Raute Gains Panel Repair Orders

Raute Gains Panel Repair Orders

Raute’s latest panel repairing solutions have resulted in orders for panel repair stations and a panel repairing line to be delivered to two customers in North America. The ordered machinery and equipment will be delivered by the end of 2021.

The equipment will be engineered and manufactured mainly in Raute’s production unit in Nastola, Finland. Some work will also take place in Raute’s unit in Vancouver, Can. The machine vision technology for controlling panel repairing will be delivered from Raute’s unit in Kajaani, Finland.

The orders come following Raute’s launch of a new panel repair station and next-generation panel repairing line. Automatic panel repairing increases the cost efficiency of plywood production, ensuring that the final quality of the panels is more uniform and makes it easier to control the various panel grades, according to Raute.

“We have developed and launched new panel repairing solutions to respond to the needs of various customers in the plywood industry,” says Tapani Kiiski, President and CEO of Raute Corp. “Our latest products are an excellent continuation of Raute’s panel repairing technology offering, and they represent a breakthrough in new technology.

“Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, we launched one product virtually just a few months ago. In connection with the launch of our panel repairing solutions, we received nearly simultaneous orders from two customers in North America.”

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Support For Tall Timber Reaches New Heights In ICC Building Code

Prescriptive requirements for wood structures up to 18 stories were among the additions preliminarily approved for the International Building Code following the work of the International Code Council’s ad-hoc Tall Wood Buildings Committee.

Wood is widely recognized as a carbon-neutral building material, but its use as a structural material has been mostly limited to residential and low-rise buildings due to its combustible nature. Through recent advances in manufacturing and engineering, wood in the form of mass timber products is increasingly attracting interest as a structural system for tall buildings.

Portland, Ore., recently saw the completion of the eight-story Carbon12, currently the tallest wood building in the United States. Still, progress has been slow in this country as compared to Europe or Canada, where the 18-story-tall Brock Commons, in Vancouver, stands as the tallest timber structure in the world. One significant issue inhibiting widespread adoption in the U.S. is prescriptive building codes, which currently limit the height of wood buildings to 85 feet, or six stories. In December 2015, the International Code Council (ICC) formed an ad-hoc committee to study the impact of tall wood buildings on the building code with the membership voting on the adoption of proposed changes on Oct. 24.

The ICC’s International Building Code (IBC) classifies a high-rise building as any building with an occupied floor 75 feet above the lowest level at which fire department vehicles can access. The 2018 IBC defines heavy timber structural members as Type IV construction, which also includes a range of wood products, such as solid sawn timber, glue-laminated members, and composite wood members. The term mass timber, however, comprises both heavy timber as well as engineered products, many of which the IBC does not reference, such as cross-laminated timber (CLT).

Heavy timber construction is currently limited to a height of 85 feet. Architects can design taller wood structures, but they must demonstrate that the design meets the prescribed code and performs as well or better than a similar concrete or steel structure. This can be a costly and time-consuming process, requiring extensive testing and documentation on the part of the design team and building owner.

Read more on this from Architect Magazine at https://www.architectmagazine.com/technology/support-for-tall-timber-reaches-new-heights-in-the-building-code_o.

Katerra Acquires Timber Construction Pioneer Michael Green Architecture

Tall timber construction, hyped as one of the next big things in architecture and construction, has slowly gained traction as a small number of multistory projects have started to showcase the possibilities of a more sustainable type of building. A new business deal between a construction startup and a pioneer in tall timber design may help speed up more widespread adoption of this technology.

Earlier this year, Katerra, a Silicon Valley startup focused on the construction industry, received $865 million in funding from the SoftBank Vision Fund, a billion-dollar venture capital firm that has invested in leading startups such as Uber. Katerra has used some of its sizable bankroll to acquire Michael Green Architecture Inc. (MGA), a Vancouver-based firm and one of the pioneers of tall timber construction.

Katerra, which bills itself as a tech firm, has pitched itself as a disruptor in the staid construction industry, suggesting that its innovative technology, and focus on vertically integrating the building process, will allow it to build better, faster, and cheaper than conventional firms.

