Asmall, government-owned sawmill beside the Oujiang river in Lishui, Zhejiang Province, formed the foundation for the Lishui Oak company in the early 1980s.
In the middle of that decade, it turned its attention to the panel industry with the construction of a wet-process fibreboard (hardboard) line.
In 1988, changes were made to that line to turn it into a dry process fibreboard (MDF) facility, equipped with a Chinesemade multi-opening press.
A second MDF line, from Shanghai Wood Based Panel Machinery Co Ltd (SWBPMC), followed in the mid-90s.
“After two or three years, this line was running well; and the MDF industry was growing fast,” recalled the general manager of Lishui’s new continuous Dieffenbacher line, Mr Wang Guoshu. “Thus, in 1998, we started to build another four lines, two in Zhejiang Province and two in Fujian. These were again multi-opening lines from SWBPMC.
“In around 2000, we built another three multi-opening lines in Fujian Province and, in 2002, another similar line in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province.
“Then, in June 2002, we signed the contract with Dieffenbacher for our first continuous press line for MDF.”
The first board from this line was produced on August 5, 2003, the company having built a complete new factory on a 150,000m2 greenfield site on the outskirts of Lishui city in just over a year. This was in spite of the fact that a lot of rock had to be brought in, and piles driven, on this lowlying site close to the river.
However, this is not the latest line for the company; also in 2003, it started up another multi-opening line from SWBPMC, with locally made chipping equipment and an Andritz refiner. This time the line was located in Shanghai. The wood raw material for this line is waste wood from the greater Shanghai area and Mr Wang believes his company was the first to use such material to make MDF in China.
During this period of rapid development, the company also became privately owned by a group of investors in 1993, of which the principle shareholder is company chairman Mr Xu Meng Zhang.
The whole Lishui continuous line project was split into six contracts, with Dieffenbacher supplying everything from the dryer to the finishing line, GTS Energy of America the energy generation plant, Andritz the refiner, Steinemann the sander and Anthon the cut-to-size system. On-the line quality control and spark detection/ extinguishing systems were from GreCon.
In fact, at the time of my visit in early March, the GreCon system had stopped a fire the previous night, with the factory and line sustaining no damage.
Dieffenbacher also had the overall responsibility for coordinating all the plant suppliers for the line.
The 50,000m2 log yard holds the stock of raw material, which is about 60% Mason pine and 40% hardwood, including beech and eucalyptus among other species, all in log form from local plantations. “We do not use bought-in chips because we cannot control the quality,” explained Mr Wang.
Chipping was supplied by Andritz Oy of Finland which also designed the debarker, although it was manufactured in China.
The Schenkmann & Piel-designed dryer is followed by a sifter from the same division of Dieffenbacher. The GTS Energy system was the first such line in China and Mr Wang had experience of this system from West Pine’s mill in Canada.
Mr Wang designed and built the gluing system himself. As in so many other areas of the factory, he called on his eight years’ experience with PTP, beginning under the expert guidance of Norman Lau.
The Dieffenbacher forming station is the latest generation with a fibre distribution and classification system integrated into the main fibre stream to dissolve fibre knots and improve spreading accuracy. It is also claimed to reduce operating costs through lower exhaust air volumes and to give a faster response in terms of weight control with changing wood types. This mechanical head enables the production of boards down to 2mm thickness.
The company plans to install an equalising roller system on the former to calibrate the fibre mat prior to pre-pressing in the multi-nip belt pre-press, when time permits. This will then remove the need for scalping and the attendant suction which Mr Wang says removes the smaller fibres from the top surface of the mat, and not the bottom, leading to imbalance in the board and to fibre sticking to the press belt.
Meanwhile, measuring and scanning equipment in the forming line allows continuous monitoring of mat and fibre quality as it approaches the 23.2m, 17 frame, CPS continuous press. This includes a GreCon density analyser. That press is also the latest generation, with adjustable/flexible, high-speed infeed to cater for the fact that the majority of Lishui’s production is thin board.
