Growing and Harvesting
Atromitos of Costa Rica owns over 2,000 acres (809 hectars) of tree farms in different parts of Costa Rica. That makes us one of the largest tree farmers in Central America. The majority of that acreage is planted in teak.
In addition, Atromitos of Costa Rica has secured the rights to harvest trees on farms owned by other farmers. At the current time, we consistently harvest and haul 3 or 4 tractor-trailer loads of logs to our mills each week.
Although teak is the major wood supplied by Atromitos of Costa Rica, we also produce Melina, Costa Rican Cypress, Black Walnut and Caribbean Pine. This represents an investment of millions of U. S. dollars in renewable tree-growing properties.
Richard Sims, General Manager inspects teak trees nearing maturity. He is joined by Gene Chamber, a famous singing star in Costa Rica.
Atromitos of Costa Rica has also invested hundreds of thousands of U. S dollars in plant and equipment. Everything from tractors, skidders, and forklifts, to pickup trucks, saws and planers. We recently built a processing plant in the Palmar Region, in the southwestern part of Costa Rica, not far from the port city of Golfito.
As the trees mature through the years, the company puts the trees through a continual process of thinning, grading and selecting. In the case of teak, once a mature tree has been cut, it will naturally send up shoots from the stump. The company's forest engineers select the strongest of the shoots and they thin out the weaker stock. As the trees grow, the workers periodically remove the slower growing trees, allowing the strongest trees to achieve larger stem diameters and longer lengths of straight trunks.
Bruno, the super dog, watches as two our the forest engineers measure the diameter of a harvested tree.
Greg - weaker trees thinned Canadian P. E
Production Manager 60 year old farmed teak
When we use the term "tree farm" we mean that literally. Here a worker uses gentle persuasion to convince the cows to get out of the road.
Recently harvest logs waiting to be cut into cants.
Bruno, the super dog, is introduced to a baby lamb. The mother watches Bruno intently to make sure that he has only the best intentions.
Primary Production (The Board Plant)
The first job in harvesting wood, is to select the trees that have grown to marketable size. Once the trees are taken down the logs are trucked to our Primary Processing Plant in the southwestern part of Costa Rica.
The key to the success of Atromitos of Costa Rica is the sorting and grading of the wood. This is done over and over during the production process.
Logs go through one of our cutters. Here the edges of the logs are taken off to form cants.
This is a truck load of Melina logs heading to the Primary Production Plant.
When the logs arrive at our Primary Production Facility in the southwestern part of Costa Rica, they are sorted and selected for quality. The logs are then cut into cants. This is a process where the sides of the logs are removed leaving a thick rectangular shaped board.
These cants are again graded and sorted, and then they are sent through a multiple-rip saw and cut into boards. These boards are graded and sorted once again.
Selecting and grading. Selecting and grading. This is done over and over throughout our production processes.
Richard Sims sits on some recently cut cants.
Stacked Melina boards. Melina a
possible replacement for poplar and is often used for moldings.
Secondary Production (Creating Top-of-the-Line Products)
The boards that survive all the grading and selecting are then trucked to the city of Alajuela, near the San Jose International Airport. Here, Atromitos of Costa Rica shares a mill with the famous Urgelles Company. For those of you who are not from Costa Rica, the Urgelles Company is a 100 year-old company that has long been recognized as the manufacturer of the finest furniture in all of Central America.
When the boards arrive at the Urgelles plant, they are sent to the huge walk-in kiln where they will spend several days. In the kiln, they are dried to under 10% humidy. This ensures the finished product will be stable and will eliminate the possibility of warping or buckling.
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Once the boards are dried, they are graded and selected yet again. The best of the boards are used for our premium products such as floor panels, decking planks and molding pieces. The boards are run through an extraordinarily accurate cutting machine that cuts four sides of the board at the same time. In the case of the floor panels, this is where the precision fitting tongue-and-groove cuts are made. The pieces are then finely sanded, regraded, packaged and then they are ready to be shipped.
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Growing and Harvesting (Silviculture)
Atromitos of Costa Rica owns over 2,000 acres (809 hectars) of tree farms in different parts of Costa Rica. That makes us one of the largest tree farmers in Central America. The majority of that acreage is planted in teak.
In addition, Atromitos of Costa Rica has secured the rights to harvest trees on farms owned by other farmers. At the current time, we consistently harvest and haul 3 or 4 tractor-trailer loads of logs to our mills each week.
Although teak is the major wood supplied by Atromitos of Costa Rica, we also produce Melina, Costa Rican Cypress, Black Walnut and Caribbean Pine. This represents an investment of millions of U. S. dollars in renewable tree-growing properties.
Richard Sims, General Manager inspects teak trees nearing maturity. He is joined by Gene Chamber, a famous singing star in Costa Rica.
Atromitos of Costa Rica has also invested hundreds of thousands of U. S dollars in plant and equipment. Everything from tractors, skidders, and forklifts, to pickup trucks, saws and planers. We recently built a processing plant in the Palmar Region, in the southwestern part of Costa Rica, not far from the port city of Golfito.
As the trees mature through the years, the company puts the trees through a continual process of thinning, grading and selecting. In the case of teak, once a mature tree has been cut, it will naturally send up shoots from the stump. The company's forest engineers select the strongest of the shoots and they thin out the weaker stock. As the trees grow, the workers periodically remove the slower growing trees, allowing the strongest trees to achieve larger stem diameters and longer lengths of straight trunks.
Greg Yeomans from Vancouver Island, Canada, has worked with trees and lumber all his life. Here at one of our teak farms, he marks the weaker trees to be thinned out.
