcohol may help, but you'd really have to leave the borer immersed for
about half an hour to be effective. Cleaning the borer with a little
WD-40 and a rag will be about as effective, to keep any bits of infected
wood from transferring. Tip: don't even think of using bleach
(including the kitchen wipes and similar items) as a disinfectant.
Bleach is very corrosive and will quickly pit your porer, and it
probably isn't very effective for quick treatments, either.

I'll leave the last two questions to others better able to answer.

--
Russ Carlson
Bear, DE USA

==============================================================================
TOPIC: Increment Borers
http://groups.google.com/group/entstrees/browse_thread/thread/5870f42b2dda761c?hl=en
==============================================================================

== 1 of 2 ==
Date: Mon, Oct 15 2007 3:58 am
From: neil

Hi Andrew & ENTS,

You've gotten great answers from Lee & Russ, so I'll only add a bit more.

There is a fairly long discussion archived on the ENTS home pages
related to this [thanks Ed!!]:
http://www.nativetreesociety.org/threads/excessive_incremental.htm In
that discussion I have a very long version of the 'impacts of coring'
discussion that I put into all of my proposals these days; our
environmental consciousness has really grown in the last 2-3 decades.
People always want assurance that coring does not kill their trees. To
date, including a relatively new study (van Mantgem, P.J. and N.L.
Stephenson. 2004. Does coring contribute to tree mortality? Canadian
Journal of Forest Research 34: 2394-2398.), indicates there is no change
in the mortality rate of trees after coring [or 7 yrs after plunge cuts
in western trees]. The van Mantgem and Stephenson paper looked at >1200
trees 20 yrs after coring and found no differences between cored and
control populations of cedar.

Coring does increase the rate of decay, but a review of old literature
indicates that most of the decay is not a severe rot. Some trees
species, however, do experience a 14% increase in heart rot. Generally,
the longer a tree lives, the stronger its defense mechanism (Loehle,
1988 - cited on the link above).

Then, I always wonder, how does it compare to tapping trees for maple
syrup? At least only coring invades a tree once or, once every 1-2
decades and removes energy at a much smaller scale than the sugar maple
industry.

It seems to me that this question is one of ethics. I can share a
rebuttal I wrote to an editorial regarding a newspaper article here in
KY that featured tree coring if you are interested. Basically, I was
told that if I loved trees and old-growth forests, I would not core
trees. To me, besides the evidence above, the coring density [#
trees/area] is very low compared to the value of information and,
occasionally, protection given to areas once they are documented into
being old-growth. A good example of this is Dave Stahle and the
Crosstimbers area: http://www.uark.edu/misc/xtimber/ There are other,
smaller stories in the east. It seems the impacts are quite small.
Acceptable to me, anyhow.

I use long plastic straws From Western Plastics to transport cores.

As to #5 - http://hurricane.ncdc.noaa.gov/pls/paleo/fm_createpages.treering

Another page for dendro info can be found here:
http://web.utk.edu/~grissino/

neil

== 2 of 2 ==
Date: Mon, Oct 15 2007 6:59 am
From: "Lee E. Frelich"

Russ:

No, there are no post mortems. My research is all in wilderness areas where
such things are not allowed.

Lee

== 2 of 8 ==
Date: Thurs, Oct 18 2007 12:15 pm
From: "Edward Frank"

ENTS,

We have been talking about increment borers. These are two posts tonight from the ITRDBFORUM. Any comments?

Ed Frank

---------------------------------------------------------
Hi all,

I was just wondering if anyone else had any issues with the blue handled
Haglof corers this summer. I sure did. It was time to purchase new corers
and I saved up my money and bought four. They
came and we took them out and I broke two with off centered boring
bits within a few cores. I sent them back I received two new borers
in return. This is somewhat normal for Haglof. What wasn't so
normal were the two other issues I had.

Issue one -The spoons / extractors

What a terrible redesign. In the past the Haglof spoons came with 12
tiny teeth per side and the spoon reached to the end of the boring
bit. These new models came with two large teeth per side, and they
do not reach to the end of the borer bit barrel. The softer the
wood, the more the extractor would leave a small chunk of wood in the
cutting tip. It was SOOOO frustrating to always have a corer and
some other implement to get the chunk out. The best fix, was to use
an old 12-teeth spoon, then there were no issue in live wood as it
went to the end of the barrel and extracted all of the core. The
grabbing power of these two-teeth spoons is horrendous. If you tried
to adjust the teeth to grab better, they just chewed up the core
going in, and you were left with countless pieces coming out. I
searched all the suppliers I could find in Canada (coast to coast to
coast) and none had any old 12 teeth spoons on a shelf. They all only
had the new two-teeth models. All worthless in my opinion.