“Dieffenbacher is a good supplier,” said Mr Wang. “They make modifications to their plant as required, very efficiently, according to experience of the lines in operation.” The press is designed to run at up to 1,000mm per second and Lishui already had it running at 950mm per second, six months after start-up. For four to five millimetre board, that equates to over 600m3 a day, according to Mr Wang.
The design capacity of the line was 150,000m3 but he said that he had already made his own modifications to the front end during construction to raise total capacity to 180,000m3 a year.
At the press infeed, there are traversing polishing belts to clean the Sandvik-supplied 2.7mm stainless steel belts of the press, top and bottom.
The spacious control room is equipped with conventional monitors and controls for the entire production line, with Dieffenbacher Proguide system, as well as CCTV monitoring. The quality control laboratory is equipped with GreCon measuring and analysing systems. Lishui Oak also has a Sandvik belt patching tool for repairs to the press belts.
After the star cooler, packs are handled by fork lift for transfer to intermediate storage, to the Steinemann six-head Satos sander and Anthon cut-to-size plant, and to the 10,000m2 storage area.
Currently, Lishui Oak only produces raw board, but the company does have its eye on value adding for the future. “We are discussing which market is best for value adding,” said Mr Wang. “We may go for furniture production or some form of value adding to the panel itself.”
Laminate flooring is not one of the value adding options being considered. “The price for laminate flooring is very poor and the quality is generally poor as many manufacturers are producing the board on multi opening lines,” said the general manager. “The price has fallen from around RMB3,000 (US$363.6) to around RMB2,000 per m3, but at 880kg/m3 density. It is not a product we would consider making. There are too many small manufacturers who do not care about the quality – some do not even use a wear-resistant overlay.”
So far, the company’s markets for its raw board have been domestic, mainly in Guangzhou, Fujian, Zhejiang, Shanghai and Jiangsu, but with some production also going to Beijing and Chengdu regions. It has no export business yet but is talking to potential customers in Japan and Malaysia.
“We are already producing to E0, E1 and E2 grades by modifications to the resin recipe, using urea formaldehyde and melamine urea formaldehyde resins, and we add more wax to produce a moisture-resistant grade,” said Mr Wang.
Asked whether Lishui Oak was considering adding another line to its tally of 11, Mr Wang said: “Not yet. We will increase our capacity in the future, but this line has only just started. When we are well-established, we will think about expansion.”

There was much discussion and some considerable confusion before the opening of the two competing woodworking exhibitions in Beijing in March, the WM Fair/Furniwood China, and Chinawood.
Many European-based WBPI advertisers, who either make machinery for the panel industry, or supply ‘consumable’ products such as belts, resins and additives and so on, were uncertain what to do.
Should they comply with the advice of their national associations and support only the Chinawood event, attend both Chinawood and the established WM Fair, or just attend the WM Fair?
The situation arose because the European national machinery associations and their umbrella federation, Eumabois, say they received strong feedback from their members that the organisers of the WM Fair, Adsale Exhibitions, were over-charging for stand rental.
It seems undeniable that WM Fair’s rates were high by any standards; at least they were well before the show, when they stood at US$300-350 per m2.
“We had a clear mandate from our members to get the costs reduced,” said Georges Brun, president of Eumabois, when interviewed at the Chinawood event on March 7. “We tried to negotiate with Adsale but it was no good. We have said for some years now that US$150 per m2 is the maximum that should be charged.”
Mr Brun explained that Eumabois put their alternative show out to tender when seeking joint venture partners to organize the event and had only four replies. He said that Adsale was invited to tender but did not.
“We have been very pleased with our partner, Shanghai CMP Sinoexpo International Exhibition Co Ltd,” he said.
Eumabois also joined forces with the China National Furniture Association and the China Association for International Science and Technology Cooperation in organising the event.
Chinawood was held at the Beijing Exhibition Centre, a strikingly unusual building which really comprises a collection of assembly rooms. An exhibition partly lit by chandeliers was certainly a new experience.
