De Smidt’s Timbers – Picket fences, Dunnages, Crates & more!

De Smidt’s Timbers situated in the Vaal is a family run sawmill with a difference.

With products ranging from firewood, braaiwood, pallets, new and second hand. Wendy houses can be custom built to a clients specifications, packing crates, picket fences, treated poles, you name it, and it has to do with wood, they do it!

A passion for trees, the environment and wood is what drives the owner Wentzel De Smidt and his family to provide the best possible service and timber related products possible.

Picket fences:

There is a reason that the Picket fence became synonymous with the American Dream. it is the perfect complement to almost any home and a symbol of middle-class domesticity and contentment. A wooden fence made of spaced uprights connected by two or more horizontal rails.

How many times has one heard the frase: “We’ll get a house with a white picket fence, a dog and have two kids!”

According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the term “picket” originates (in 1690) from the French “piquet,” from the verb “piquer,” meaning “to pierce,” hence the pointed shape of the picket. Once used as a weapon, the picket also helped form a barrier to demarcate and perhaps defend their land. New World colonists installed fences of rough pickets, bare or painted white. In the 19th century, mass production made fence parts cheaper and fancier, and the picket fence became fashionable from New England to Key West!

Crating:

A container, such as a slatted wooden case, box or framework used for packing, storing or shipping. A container, usually of plastic, metal, or wood, used to house or transport goods. Then  a bit of useless information: The word crate is also used in slang  to discribe an old rickety vehicle, especially a decrepit automobile or aircraft. “Oh look!” “They’re still driving around in that old crate!”

Dunnage:

Dunnage bags are also known as airbags, aircushions and inflatable bags are used to secure and stabilize cargo.

Introduced around 1970, dunnage bags provide convenient and cost-effective cargo stabilization in ISO sea containers, closed railcars, trucks, and oceangoing vessels.

Dunnage Poles and Sawdust Bags.

A sawdust bag, is a bag that gets filled with sawdust and then sealed. It can handle weight of up to 30 tons per bag. The purpose of a dunnage bag is to prevent painted steel work from chaffing and in so doing prevents scratches on the paint work.
Put plainly, dunnage is inexpensive or waste material used to load and secure cargo during transportation; more loosely, it refers to miscellaneous baggage, brought along during travel.

Definition of dunnage: Loose materials used to support and protect cargo in a ship’s hold also or padding in a shipping container.

To find out more about De Smidt’s Timbers, their products or just to obtain some advice about timber and timper products, visit www.vaalsawmills.co.za.