Hueck Engraving LLC was established in York, South Carolina, in September 1999. With this facility, Hueck Engraving, headquartered in Viersen, Germany, is able to offer press plates for the laminating industries in North America without the need for importing them. The York plant is located in the centre of the woodworking industries in the south east of the US.
To serve the worldwide high pressure laminate (HPL) market as well as the North American low pressure laminate (LPL) industry, Hueck’s machinery and technology is designed to produce double- sided as well as single-sided plates.
The company’s production technology consists of the following main processes: printing with etch resist by calender, which has the texture of the natural wood, for example; chemical etching with ferrous chloride to the requested depth of the texture; electro-polishing to match the perfect smoothness of a wood tick; sand blasting to the specified gloss; and chromium plating for high wear resistance and better release characteristics.
Working with the same concept as the mother company in Viersen, the ongoing visual comparison with a socalled master plate, as well as the use of topography measuring instruments and a gloss meter during all production steps ensures the quality of each plate produced, says Hueck LLC.
The York plant is capable of producing plates in the full range from 4ft x 8ft to 5ft x 12ft for the HPL market and from 4ft x 8ft up to 6ft x 18ft for the LPL market. Hueck says this gives it the capability to produce most of the plate sizes required for the flooring business. Plates for HPL production are produced according to the demands of the customer in a broad variety of designs, chromium plated as well as uncoated in stainless steel AISI 410 or AISI 630.
LPL plates or plates for short-cycle presses are delivered hard chromium plated to customer specification. For the flooring market it is of special interest that Hueck Engraving offers not only new plates but also refinishing and refurbishing in York.
As press cycle times of short-cycle presses are reduced more and more, and the number of pressings per day increases, the plates need to be serviced more often to maintain the high quality standard of the market. Hueck is calling these special services ‘Refinishing’ and ‘Refurbishing’.
Refinishing needs to be done if the plate does not have even gloss over the whole surface. The process involves removing the chromium layer, electro-polishing the texture, sand-blasting it to the right gloss level and chromium plating once more.
After this process the plate can be reintroduced into production like a new plate, the only difference being a slightly flatter texture. This can be done two to three times before a plate has to be refurbished.
Refurbishing needs to be done when the depth of the texture is not deep enough for refinishing. The process contains all the major steps involved in producing a new plate, but instead of using a new steel plate the steel from the old plate is used after the texture has been sanded off. This process can be carried out until the plate thickness is reduced to an amount where its stiffness is affected.
By offering this kind of service locally, says Hueck, its customers don’t need to send their plates out of the country to Europe any more. The number of plates per design that a customer needs can be reduced by the fact that the service cycle time is shorter, with obvious savings in time and money.
Together with the technical support from the mother company in Viersen, especially when it comes to new designs which have to be developed together with its customers, Hueck Engraving USA LLC claims it can be a strong partner for the laminating industry now and in the future.

Weyerhaeuser Company’s new US$80m Louisiana particleboard line at Simsboro, near Ruston, Louisiana, is in successful start-up after 16 months’ construction work. Classified as a modernisation, it amounts to the newest particleboard plant in the US. The product is called Ultra Pine.
The line’s capacity is more than 240,000 million ft2 annually, more than doubling that of the old mill started in 1971. On the environmental front, water consumption has been cut by 10% and air emissions limited, despite the doubled production.
Most of the work was accomplished under the previous owner, Willamette Industries, which was recently absorbed by Weyerhaeuser. But the near-flawless start-up is under the Weyerhaeuser flag. Manufacturing space is 510,000ft2.
General manager Darrell Keeling explained the background: “We started thinking about replacing this mill three years ago. The ultimate decision was to build a new particleboard mill in Carolina and rebuild here. One of the big things was the rail service and the people here. The east-west line that comes by the plant is one of the major southern main lines.”
He continued: “The main focus was to replace the old multi-opening press with the most modern technology we could buy and that was the continuous press. We wanted to be as automated as possible. The old plant had a lot of forklift handling which could result in product damage. The Lukki system took care of that.”