The venue provided 16,000m2 of floor space and housed nearly 150 exhibiting companies from 14 countries and regions, with Germany having its largest-ever national woodworking pavilion in China, according to Eumabois. There were 25 companies from Taiwan and just nine from China.
Visitor numbers, although requested, were not available as WBPI went to press at the end of March.
Both WM Fair and Chinawood featured conferences and seminars alongside the exhibitions.
“We still hope to have only one exhibition in Beijing in future but we are set on our own path now,” said Mr Brun. “We charge all exhibitors the same rate per square metre. We already have the Taiwan woodworking machinery association on board and North America is seriously considering joining us. We will probably hold another exhibition in 2005, in the south of China.”
The WM Fair/Furniwood held its 10th biennial event in the China International Exhibition Centre (CIEC).
The event is held in a traditional, large setting of a group of big exhibition halls, although it has to be said that the CIEC is showing its age.
The WM Fair has the support of the State Forestry Administration of the Peoples’Republic of China, the China International Forestry Group Corporation, China Council for the Promotion of International Trade and, this year, the China National Forestry Machinery Association.
As one major exhibiting company’s spokesman, and an experienced China hand, said: “The Chinese people pay a lot of attention to the ‘official’ view of a fair – the involvement of the ministry of forestry for example. WM had that kind of backing and, unless an alternative fair gets blessing at ministry level, they will find it difficult to stay in the market.”
This year’s WM event occupied nine halls, with one being reserved for Furniwood, the furniture accessories, materials and wood products section. Adsale reports 468 exhibitors, in a floor area of 35,000m2, and 32,102 visitors.
“We have cooperated well with Eumabois in the past, but two years ago there were policy differences, mainly with regard to price,” admitted Parry Chung, senior sales and marketing manager with Adsale Exhibition Services of Hong Kong, when interviewed at the show on March 4.
“We are aware that we need to make some changes but there are differences between, say, Ligna in Germany and this show. Yes, we do charge more per square metre than Ligna, but some visitors to Ligna are charged entry and they are charged for the catalogue, but not here; in China, we cannot attract the quality of visitors if we charge for entry or the catalogue. “We also need to consider the venue. This venue is owned by semi-government bodies and costs a lot more to rent than the Beijing Exhibition Centre, which is an old building with difficult access for large machinery. The organiser of Ligna in Germany also owns the [Hannover] venue and does not have to rent on the open market.”
It should be mentioned here that Chinawood also offered free entry and a free catalogue.
I asked Mr Chung why, if he could reduce the price for ‘last minute’ bookings from European companies to levels below those charged by Chinawood – which he did - he did not do so before.
“We didn’t say [to Eumabois] that there would be no negotiation on price but we cannot move too fast; we need to go step-by- step in price reduction. Eumabois did not agree with this. We have reduced the price per square metre step-by-step since 2000 and we will consider reducing our price again for 2006,” he replied.
“We have booked this venue again for 2006 (March 7-10) and we want to enter a dialogue with Eumabois about this. We try to listen and to do what we can. We will collect opinions from our potential clients and then work out a plan.”
Mr Chung admitted that Chinese exhibitors pay less than overseas companies at his fair and said his company needed to increase the rents for these companies in order to reduce charges to those overseas.
So what did the exhibitors think? At WBPI, we conducted a survey of the major exhibitors, for the panel industry only.
The unanimous view of respondents was that there must be only one, biennial, show in Beijing in the future and that the charges for stand space must fall within the range of US$150 to a maximum of US$180 per m2. The vast majority of them believe that Adsale will reduce its rates for 2006 to acceptable levels. That remains to be seen of course.
Views on the relative merits of the two venues were approximately equally divided.
A majority of respondents indicated that they believed their customers preferred the WM Fair, mainly because it had a lot of Chinese exhibiting companies.
The majority of those respondents who exhibited at both events felt that WM attracted the greater number of important contacts for them and that it offered the better value. But, it must be pointed out that, in most cases, these companies booked into WM fair late and thus paid much lower rates – maybe 50% lower – than those which booked well in advance.