Issue two - The cutting angle

We used to use the old versions in live and dried wood (wood in
structures) with very good success. As Rob Wilson once told me, the
2-thread also worked better in dry wood than the 3-thread models. I
agreed with this statement, but this is no longer the case. We had
equally poor results with all of the new models. In fact, we were
only able to take cores from dried wood with old corers (we even used
ones with chipped cutting edges) and they worked much better that the
new models. We spent a lot of rainy days in the lab trying to figure
out what was the difference between the old and the new design, and
the best we could come up with was a slight difference in the cutting
angle of the boring bit. Is this true, we don't really know.

I am wondering if any one else had similar issues with the new
models? Also does anyone know where I can get some of the old
12-tooth extractors? I understand that this is only a band aid
solution to a problem of a poor design, but it is better than nothing
at this time.

Cheers,

Colin

Dr. Colin P. Laroque
Mount Allison University
-----------------------------

Folks:

The experiences of the tree ring folks in Victoria directly match those
that Colin Laroque has just posted on the forum. Is it only Canadians
having problems with the newly designed borers?

Dan
))) ))) ))))) )))) ))))) ))))) )) ))) ))))) ))))) ))) )))))))) ))

Dan Smith
University of Victoria Tree-Ring Laboratory
Department of Geography
-------------------------

Hi All, Between several researchers and graduate students, we broke a very
large number of borers this past summer (around 10-12 if my memory serves
me correctly). I don't know how many of the borers were newly purchased,
some may have been a few years old. Most were broken while coring oak or
maple. None that I know of were broken coring Rocky Mountain conifers. Some
appeared to have been poorly machined, as has been mentioned before on the
forum. On others the cause was a bit more elusive. So nope, it can't be
attributed to Nationality! We are close to the border here though.

Kurt Kipfmueller

-----------------------------
Och - the cyclic nature of the corer issue

I was coring Yew (Taxus baccata) trees this summer and we broke three
corers. Guess what - all Haglofs!! 2 and 3 thread versions.

The only 'veteran' survivor was a Suunto - and thank God for that!!

Rob Wilson

---------------------------

Hi Forum,

The problems with new Haglof extends more down... to South America, Patagonia Argentina!

During the past three summer I broke four Haglof borers. The first problem that I had, was that the incrment borer broke at the middle of the bit when I were removing the incremten borer. I could see that the material around the bit was distributed heterogeneously, and I could see that at one side the bit-wall was extremely thin, and at the other side the bit-wall was extremely thick. Other, the smaller one (14"), broke at the barrelshaped tip. It looks like a handsaw and the edge is not the same at the begining. The other borer (20") broke more unbelievably. The end of the auger, that it made for secure the auger into the handle, broke (to blew up) when I was removing the increment borer. But this zone of the auger is for to put pressure! I atached for you a pictures of that because it is amazing!

I claimed for this three borers to Forestry Suppliers, and I received two new Hanglof ones. It is true that the new extractor has a terrible design!! I am using the old extractor to remove the samples. And, with one of the new borer, I could only take samples in only 10 trees! and suddenly the bit broke! I felt very sad but I did not claim again. I am waiting to get some money to purchase some Sunto borers.

Hoping that my experience be useful,

Kindest regards from Argentina, and excuses for my English!!

María Laura Suarez
-----------------------------

Dear Colin,

Fortunately (or not), I have not bought any new corers recently. The bit you
are describing sounds like the bit from the old Suunto that everone had
problems with the last time there was a "corer episode".

Brian Luckman
-----------------------------

Forum-

I've had my fair share of Haglof problems, so I spoke with Stephen
Haglof at the Haglof booth at an IUFRO conference in Brisbane a
couple of years ago, and he said they were working on a new design
that would solve many problems. If this is it, it seems that if
anything, things are worse.

