Abstract: In the manufacture of wood pulp for use in making paper and other wood fiber products, it is first necessary to remove the bark from the logs. While this can be done using a dry process, a wet process offers many advantages. However, one big disadvantage of the wet process has been the inability to economically remove the bark fines from the water used in the wet process. The present invention provides an economical manner of solving this problem by using a rotary vacuum precoat filter equipped with a rotating knife to remove the bark fines from at least a portion of the recirculating water in a wet debarking process and to avoid long range problems with such a process by adding a small amount of finely divided talc to the bark fines suspension prior to filtration.