One goal was to provide customers with any desired size panel. With the previous 16ft multi-opening press they had been rather restricted. If a customer wanted a 12ft panel, a four foot tail was left. Now they cut a 24ft without loss.
All the mill’s production is sawn to order. Weyerhaeuser’s sales department, located in Fort Mill, South Carolina, handles sales for all particleboard and MDF and sends a weekly schedule to the mills. Locally, the schedule is optimised by master panel size yielding the least waste. The orders are input into the system to be filled at the saw.
Project manager Martin Elshout outlined: “The production line has a press operator, a line utility, and a couple of labourers for clean-up. Two people can run it from blending to the stacker. Most of the crew of 21 works in the finish end, taking panels from the saw and strapping.
“We are shipping up to 1,000 miles, but our primary target is going to be the Mississippi and Ohio valleys, and the upper Midwest. The Indiana furniture market has been one of our best markets,” he said.
The board properties are similar to the old mill’s, but the board can be four or five pounds lighter with reduced density. Instead of a 49lb or 50lb board, the line can run a 44lb or 45lb board.
Mr Elshout explained: “The continuous press technology and continuous line enables us to do that. Even though the board will be lower density we will still be able to make, or exceed, the same performance criteria as the old line. We’re just doing it with less density because of the consistency.”
Willamette engineers planned out all the concepts and equipment selection. Final engineering was accomplished by Mid-South Engineering Co, Hot Springs, Arkansas, with project management by Willamette’s Bob Duhé.
Blending, forming, pressing, sanding and sawing is all new along with two new core dryers. With some modifications, the mill maintained its hammermills, and screening room, which were moved to the new building.
Half the incoming shavings and sawdust originates in Weyerhaeuser sawmills and the rest comes from the market.
In the old mill installation trucks had to unhook from their trailers to unload, but the new Phelps truck dump handles both as a unit. Formerly, raw materials were stored outside, but a new building provides cover from the elements.
A Cat 950G front-end loader moves material from storage to the Pal roller screen to pull out the acceptable fines which go straight to the face dryer. Face overs are hammermilled. Core accepts go to the steam bin while overs are processed in a Jeffrey hog before steaming in a stainless steel vessel to soften them before refining in two Andritz 2,500hp units. There are four such refiners.
Flaps under the screen are adjustable to balance core and face material leaving the screen. All the silos are SHW. The mill has one screen for core refining and another for face refining. All the incoming plywood trim goes into core. “We don’t want ply trim in the face,” said Mr Elshout.
Part of the rebuild was the addition of a small Clayton 10,000lb/hour gas-fired steam generator, which replaced a much larger 30,000lb/hour steam boiler.
Green sawdust is pre-dried down to 25% moisture content in a Westec triple pass dryer before joining the dry shavings and final drying. Dry core material drops into the 80-unit dry core bin, ready for the blenders. Dry face material is transported in a high pressure blower system to a 60- unit face bin. Westec silos are installed.
Exhaust fans over the press and board cooler pull air into a duct to the four dryers and then to the Geo Energy RCO. This can be by-passed directly to the RCO.
“We considered separate systems from the press and the dryers but we didn’t really want to recirculate the gases out of our dryers. We did this to cut down on the sheer size of the RCOs. We have about 300,000ft3/minute capacity through our RCOs,” said Mr Elshout.
The mill has two face and two core resin tanks and tanks for urea, wax, and catalyst. Dynea currently supplies the resins.
Dosing heads on the top level feed through the bins into the Imal blenders where the resin, wax, urea and water mix on through the blenders. Injection screws add sander dust in the blender just after resin is added. This is mainly for the faces. None of the sander dust is burned. Then it’s on to the Metso Classiformer line.
The forming line, pre-press and press are all Dieffenbacher. The 10ft-wide 28- frame press is 36m long, operating at 410°F to 420°F, heated by thermal oil. Ten pumps circulate thermal oil, leaving the heat exchanger at 475°F, through 10 heating platens. Two main steel belts run on 9,000 rolling rods.
