Hurdle Machine Works was founded in 1969 by EJ Hurdle Jr. in Holly Springs, MS when he built his first portable sawmill. After this sawmill was sold and in production, Mr. Hurdle decided to move the operation to Moscow, TN where the company still operates. After the first mill, Corinth carriages and Berry feeds were used until 1979 when Hurdle Machine Works designed its own proprietary feed and began selling new Corinth carriages.
In 1980 the company began selling its own custom carriage coined the Hydra-Air Carriage, and began selling portable sawmill packages containing all Hurdle Machine Works equipment. Continuing to improve upon this design Mr. Hurdle designed the Challenger Carriage (date unknown) and the Challenger II Carriage in 1997. These carriages corrected some of the weaknesses found in their predecessors, and offered more features.
Hurdle Machine Works patented a new vertical edger system in 1990, which allowed the sawyer to easily perform the tasks of two people, in an attempt to reduce the cost of running a mill. Following the same effort, the Hurdle Band Resaw System was released in 2001, which allowed mill operations to save more money by gaining board feet from the center portion of the log, referred to as a cant.
More recently in 2006, Hurdle Machine Works released the Magnum line of carriages which are heavier than their counterparts, and are able to process bigger logs. A scanning system was also released allowing mill operations to gain higher yield from their logs by producing less waste.[1]
Local affiliations
editHurdle Machine Works is a member of the Fayette County Chamber of Commerce, and the Tennessee Forestry Association.
Media attention
editHurdle Machine Works has received attention in local papers several times, but other more notable attention came from Timberline Magazine in 2003[2]
References
edit- ^ Hurdle Machine Works - Our History http://hurdlemachineworks.com/html/history.html
- ^ Tennessee Sawmill Prefers Local Supplier - http://www.timberlinemag.com/articledatabase/view.asp?articleID=894
External links
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