Uniboard Announces Capital Investment At Quebec Plant

Uniboard is proud to announce an investment of over $29 million at its Sayabec plant. Two major investments being announced today at Sayabec are an innovative wood fiber mat-preheating unit to expand capacity in particleboard line 2, as well as a new short-cycle thermally fused laminate press adding capacity for high-end surface structures and finishes.

Both investments will allow Uniboard to increase productivity and improve its product offering and service to our customer base in Canada and the United States. The announced investments will be implemented in early 2016. The particleboard investment will continue to position the Uniboard Sayabec facility as one of North America’s preferred particleboard producers while the thermally fused laminate investment further confirms Uniboard’s leadership and innovation position in the North American laminate arena. Both investments will strengthen Uniboard’s overall network of particleboard, MDF and thermally fused laminate facilities that are located in Sayabec, Val-d’Or, Mont-Laurier and Laval, Quebec. Uniboard employs a skilled workforce of 380 at its Sayabec site and over 800 people within the entire corporation.

Since its original start-up as Panval in 1982, Uniboard’s Sayabec plant has seen a series of investment and expansion steps leading to today’s highly integrated mega site with 2 particleboard lines and 4 high speed short-cycle thermally fused laminate (TFL) presses.  In 2012, Uniboard further solidified its position in the industry when it was acquired by the owners of Kaycan Ltd., a leading manufacturer of building products in North America, with its head office located in Montreal, Quebec. The Kaycan group of companies offers a full range of products for both the exterior and interior of the home, including vinyl, aluminium and engineered wood siding products, PVC windows and patio doors, particleboard, MDF, thermally fused laminate and laminate flooring.

From PR Newswire: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/uniboard-to-invest-into-particleboard-capacity-expansion-and-a-new-thermally-fused-laminate-tfl-line-at-its-sayabec-plant-515009931.html

Luxor Begins Manufacturing Architectural Wood Products For Woodtone Industries

Luxor Begins Manufacturing Architectural Wood Products For Woodtone Industries

googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-1548376180744-0'); });

Luxor Industrial Corporation is pleased to announce that it has commenced manufacturing architectural wood products for Woodtone Industries based in Chilliwack, British Columbia. Luxor has received orders for 788 units of knee-braces and 400 units of corbels.

Typically these products used in residential construction are manufactured from lumber; Luxor is using engineered wood products, namely glulam beams. Luxor has developed an expertise in fabricating engineered wood products for uses in wood frame construction and now is utilizing this expertise to fabricate architectural wood products. Following initial shipments, Woodtone has been very pleased with the quality of products manufactured.

Manufacturing products for use in residential construction is important to the company. Cash flow from these products, which include architectural wood products, precision end trimmed wall studs and patented IBS 2000 and patent pending IBS3000 floor engineered bridging, account for two-thirds of the company’s overheads.

Luxor continues to do research and development on new products and will keep shareholders advised on existing activities and progress on new products.

From GlobeNewswire: globenewswire.com.

 

googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-1548375988914-0'); });

Latest News

Spearhead Announces New Glulam Plant

Spearhead, a Nelson, BC-based family-owned timber fabricator, is investing $60 million in a new production facility housing a specialized glulam manufacturing line and advanced CNC machining technology. With construction already begun, the new facility sits…

Ashlee Cribb To Lead Gorman Group

Following the announcement from current CEO Nick Arkle of his intent to retire more than a year ago, the Board and ownership group of Gorman Group has named Ashlee Cribb its next Chief Executive Officer.…

Rayonier Announces Wood Products Leadership Transition

Rayonier Inc. has announced that Ashlee Townsend Cribb has resigned as Executive Vice President, Wood Products to accept a CEO opportunity with a privately-owned, specialty wood products manufacturer that Rayonier does not consider to be…

googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-1589916740199-0'); });

Find Us On Social

googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-1548376916922-0'); });
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-1548376961890-0'); });
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-1548377005333-0'); });
Newsletter

The monthly Panel World Industry Newsletter reaches over 3,000 who represent primary panel production operations.

Subscribe/Renew

Panel World is delivered six times per year to North American and international professionals, who represent primary panel production operations. Subscriptions are FREE to qualified individuals.

Advertise

Complete the online form so we can direct you to the appropriate Sales Representative. Contact us today!

APA Outlook: Industry Expects Increasing Demand For Engineered Wood Products

APA – The Engineered Wood Association has released its 2015 Market Outlook report.