An automatic GreCon unit on the offbear side continuously monitors densities of the two surfaces and core with an Imal blow detector and thickness gauge also on-line. Automatic saws cut to master panel lengths.
Average thickness will probably be somewhat less than 5/8in. “The thinner board runs better on a continuous press and I think in good market conditions we’ll push for the thinner product,” Mr Elshout predicted.
The new continuous line means greater consistency. On the old multi-opening line, panels came out of the press at 0.06in to 0.10in over nominal thickness, while 0.02in is average on the new line. This means real material savings.
And thickness is more consistent across the board. Any inconsistencies would be quite apparent when thin paper overlays are employed in final board use.
Corvallis Tool (CTC), made the transport equipment from the blow detector to the offbear side of the grading and stacker.
Pressing, sanding, sawing is the normal manufacture order. The sanding line is Metso with an Imeas sander followed by an Imeas cross-belt sander. The cross-belt is Imeas’ first for wood products.
The tracked Lukki system handles stacks on steel pallets. It automatically moves bundles around, remembering their location and contents. The carrier has a 50,000lb capacity and receives its computer instructions from a radio antenna in the centre of the storage area. Metso furnished the computers.
At the computer Mr Elshout described the Lukki operation: “It shows me size, thickness, and number of pieces. If I want to know when it was produced, I can come here and I’ll have the production date and when stacking started. That particular bundle is 5/8in. It shows what time we started sanding it and what time we finished.”
The computers are located in the sanding and saw control rooms. Either of these operators may order the board they want.
Every pallet has its own code which applies to the Schelling book saw. The Schelling orders boards and cuts them for the final product, after which new bar codes are applied. The Schelling handles books 81/4in thick. The line is followed by three stacking stations and two automatic strapping lines.
Flamex fire detection is installed throughout the system and there are two water ponds for fire emergencies.
Shipping is evenly divided between rail and truck with major markets in the US South and Midwest. Indiana, Ohio, Arkansas and Texas are important.
Mr Elshout said the project had an excellent construction safety rate. “Our employees have really done a good job. Being part of the new project and continuing to run the old plant was a major challenge. We have a training centre in the front office. The first step was to get many of our veteran employees computer-literate. We wrote job manuals for the new equipment and many vendors helped with the training.”

Business is changing even for one of the newer particleboard mills in the US; Temple Inland’s, in the optimistically named town of Hope, Arkansas, in the US Southeast. And Hope has another claim to fame, as the ubiquitous signs emphasise. It is one of the former home towns of ex US President Bill Clinton.
Temple, a Texas-based company with four other particleboard plants, built the mill in 1996. Mid-South Engineering designed the mill and was the main construction contractor.
Temstock is the industrial grade product’s trade name.
This was based a good deal on purchased 15% moisture content southern yellow pine planer shavings. “But with the supplying mills focusing on yield in their processes, we’re seeing smaller fibre size to work with,” said Ron Tews, plant manager.
He continued: “Our supply is somewhat seasonal. During the wet winter months the supply side falls short of the demand curve. This time of year there is more material than we need.”
Temple has covered storage for 10,000 tons of material at 16% moisture content.
The mix is made mostly of dry planer shavings with a maximum of 30% green sawdust. A pre-dryer brings the sawdust down to 15% to 18%, according to Mr Tews, who explained that sawdust is limited mainly because of bark contamination. He doesn’t see the bark as a physical problem, more a cosmetic one.
He went on: “Other sources of wood fibre are a possibility, although we haven’t come to any definite alternatives. We’re evaluating, analysing, and using our applied research centre in Diboll, Texas. We have small scale prototypes of different material mixes.”
The bulk of Hope’s raw material comes from a 50-mile radius, delivered from such company sawmills as Weyerhaeuser, International Paper and Potlatch. Their mills generate more than they can use internally. The Hope mill also buys from other companies and private sawmill operators.
