by Web Editor | Mar 13, 2017 | News
Building a house, garage or even a shed today isn’t as easy as going to the local lumberyard and buying whatever dimension of wood you need. A lot of emphasis goes into the grade of the wood and its stress and load ratings, according to Everett Brands, manager of Arrow Building Center in Glencoe. Arrow took over the former Fullerton Lumber Center on Desoto Avenue this past October.
Today, main structural pieces, such as headers, consist of LVL, or laminated veneer lumber, an engineered product typically of poplar, fir or pine. It is laminated under heat and pressure with a moisture-resistant resin and it’s stronger than typical native wood. Building codes call for the use of specific lumber grades for specific applications.
“Anything longer than six feet as a header has to be LVL,” Brands said. The LVL products range up to 36 or 48 feet long. While regular lumber could sag or bow under extreme weight, the LVL won’t. Thus LVL is typically used over windows and entries, especially with tall entries.
“We use a lot of engineered products — beams, headers and I-joists,” added Matt Smieja, manager of Simonson Lumber, just outside Hutchinson along State Highway 7 East.
Years ago, when forests were being cut for the first time, the wood tended to be of higher quality as far as grain and knots. But new stands of trees generated are of a lower grade.
From the Hutchinson Leader: https://www.crowrivermedia.com/hutchinsonleader/news/business/engineered-lumber-has-replaced-natural-lumber-in-most-key-building/article_67ee0dc7-e4d8-56c8-932e-9ca668bb40bc.html
by Web Editor | Jan 11, 2017 | News
North American Plywood has launched DesignPly, a new panel offering based on a first of its kind digital staining technology. The highly-automated production incorporates a high-speed wide-array inkjet press engine paired with robotic materials handling for on-load and off-load of materials in process.
Printing direct to substrate, North American Plywood has adapted an Inca Onset high-definition inkjet press into its panel processing system, employing a carefully calibrated digital staining and finishing process.
Employing instantaneous UV curing, the DesignPly system can replicate a variety of wood grain and other patterns to achieve the effect of top-grain veneer species in bookmatch or other patterns, on particleboard, MDF, metal and melamine panel. The DesignPly system can convert plywood into the look of veneer, beaded board, or laminated lumber surfaces, accepting panel sizes up to 63” x 123” and thicknesses up to 2”.
Developed and built in the U.K. and sold by Fuji, the Inca Onset multi-array inkjet press uses three sets of high speed heads to print on surfaces at the rate of 10,000 square feet per hour – roughly 200 5×10-foot sheets per hour. Originally adopted for point-of-purchase prints and store displays, the Inca Onset is being adapted to plywood panel for the first time by North American Plywood.
From Woodworking Network: https://www.woodworkingnetwork.com/news/woodworking-industry-news/high-def-digital-staining-plywood-simulates-fine-bookmatch-anigre?ss=news,news,woodworking_industry_news,news,almanac_market_data,news
by Web Editor | Nov 30, 2016 | News
A new massive plywood building panel developed by an Oregon company and tested at Oregon State University may be the largest such product ever manufactured.
Builders are familiar with standard plywood sheets that measure 4-feet wide, 8-feet long and between a quarter-inch and more than one-inch thick. The new panels made by the Freres Lumber Company of Lyons, Oregon, can be as much 12-feet wide, 48-feet long and 2-feet thick.
The company announced its new panels in October, capping more than a year of development and performance testing at Oregon State’s Advanced Wood Products Laboratory. “The results look very promising,” said Ari Sinha, assistant professor in OSU’s College of Forestry, who oversaw the tests. “This is a unique product with the potential for creating jobs in rural Oregon.”
Versatility is one of the benefits of the product known as a Mass Plywood Panel (MPP). “These panels can be customized for different applications. Because they have very good compression qualities, they could be used for columns as well as panels,” said Sinha. The veneer manufacturing process enables manufacturers to orient wood grain and to distribute the defects found in smaller trees, such as knots, in a way that maintains the strength of the final product, Sinha added.
Tests in Sinha’s lab focused on the panels’ structural and physical properties such as density, adhesive bonding and resistance to the kinds of vertical and horizontal stresses experienced in an earthquake. Additional tests are planned after the first of the year. Mass Plywood Panels can achieve the performance characteristics of a similar product known as Cross Laminated Timber panels with 20 to 30 percent less wood.
From Phys.org: https://phys.org/news/2016-11-prototype-plywood-panels-world-largest.html