When we use the term "tree farm" we mean that literally. Here a worker uses gentle persuasion to convince the cows to get out of the road.
Bruno, the wonder dog, watches as two our the forest engineers measure the diameter of a harvested tree.
Carlos Zuniga, Production Manager of our Primary Processing Plant posses with 60-year old teak logs.
Recently harvest logs waiting to be cut into cants.
Bruno, the wonder dog, is introduced to a baby lamb. The mother watches Bruno intently to make sure that he has only the best intentions.
Primary Production (The Board Plant)
The first job in harvesting wood, is to select the trees that have grown to marketable size. Once the trees are taken down the logs are trucked to our Primary Processing Plant in Palmar Norte, in the southwestern part of Costa Rica.
The key to the success of Atromitos of Costa Rica is the grading and selecting of the wood. This is done over and over during the production process.
Logs go through one of our cutters. Here the edges of the logs are taken off to form cants.
This is a truck load of Melina logs heading to the Primary Production Plant in the south western part of Costa Rica.
When the logs arrive at our Primary Production plant in the southwestern part of Costa Rica, they are sorted and selected for quality. The logs are then cut into cants. This is a process where the sides of the logs are removed leaving a thick rectangular shaped board.
These cants are again graded and sorted, and then they are sent through a multiple-rip saw and cut into boards. These boards are graded and sorted once again.
Selecting and grading. Selecting and grading. This is done over and over throughout our production processes.
Richard Sims sits with Bruno on some recently cut cants.
Stacked Melina boards. Melina a
possible replacement for poplar and is often used for moldings.
Secondary Production (Creating Top-of-the-Line Products)
The boards that survive all the grading and selecting are then trucked to the city of Alajuela, near the San Jose International Airport. Here, Atromitos of Costa Rica shares a mill with the famous Urgelles Furniture Company. For those of you who are not from Costa Rica, the Urgelles Company is a 100 year-old company that has long been recognized as the manufacturer of the finest furniture in all of Central America.
When the boards arrive at the Urgelles plant, they are sent to a huge walk-in kiln where they will spend several days. In the kiln, they are dried to under 10% humidy. This ensures that the finished product will be stable and will eliminate the possibility of warping or buckling.
A worker at the Urgelles Furniture Company Plant in Alajuela, Costa Rica, checks the temperature and humidity at one of their huge kilns.
Once the boards are dried, they are graded and selected yet again. The best of the boards are used for our premium products such as floor panels, decking planks and molding pieces. The boards are run through an extraordinarily accurate cutting machine that cuts four sides of the board at the same time. In the case of the floor panels, this is where the precision fitting tongue-and-groove cuts are made. The pieces are then finely sanded, regraded, packaged and then they are ready to be shipped.
Skilled workers at the Urgelles Furniture Plant crosscut long boards to cut out defects.
This photo and the two below, show how Atromitos's solid teak floorboards are created.
STEP 1: These are teak boards that have recently been dried in one of the kilns. They are fed, one at a time, into this six-head molding machine.
STEP 2: As the board goes through the molding machine it is simultaneously cut on 4 sides. The board emerges with the exact measurements (in this case the flat surface is 3 inches wide and 5/8 inch thick) and with the precision tongue-and-groove cuts. Each board is also double scored on the bottom to ensure stability once it is laid in place.
STEP 3: Each newly created solid teak floor boards undergoes one of the many inspections where it is graded and selected. The boards that pass the inspection are placed on a pallet ready to be shipped.
Pride in What We Do.
Atromitos of Costa Rica is one of the very few companies in the teak industry that is completely vertically integrated. This means we oversee the process of producing fine wood products from beginning to end; starting with the silviculture (the growing of the trees), to the harvesting, to the primary processing, and then on to the secondary (premium) processing to create our top-of-the-line products.
Then the finished pieces that are not sold in the local market, are exported mostly to the U. S. and Canada. Finally the boards and planks are warehoused at our facility in Ft. Worth, Texas and then distributed to the end users.
Adilia Caracava, our company attorney, is one of the talented professional women who are part of the Atromitos of Costa Rica team.
Atromitos of Costa Rica is also very proud of the contribution that we are making to the Costa Rican economy. Without touching the precious Costa Rican rainforests, we are bringing profitability to property that, in many cases, was once marginal pasture land. We are partnering with local tree farmers. We are making excellent use of the expertise of the many skilled craftsmen who live here in Costa Rica.
We provide employment for many Costa Ricans, especially in rural areas where jobs are scarce. And even though we are a lumber company, not all of our workers are men. Our customer service representative, our accountant, our freight forwarder, and our company attorney are all very talented professional Costa Rican women.
General Manager, Richard Sims, conducts one of the many inspections of our signature tongue-and-groove solid teak floor boards. One of the keys to our success is the process of selecting and grading the boards at every step.
The use of two separate facilities, and a clear two-step production process, creates some very important advantages for Atromitos of Costa Rica. First, it gives us the ability to ramp up production quickly when we enter periods of high demand. Second, it is very efficient, which means that our premium products can be very competitively priced.
And third, each piece of wood is graded and selected, over and over, at every step of the process. That means that everyone is checking everyone else's work. It also means that the products that end up in the hands of the customer are of exceptionally high quality.
Bruno the wonder dog has made it clear to everyone that he believes that the environment must be preserved and the precious Costa Rican rainforests must not be damaged.
When you do business with Atromitos of Costa Rica, you can be confident that you are dealing with a a strong, reliable company that exports thousands of square feet of tropical wood products each month. We have worked long and hard to establish our excellent reputation, and we plan to do everything we can to maintain our good name.