Call it sheer dumb luck, but I decided last year that I would give
the Mattson borers a try (aren't these made by Haglof?). Admittedly,
they only come in lengths up to 16", but I had no out of the ordinary
trouble at all with these, and the extractors are like the prior
Haglof model Colin mentions. I used the Mattsons in deadwood and
live Douglas-fir, larch and mountain hemlock. On the other hand, I
just bought two brand new 21" Haglofs for larger trees, and wish I
hadn't now.

Jeremy Littell
________________________

Hi Folks,
Due to UPS losing 9 increment borers I had sent into Forestry Supplies for
some shop time, I ended up with 9 new increment borers last year. None
have broken, but 4 of the 9 are difficult to start, and all the spoons are nearly
worthless for the same reasons described in past emails.

The moral of the story...Insure everything, and hope Haglof hasn't "improved" anything...
Best,
-Greg Pederson

------------------------------
Has anyone communicated with Haglof directly? We just bought 4 new borers
and they went out in the field yesterday. I'm dreading to hear the result.

Elaine Kennedy Sutherland, Ph.D Supervisory Research Biologist
Forest and Woodlands Program
--------------------------------

Hello All,
I have been buying Haglof increment borers every year for the
North American Dendroecological Fieldweek. We have had the same
problems as other have mentioned including the chuck that attached the
bit to the handle breaking off as Maria mentioned, increment borers
breaking off at the cutting tip-shaft junction, handle's of spoons
rattling off on their first use making them useless, and the poor tooth
design. I have sent many borers back to Haglof and usually get them
replaced. I have also spoken with them quite a bit and sent them our
complaints the last time we had a discussion on poor borer design. I
will send along these comments to Haglof as well so that they can know
our dissatisfaction with their changes. I think Paul Krusic stated in a
previous conversation that the companies are good about replacing broken
equipment - just make sure that you carry a lot of extra borers into the
field.

Jim Speer

------------------------------------

I looked back into my saved email and found this reply (see below) from
Gabriella Haglof from October 17 2006 (I think that is an exact annual
cycle in discussion) concerning our previous complaints. She forshadows
an improved design. Hopefully it is just not quite on the market yet.

Jim

*************************************************************
Hello Jim,

Thanks again for your comments that I have shared with Stefan (Haglof)
who has the longest experience from increment borers in the company, apart
from his father Ingvar Haglof.

We agree with you that the previous extractor model was in fact better
than the ones we have produced lately. Some years ago, we had quite a few
customer requirements asking for changes, and we tried to meet with
these demands. In the long run, the modifications have shown to be a mistake.

Once this was evident to us, and for the past two years, we have tested
several different kinds of extractor models. One model has proven
optimal in all tests, both in Scandinavian, North American and Tropical trees. We
are now remodelling our production machinery, and serial production will
start soon, hopefully before Christmas this year. As you can understand, we
are talking about comparably small series here, and increment borers are
no "mass-production" products. Each adjustment in the production machinery
has effects in every link.

Once we have the new borer ready to send you, we will also have a
couple of extra extractors included. That way, we are hoping also to have your
honest opinion on these.

Let us stay in touch,

Best regards

Gabriella Haglof
Haglof Sweden AB

-------------------------------------
Hi

To add to the list of complaints... We had the cutting tip on two borers
break/collapse this past summer. Each borer came out of the tree with a
piece missing from the very end of the tip, leaving them useless.

Amanda Stan

Amanda Stan, Ph.D. Candidate
Department of Geography
University of British Columbia

== 3 of 8 ==
Date: Thurs, Oct 18 2007 1:57 pm
From: DON BERTOLETTE

Ed-
For those of us who would use Haglofs for years without incident, the following posts are a surprise. It's clear that there are some manufacturing issues this year and the year previous. Those reading the last of the posts below, will note the sincerity of the manufacturer.
Barring similar situation with Suunto, the short-term solution for those needing new increment borers now, may be to go to Suunto (I have no experience with them in the coring spectrum of their business...they do well with clinometers, etc.!).
What does ITRDB stand for (Int'l Tree Ring Database?)
Who among us can explain utility of off-center boring?
-Don

== 4 of 8 ==
Date: Thurs, Oct 18 2007 2:13 pm
From: "Edward Frank"

Don,

Yes, it stands for International Tree Ring Data Base Dendrochronology Forum. I have been a member off and on of the list for several years now. I just ordered a Haglof Increment Borer, so now I am trying to get Ben Meadows to change it to Suunto Borer given the problems expressed about new models. I haven't heard back from them.