On the question of which event they would support if both were to be repeated in 2006, 60% said WM Fair, while 40% said they would follow the advice of their national association.
The message, and perhaps the challenge, to the organisers of both The WM Fair and Chinawood, from the major European suppliers to the panel industry in China, and not from this magazine itself, is clear.
They want one show, in Beijing, at the right price, with a full range of exhibitors from China as well as around the world so that they have the best opportunity to promote their products to this very important market. That is the one objective.

As regular readers will know, there were two exhibitions held in Beijing in March this year, instead of the normal one, biennial, WM Fair.
It was the 10th edition of the jointly-held WM Fair China and Furniwood China, organised by Adsale Exhibition Services Ltd of Hong Kong. This event was, as usual, held at the large China International Exhibition Centre, on March 2-5.
Due to the high cost of renting stand space at this exhibition, Eumabois, the European federation of 12 national associations representing the largest European manufacturers of machines and accessories for woodworking, decided to organise its own, competing, exhibition called Chinawood. This event was held on March 7-10 at the Beijing Exhibition Centre.
Initially, the majority of European manufacturers of machinery for the panel making industry booked space only at the Chinawood event.
However, some of them subsequently negotiated rates ‘at the last minute’ for stand space rental at the WM Fair which were in fact lower than those at Chinawood, and so these companies attended both exhibitions.
Reflecting the importance and sudden growth of the panel industry in China in recent years, the WM Fair had a designated ‘Panelboard Equipment Zone’ in hall 2, where most suppliers to the panel industry were located.
Andritz of Austria reported that it had supplied close to 70 of its MDF refiners to China so far. These contracts have been both direct to the client and through contractors who supplied the whole, or major parts of, the production line.
In common with many others, Andritz feels that the number of new projects will probably continue to decrease as considerable new MDF capacity comes on line in China. The company exhibited at both fairs.
Anthon of Germany also attended both, promoting its saw systems for panel mills.
The company has sold eight lines to China so far, with the last order being for the Fuzhou particleboard line due to start up this year. The other seven lines were delivered in 2003 and six of them included feeding, sanding (sub-contracted), cut-tosize and packing as a supply package.
However, Anthon’s involvement in the Chinese market goes back much further, as it supplied equipment for a line to make beer barrels in 1905. It also delivered to a similar project last year. It has supplied to Dieffenbacher’s, Metso’s and Siempelkamp’s complete-line contracts.
Berndorf-Hueck attended Chinawood to promote Berndorf’s stainless steel continuous press belts and Hueck’s plain and engraved press plates for decorative laminates. Berndorf also displayed its belt patching/ refurbishing tools and its dry ice belt cleaner.
So far, the company claims a better than 40% share of the Chinese market for new press lines with continuous steel belts. It has a sales and service centre in Beijing with 10 staff, including four service engineers.
Binos Technologies was exhibiting for the first time in Beijing, at the Chinawood show.
It was offering a new Mende-type press of its own construction, with spike roll former developed in conjunction with Flakeboard of Canada and a spike roll sifter, as well as mechanical/pneumatic MDF glue blending, and modified secondhand Mende presses.
Angelo Cremona of Italy has quite a long history of supplying the plywood and veneer industries in China and worldwide and exhibited at Chinawood only. Like all European machinery makers who want to compete in this market, Cremona sells on its quality of engineering to companies wishing to produce a high-grade plywood or veneer.
Dieffenbacher was one of the companies which made a late decision to attend the WM Fair as well as Chinawood. It booked the stand under the name of Dieffenbacher Ziesenhausen at WM and the parent company at Chinawood. Zaisenhausen is the handling equipment and short-cycle press side of the business. Recently taken into full ownership, Schenkmann & Piel was also present on the stand.
Dieffenbacher’s latest tally is around 12 complete lines supplied to China in the past year, although one or two are, as yet, not finally confirmed.