Production manager Wayne Hargraves, a 25-year particleboard veteran, leads us through the process.
The raw material is all southern yellow pine shavings with a 15% moisture content maximum. Trucks are weighed in and out with gross, net, and tare weight recorded. Payment is by tonnage.
From twin Phelps truck dumps the material is moved into the raw materials storage building with a capacity of 10,000 to 12,000 tons. A Volvo front-end loader moves it to Acrowood shaker screens. Overs, of more than 5/8in, go to a Bliss hog and back to a shaker screen. From there, core and face material is segregated. A metal detector is also installed in this flow.
From the milling area, the raw material goes to the green and dry SHW silos, which provide a surge capacity of 40 to 50 tons. Face stock goes to six Bliss hammer-mills and four Sprout-Waldron 1,250hp refiners from where it is blown to dry metering bins ahead of the dryers. The dry silo holds 40 to 50 tons – about 45 minutes of operating material.
Temple has conventional three-pass M-E-C dryers, a face dryer, core dryer, and a swing dryer that can handle either, but is mainly used for core. A McConnell sander dust burner is used as a heat source.
The dried material is conveyed to SHW dry silos from where it is conveyed to an Imal blending system, introducing Borden resin and wax, and to the Schenck forming line.
An air former lays the faces while a mechanical former lays down the core.
The mat proceeds to an hydraulic hot oil heated Washington Iron Works 10-opening 9ft x 25ft screen caul press where, for example, 3/4in panels are pressed for 310 seconds at 325°F. The big press produces 2,250ft2 in a single charge. The oil is heated in an M-E-C McConnell wood burner. “At the right moisture content, it doesn’t take much wood dust to make a good fire,” said Mr Hargraves.
Average thickness produced is 5/8in with a 11/8in maximum, but 1/2in production is increasing.
Offbearing panels spend 20 to 30 minutes in an 80-board cooler. The company sands before sawing and the panels proceed directly to the Steinemann eight-head, 9ft sander. The panels can be rough-stacked ahead of the sander.
Next comes the extensive Schelling book saw installation. The 9ft line provides the versatility to produce both 5ft- and 4ftwide stock and Temple is producing about an even mix between the two. Mr Tews sees a significant advantage in this, saying: “So far this year we have not experienced market down time like a number of 4ft plants.”
A Globe jumbo stacker handles large panel storage.
Allen Bradley PLCs are used throughout the mill. Direct computer communication is available to most of the equipment suppliers for remote troubleshooting.
There is an increasing amount of production to order. The mill ships (evenly divided between truck and rail) mainly to a 300 mile radius for such products as RTA (ready to assemble) furniture and kitchen cabinet products. Some goes to laminated products.
The mill operates four shifts, seven days a week, with 129 employees, all salaried. Employment policies guarantee a high-quality workforce. They have a quite strong testing regimen in basic maths, reading skills, and mechanical aptitude.
Mr Hargraves said: “The more jobs that you know and can demonstrate, the higher the opportunity for more income. We are definitely one of the higher paying employers in this area. We pay more, but we expect more.”
The company has on-the-job training for advancement.
“We operate with what we call CPI, continuous process improvement,” said Mr Tews. All employees are in one team or another pursuing improvement in their processes. It’s part of our daily routine.
The plant occupies 52 acres on a 142-acre site with 290,000ft2 under roof. It’s an interesting site, a World War II ammunition storage area that was thoroughly checked before construction. A few ammunition bunkers have been left intact.
The plant’s design capacity is 208 million ft2, 3/4in basis with a state air quality permit for 220 million. “Proactively, we gained the best technology,” Mr Tews said, We have RTO and wet ESP lines.”

The Del-Tin Fiber MDF plant near El Dorado in southern Arkansas, an imposing installation, is gradually working its way up to its full 150 million ft2 annual production of its trade marked Solidium board. Currently it produces at about 80%, running four shifts on a seven-day week with a total workforce of 122, including office staff.