Ed Frank

About the Forum: http://web.utk.edu/~grissino/forum.htm

An Internet forum for dendrochronology (ITRDBFOR) has been sponsored by the ITRDB since 1988 as part of the ITRDB mission to foster communication among dendrochronologists worldwide, and to help those collecting and developing tree-ring chronologies throughout the world. Currently, over 600 scientists from 32 countries subscribe to the forum. Anyone interested in dendrochronology can join and participate in the forum, used by members to address important issues confronting dendrochronologists. For example, the forum has been used to:

a.. discuss current issues relevant to tree-ring research, such as crossdating procedures and available tree-ring software,
b.. announce upcoming meetings dendrochronologists may wish to attend,
c.. announce the publication of articles and books relevant to dendrochronology,
d.. announce and acknowledge recent contributors of tree-ring data to the holdings of the ITRDB,
e.. foster communication with other members of the forum to help establish new research initiatives, and
f.. announce news items that other scientists may find useful.
JOINING THE FORUM

To join the ITRDBFOR, send the command "subscribe itrdbfor [your first name] [your last name]" as one line of text in the mail message (please omit the brackets) to the following address: LISTSERV@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU. For example, one would send the message "subscribe itrdbfor John Smith" if you wanted to join (substitute your name for "John Smith," though). New participants are encouraged to submit a short, one paragraph outline of interests and current research to inform members who may have similar interests

a.. To subscribe to the forum:

subscribe itrdbfor your-first-name your-last-name

Example: subscribe itrdbfor Henri D. Grissino-Mayer

NOTE: you should not include your e-mail address. The listserver will automatically retrieve it.

== 5 of 8 ==
Date: Thurs, Oct 18 2007 4:16 pm
From: neil

ENTS,

There is a reason many [most?] dendrochronologists do not use Suunto's.
I think Will B eloquently summed it up with one word in a prior thread.
This almost reminds me of Macs V PCs. Most people have a preference
whether it is rational or not.

Most people I know do not use Suuntos, including myself. For the most
part, the extractors of Suuntos are horrible. Many complaints on the
tree-ring forum are describing what sounds like a backward progression,
devolution, of the Haglof extractors. It sounds like the new Haglof
extractors now resemble the Suunto extractor: a few large teeth at the
end of the extractor. These teeth can tear up the samples on occasion.
Also, Suunto has this extremely annoying habit of always leaving part of
the sample in the end of the coring bit. Whether this is related to the
teeth on the extractor, I am not sure. All I know is that I really do
not like always having to push out that last bit of sample with EVERY
CORE removed! With the older Haglofs samples came out intact [if the
tree was solid, the extractor was in good shape and the borer was
properly maintained between sampling days] and did not leave a wooden
'plug' at the end of the bit.

Suuntos move through wood quite well and in general back out better
than some of the more recent Haglof borers. So, they have some plusses.
Even the Haglofs before the latest problems started having issues in
backing out of the tree: they would often 'hang' and not back out w/out
a tremendous amount of energy-wasting pulling or Houdini rope tricks.

Yet, within batches, there would be one or two Haglofs that are
amazing. One of these golden Haglofs can core oak, hickory, sweet
birch... for years and never break or rarely hang inside the tree. My
personal borer is still like that. It seems like those borers come
through the pipeline about 20-40% of the time.

Mattsons are very good, except they do not come in lengths greater than
16". The Chinese borer sold by forestry suppliers broke within coring
the first few trees in the field [this was several yrs ago. I've not
tried them since].

Haglof keeps promising us a new design. This seems to happen every 5
yrs or so or more frequently. Yrs ago Suunto said there was no problem
with their design.

There are still stories about the fabled Sandvik borers that never
broke and rarely needed sharpening [and tasted like a chocolately beer,
I hear]. Unfortunately, they went out of business. So, we have to make
choices with today's products, live with the positives and negatives of
each brand, regularly send defective borers back to whoever we purchased
them from and let these people know that we are unhappy with the overall
design.

Someday, maybe, someone will design a better borer. With the growing
interest in documenting the natural world, it seems there is a growing
market.

Neil

ps - off-center boring? sounds dreadful.