Similar to 2014, extremely harsh weather caused home building to stall in the eastern half of the U.S. during the first quarter of 2015. However, with mortgage rates below 4 percent, new home sales rose 9 percent versus the fourth quarter of 2014, an indication that new home demand is improving. Brighter employment prospects for young adults is leading them to head out on their own, adding to the strength in the demand for new apartment buildings. These forces point to the recovery in residential construction getting back on track in the second half of this year.

“The biggest changes in the economic environment since a year ago are the strength of the U.S. dollar, the drop in oil and gasoline prices, and efforts by central bankers to stimulate their economies by driving down long-term interest rates,” said Joe Elling, market research director for APA. “This mix of events is likely to support lower interest rates in the U.S. than what was expected a year ago at this time. We are still in an unprecedented situation with respect to Federal Reserve policy though, and I remain concerned about the ability of the Fed to return its balance sheet to a more normal state without a major disruption in financial markets here and abroad.”

Critical to the strength in the demand for new housing is the ability of young adults to have the economic wherewithal to be on their own and, ultimately, to be able to own a home. Despite very favorable affordability conditions from a monthly standpoint, tight lending standards and heavy student debt burdens are constricting that group’s home-buying power. These conditions are expected to persist through the rest of the decade; thus, as housing starts return to their anticipated 1.5 million level by 2018-2019, multifamily starts are expected to account for roughly 36 percent of the total.

Housing starts in Canada totaled just over 198,000 units in 2014. Canada did not experience a housing bubble like the U.S did, but, similar to the States, multifamily unit structures are accounting for a greater share of new residential construction compared to 10 years ago. The forecast calls for starts in Canada to run in the 180,000-190,000 unit range, with multifamily units accounting for around 40 percent of the starts.

From APA – The Engineered Wood Association: https://www.apawood.org/market-outlook-2015

Empire State Building Re-Engineered In Wood

Tall wood buildings proponent and famed architect Michael Green teamed with Finnish timber and panel maker Metsä Wood to redesign the iconic Empire State Building in timber frame construction.

Part of Metsä Wood’s Plan B campaign to educate the public on the importance of wood in construction, the company says that wood should always be considered as a serious option in everything from design to construction and also in buildings in which wood hasn’t been previously used. The Plan B campaign re-engineers famous buildings – another project redid the Roman Coliseum – using engineered beams and panel instead of steel, stone and concrete. Metsä produces laminated veneer lumber – LVL – among many other high-strength wood construction lumber and panel products.

Green and his architectural design firm MGA created the design and construction plans for the wooden version of the Empire State Building.

“We designed a skyscraper using Metsä Wood’s Kerto LVL engineered wood as the main material from floors to column spacing,” Green said. “I believe that the future belongs to tall wooden buildings. Significant advancements in engineered wood and mass timber products have created a new vision for what is possible for safe, tall, urban wood buildings. The challenge now is to change society’s perception of what’s possible. In fact, this is the first new way to build a skyscraper in the last 100 years.”

From Woodworking Network: https://www.woodworkingnetwork.com/iconic-empire-state-building-gets-wood-makeover?ss=news,woodworking_industry_news

PFS Corporation And TECO Merge

PFS Corp. and Timberco, Inc. (TECO), two third-party certification agencies that have been linked for almost 25 years, have merged as of May 1, the company said in the press release received by Lesprom Network.

On May 1, 2015, Jim Husom, President and CEO of PFS Corporation, and Steve Winistorfer, President and CEO of TECO, signed papers merging the two companies. In announcing the merger, Jim Husom commented, “This merger combines what have been two well-respected and successful companies into one; and as one, we’ll be able to provide even more effective and efficient service to our existing clients and grow our business more than we could individually.”

The two companies together provide certification and testing services for more than a dozen different building products, including engineered wood products like LVL, I-joists, and glued laminated timber; plus SIPs (structural insulated panels), OSB (oriented strand board), softwood and hardwood plywood, metal plate connected wood trusses, adhesives, pre-cast concrete panels, hearth products, and construction fasteners for approximately 500 manufacturing plants.

Their testing laboratories, located in Wisconsin and Oregon, perform a variety of structural tests, durability tests, formaldehyde emissions tests, and some fire tests. The PFS Manufactured Structures Division provides design approval and factory inspections to over 120 HUD Code and modular building factories in 39 states and Canada.

From Lesprom Network: https://www.lesprom.com/en/news/PFS_Corporation_and_TECO_merge_67829/