This is a joint venture between Deltic Timber and Temple Inland. It provides a market for Deltic’s residues which supplies nearly half the plant’s raw material from its sawmills.
The original mill study was done by Mid-South Engineering, Hot Springs, Arkansas from the ground up, which also negotiated the joint venture as well as engineering the mill. Mid-South had worked with both Temple Inland and Deltic Timber for many years.
The other half of the raw material comes from International Paper (I-P) and Weyerhaeuser mills, other sawmills, and some chip mills. It all comes from within a 100-mile radius. Another wood residue company provides fuel for the heat energy plant.
The mill began production on southern yellow pine sawdust and chips, but is now running entirely on chips. The sawdust contributed heavily to dryer loads and drying is running at full capacity. There just isn’t capacity to pre-dry sawdust.
The raw material enters at a truck dump and goes out to the Finnish BMH stacker and reclaimer in outside storage. Another dump is dedicated to fuel – a mixture of pine and hardwood bark, and ground-up pallets. This is supplemented with green sawdust. Ground-up board trim also goes for fuel. General and plant manager Gary Griffis explained: “We shut off the sawdust. We’re much more consistent as a result today.”
Material entering the mill crosses BM&M shaker screens, separating material into fuel fines, overs and acceptable. Segregated material feeds into silos. Two augers meter out of the chip silo into face and core infeed conveyors. Metal detectors are located at both the truck dump and conveyors feeding into the refiners.
Chips go into a pre-steaming bin and then to the digesters and Andritz 8,000-hp 60in refiners. Emphasis has been on additional refining to provide a much more consistent fibre and, consequently, more homogeneous boards, and a high quality board. There is a parallel operation for face and core. Standard Borden UF resin is injected into the blow line with an atomizing nozzle just beyond the refiners. A scavenger system dilutes the resin and reduces formaldehyde emissions.
Dosed fibre is blown to the two-stage M-E-C face and core dryers. The first stage dries material to an 18 - 20% moisture content while the second takes it down to 12 - 14%. The first stage is heated by a Callidus heat plant, the second by hot oil from a heat exchanger served by off-gases from the Callidus plant. GreCon meters monitor moisture content, about 12%, after the second stage dryer.
Heat is captured all along the line. Fuel is hogged and goes to a mixing bin in the Callidus system where it is split between two kilns. A plug screw forces fuel into the feed end of these kilns, the goal being to gasify the fuel as it moves toward the flame front.
Off-gases containing the gasified fuel leave through ducts which feed into the large, secondary combustion chamber which is a big cross-over loop towering above the mill.
“At that point,” explained Mr Griffis, “we hit it with fresh air, providing oxygen. Then we get the combustion that produces the heat for our various uses.” However, this is supplemented with natural gas burners.
As the heat comes down the big duct it passes through an air-to-air heat exchanger. The introduced air comes from the press enclosure which includes formaldehyde fumes eliminated in the process. This air stream feeds the dryers from where the exhaust air passes through a recuperator – another air-to-air heat exchanger. The oxygen introduced into the Callidus system is the dryer exhaust.
As Mr Griffis pointed out: “We’re totally utilising and destroying all of our emissions through almost a triple pass.”
The flue gas stream headed toward the stack passes through a boiler making steam and then through the hot oil heat exchanger. The boiler produces steam for refining and turbines running some pumps/fans, and also hot oil for the second- stage dryer and the press. As the flue gases continue, they pass through an electrostatic precipitator.
All this isn’t easy. The dryer operator, in controlling moisture content, must have a constant supply of heat and the Callidus system must run consistently.
One operator has computerised control of the heat plant. The wood yard, refining and dryers are controlled by one operator, as is the forming and press line. All three are located in one control room. Each has a support person out in the mill. Entering the Schenck forming system, the material dumps into separate face and core forming bins. These feed into an air sifter that removes particles, resin spots, resin chunks or fibre balls too big to go through the press.