The acquisition of MGA, the eponymous firm whose founder is considered one of the leaders in tall timber design and architecture, suggests they see wooden buildings as a big part of the solution.

Currently valued at $3 billion, Katerra has built a sizable construction firm since launching in 2015. The Menlo Park, California-based company employs 1,500 people, has booked more than $1.3 billion in new projects, and has constructed an operational facility in Phoenix to manufacture its own material. The company’s goal is to be a one-stop shop, offering design, manufacturing, and construction services.

From Curbed.com: https://www.curbed.com/2018/5/30/17409466/construction-startup-tall-timber-katerra-michael-green

More Record-Level Lumber Prices Expected In 2018 From U.S. Import Duties

In WOOD MARKETS’ new five-year softwood lumber forecast, the continuation of U.S. duties on Canadian lumber exports to the U.S. are expected to cause more short-term market and price volatility. The preliminary duties launched earlier in 2017 rocked the U.S. market and more of the same is expected in 2018. As we predicted one year ago, the headline for last year’s WOOD MARKETS 2017 news release was bang on: “U.S. Import Duties on Canadian Lumber to Cause Market Chaos and Soaring Prices.” Indeed, they did. The WOOD MARKETS 2018 Outlook Report predicts more chaos and the chance of further record-breaking prices.

These details and further analysis of commodity lumber and structural panels was released earlier this week in the report, WOOD MARKETS 2018 – The Solid Wood Products Outlook: 2018 to 2022 by WOOD MARKETS/FEA Canada, Vancouver BC.

The recent announcement of final countervailing (CVD) and anti-dumping (ADD) duties on Canadian lumber exports to the U.S. will cause lumber prices to remain near record levels in 2018 and even higher at various points over the next five years. This is because Canadian exports to the U.S. are forecast to ease in 2018.

“Simply put,” indicated Russ Taylor, Managing Director, WOOD MARKETS/FEA Canada, “by restricting incremental Canadian lumber exports via import duties, there may not appear to be enough lumber supplies to adequately balance with projected U.S. demand. There will need to major increases in U.S. lumber capacity (which is starting to build), more offshore imports, and/or record-level prices to stimulate more supply. The question that we have seen coming for a number of years is: Where will the U.S. get all of the lumber it needs, and at what price?”

The impact of U.S. import duties on Canadian lumber production and exports has been developed from building a cost curve of Canadian producing regions from WOOD MARKETS’ Global Timber/Sawmill/Lumber Cost Benchmarking Report. From this, WOOD MARKETS has overlaid a cross-Canada timber supply availability map with delivered log and sawmill costs to determine which producing regions (and mills) are most impacted by 20.23% (“all-others”) import duties.

Read more on this from International Wood Markets at https://www.woodmarkets.com/news-release-record-level-lumber-prices-expected-2018-u-s-import-duties/.

FraserWood Innovates With High-End Wood Products

Just off the winding Sea to Sky Highway running along the coast from Vancouver to Whistler, B.C., the unique wooden architecture of the Squamish Adventure Centre beckons tourists to stop in.

The building is almost entirely made of wood. The timber roof is shaped like two massive discs jutting out of the center of the structure almost like wings, separating the building into two sections.

The company behind the eye-catching structure is Squamish’s own FraserWood Industries. FraserWood opened its doors to Canadian Forest Industries in early April to show us how they turn cants into strong and beautiful custom timber products at their facility in Squamish, B.C.

The company has been in operation since 1998 when owner Peter Dickson purchased a radio frequency (RF) kiln from his former employer, Canfor. Today the company not only operates two RF kilns to dry massive timbers, but has expanded into custom planing and re-sawing, joinery and CNC milling and glulam.

The bulk of FraserWood’s customers are timber framers, but they also sell to building supply centers and log home builders. With a staff of more than 30 including scientists, engineers and R&D specialists, last year was the most productive in the company’s history, with more than 1.5 million bdft of high-value timber passing through the facility.

From Wood Business: https://www.woodbusiness.ca/sawmilling/mills/fraserwood-innovates-with-high-end-timber-products-4387