== 6 of 8 ==
Date: Thurs, Oct 18 2007 4:41 pm
From: "Edward Frank"

Neil ,

My Haglof 16". 3 thread is on the way so we will see how it works.

Ed

== 7 of 8 ==
Date: Thurs, Oct 18 2007 9:45 pm
From: DON BERTOLETTE

Neil-
Given correct size pairings, would old Haglof extractors fit/work in new Haglof coring cylinders?
-DonB

== 8 of 8 ==
Date: Thurs, Oct 18 2007 9:52 pm
From: DON BERTOLETTE

Ed-
Be sure to read Neil's most recent post...seems the Suunto extractor may have been the model for Haglof's recent but reviled redesign!
Over the years, I've always had increment corers around (mostly Haglofs, and a few of the fabled Sandviks), whether with the BLM, the USFS, or the NPS as they were tools of the trade...I know that when treated well the extractors would usually outlast the corers, and most drawers had a few extras...I"ll bet they're sought after now!
-Don

> Hello All,
> I have included below the response from Gabriella Haglof concerning
> increment borer quality.
>
>
> Hello James
>
> Thank you for your message, as always your input is much appreciated.
>
> Our work with the increment borers continue, and these are some factual
> examples on how we are approaching this topic:
>
> 1. We are, together with 3 other manufacturers/raw material users
> participating in a cooperation project with the Mittuniversitet (Mid
> Sweden University, Sundsvall) and professor Torbjorn Carlberg at the
> Institution for Technics, Physics and Mathematics. The project is aimed
> to find out why steel, although produced with the exact same composition
> as always, has deteriorated in quality and durability. The raw material
> issue has been detected as the single most important factor to why the
> borers are breaking. The project will be carried out together with the
> Swedish Knowledge Foundation, and we are certainly looking forward to
> having hard fact answers to the questions we have asked ourselves for so
> many years. Ingvar Haglof, company founder and Senior Manager here at
> Haglof Sweden, is the responsible person from our company in this
> project. Ingvar is this week visiting the SAF meeting in Portland,
> Oregon. In case you, or any of your colleagues will be attending, I am
> confident that Ingvar can tell you more about this project, about steel
> quality, the hardening process, increment borers etc. .
>
> 2. We have been making parallel tests of raw material ourselves for the
> past years. 2 out of 4 raw materials tested are ruled out.
>
> 3. Different increment borer types have been sent for tests in
> authentic sampling work in Illinois, USA. Other borer samples are under
> tests in Mississippi; in northern parts of Scandinavia and, later this
> fall, we will bring them to Central Europe. We have so far ruled out one
> of the test models out of 4 different types.
>
> 3. We have made a number of different tests on the extractors to find
> out which type performs best under the factual circumstances we find
> ourselves: i.e with the raw material that is currently available on the
> market, the production form we have found to work the best, and with the
> statistic facts that we have gathered throughout the years. We have
> still to decide on which extractor model to go for; the decision is
> crucial and we do not want to make any mistakes. Our plans were to start
> serial production on extractor one year ago (see our previous
> correspondence) but we simply had to make more tests. Now, the
> evaluation work is in its last phase, and the production should take off
> before this year ending.
>
> 4. We have applied a system in our production plant for raw material
> batch tracking. Previously, we have been able to track borers only from
> production year and model. The new system allows us to keep a closer
> control of each link in the production chain.
>
> 5. The entire borer production will be relocated to a new plant during
> November. In this new location, very close to our head office, only
> borers will be produced. This allows us to maintain an even more regular
> quality control. The assigned supervisor will be in direct daily contact
> with both the production management and us people at marketing, for
> immediate handling of any questions or problems.
>
> 6. Once the new production plant is up and running, the quality control
> work will be carefully documented according to the ISO 9000 standard.
> The documentation will form the fact basis for a long-term statistic
> material that we will use to always stay on top of quality issues.
>
> I would welcome to have the letters that you mention, since all
> comments are valuable to us and help us to detect the problem areas.
>
> I am not sure of the time assigned for the project mentioned in point
> 1. Please let me get back to you about this. The other actions as
> described above are ongoing, and we do not consider them ready until we
> have a satisfactory solution. I wish I could be even more specific, but
> I will keep you informed of how all of these projects are turning out.
>
> Let me know if you have more questions or comments!
>
> Best regards
>
> Gabriella Haglof
> Haglof Sweden AB

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