Mr Griffis explained: “At that point we enter our heating and humidification system where we heat the air stream and also inject steam to help increase fibre temperature and control moisture again. The material goes to the infeed cyclone which dumps the fibre onto infeed conveyors. These are parallel systems.”
The face infeed cyclone has a diverter to split face material between top and bottom faces. Core material goes to the core infeed cyclone and this dumps onto the core infeed conveyor. These three infeed conveyors go to a Schenck swivel-belt conveyor that lays the fibre into the forming bin, distributing it evenly across the width. Out of the forming bin the material goes through Schenck mechanical formers which distribute the fibre evenly through the forming line belts. There are three formers: bottom face, core, and top face.
Each former has a weight scale and GreCon moisture meters on the core and top face. The mat goes through a Schenck 1900 PLI pre-compressor then another metal detector to protect the press, adjustable trim saws and Grecon density gauge. Next is a reject opening through which a mat can be recycled at full line speed out to the core forming bin. All this is automatic except for changing line width by moving the saws in and out. The Schenck line was supplied by Dieffenbacher.
The mats transfer to the 9ft wide, 38m long, Küsters continuous press equipped with automatic chain guides. It can press material from l/8in to 1in. Del-Tin runs from 7/32in to 7/8in. Berndorf of Austria supplied the continuous steel belts.
Entering temperature is about 415°F and maximum pressure is 750psi per frame. The 65 frames can be controlled independently. Each has a pressure pot row with nine 10in diameter cylinders across the press’ width. These provide the pressure. On top of it is the hot oil heating platten. On top of this is a multitude of small roller chains transferring the heat from heating platen to the stainless steel belt then to the mat in the middle. On the top is another steel belt, roller chain and heating platen. Heat can be changed by zone, while pressure can be changed per frame.
“If you are running something requiring higher density you put on a lot of pressure in the infeed,” said Mr Griffis. “If you’re running thicker boards, you go further into the press before you apply higher pressures.
“Küsters is the only press with these small roller chains which provide much more flexibility in the product mix because of heat transfer.” Del-Tin selected the press because of its ability to run thin boards with higher and more uniform heat transfer across the mat, he explained.
“The idea in pressing a mat is that you have to keep it in there long enough to cure it,” Mr Griffis explained. “That’s getting the centre of the mat to 212°F to remove the water, turn it to steam and then you have your mat cured. That happens around frame 40 or so. Then you begin to adjust the thickness on your board. The thinner you get, press dwell time is shorter. You can run your press faster.”
Next are two Dieffenbacher flying cutoff saws. Leaving that area the pressed panels go through a thickness gauge. “We try to keep thickness variation across the panel to plus or minus three or four thousandths [of an inch],” said Mr Griffis. “You don’t want the sander removing any more material than absolutely necessary.”
The outfeed side was supplied by Metso. Three star coolers allow the board to cool with some post-curing. Panels are then automatically stacked and can go directly to the sander or to the Lukki storage area. The Lukki is an automatic retrieval system. This computerised overhead hoist on rails uses steel pallets. It puts a stack into one of 54 cells and logs the products’ ID, thickness, width and length into the database. When the sander is ready for that particular product, providing the sander is not running behind the line, the operator types in a request and the Lukki goes out, picks it up and takes it to the sander.
It does the same for the large Schelling book saw system, but this can run independently.
It cuts lengthwise first, then rips and cross-cuts, feeding to two stacking lines. The computerised priority for the Lukki is press first, then sander and the saws third.
The sanding line was by Metso, except for the sander itself, a Kimwood eight-head, nine foot wide sander that has primary and secondary sections. The primary’s job is to remove most of the bulk and, secondary, is the finishing sander producing a desired finish up to 150-grit. This is the largest sander ever built by Kimwood and is followed by a Kimwood cross-belt sander which finishes and removes lengthwise marks. It produces a finish similar to 180- grit belt. The operator’s cab also houses the grader who will send to one of two grade bins: A or B. Strapping is by Signode. Some 5% to10% of shipping is railed. The rest is truck shipped.