Resin company Dynea, headquartered in Finland, has a group office in Shanghai and supplies resin to a number of panel mills in the country. It chose to exhibit only at WM.
Electronic Wood Systems (EWS) of Germany also attended both shows and was able to report that it had sold three thickness gauges for Mende lines and two laboratory testing lines at the WM Fair. One lab system went to the Nanjing Forestry University and the other to an MDF mill. The company also sold five spark extinguishing systems at the first fair.
Firefly attended only the WM Fair and was happy with the number of positive leads it had received. This specialist in fire protections systems supplies a wide range of industries but mainly the panel business to date in China. Press protection is especially strong for the company and its ‘electronic nose’ is attracting attention.
“Mills are becoming increasingly aware of the risks of fire, especially with the new continuous lines,” said Jamshid Lodhi, sales and marketing manager.
Giben of Italy exhibited at both events and moved its Smart SP saw with grippers from the first to the second venue. The company reported that the WM Fair was “very bad for us” although the few visitors did show a lot of interest in the saw on display.
Giben is aiming more for the panel processing and furniture production areas in China than for the primary panel industry and has supplied over 200 machines to the furniture sector – 15 in 2003.
“We have had an increasing presence in China over the last 18 months for our energy production systems in panel mills and we have supplied three lines recently – Lishui Oak MDF, Luyuan MDF and Dare Wood MDF,” said Reinhold Luthringshauser of GTS Energy of the US.
The company reported a further four contracts at the time of the WM Fair and was discussing a particleboard project with cogeneration. It has a representative office in China, run by Mr Naicheng Zhou.
Another American company at WM was Globe Machinery which worked with Burelbach Industries on the supply of the handling for the Shendor doorskin line in Shenyang and another similar line in Jilin Province.
The company shares a Beijing office with another US firm, M-E-C, which has two particleboard lines under construction in Jilin and Heliongjiang provinces.
German specialist in on-the-line quality control and fire protection, GreCon, exhibited only at Chinawood and Günther Hänsch said he would like to have seen more Chinese exhibitors at the show.
The company has its equipment on many of the new continuous lines in China. It has 50 weight-per-unit-area gauges and 50 moisture analysers in operation as well as around 100 thickness gauges and “hundreds” of spark detection systems.
“We are also concentrating on lower priced, simple measuring systems for older lines where the mill needs to improve panel quality,” said Mr Hänsch. Here the company supplies the high-tech parts, while frames can be fabricated locally to GreCon’s drawings. The company will open a new subsidiary in Pudong (Shanghai) in June/July.
Grenzebach of Germany (formerly Babcock BSH) concentrates on veneer dryers for sliced veneers in China and said that a lot of its customers were importing logs for slicing. The company claims to be the market leader in China, with 20 installations so far. A spokesman said the Chinawood show was very quiet and not worth the money. Grenzebach prefers its own seminars with invited audiences. It runs these jointly with Fisher & Rückle, BASF and a satisfied customer from Malaysia. It has agents in Shanghai and Guangzhou.
Imal of Italy attended only the Chinawood show, together with sister company Pal srl.
Imal was promoting its new and secondhand plants, its new MDF and other gluing systems and its laboratory and on-the-line quality control equipment. It is cooperating with German companies Modul and Berstorff in supplying brand new Mendetype press lines to China and elsewhere. It also began a cooperation with Fusoni in 2003. Fusoni makes release agents for use in continuous presses and Imal makes the mat surface damping spray equipment.
Pal srl was concentrating on wood recycling equipment in a country that is notoriously short of fresh wood. The company has recently supplied its first such line in China for making MDF from a mixture of recycled and fresh wood.
Italian wide-belt sander maker Imeas already has a joint venture company manufacturing four feet wide sanders in China (Imeas Sander manufacturing (Suzhou) Co Ltd) and this company was represented alongside the Italian parent Imeas spa at WM, while Imeas spa was alone at Chinawood.
This reflected the fact that the Chinese company felt that WM was a better event for its customers. This company was formed a year ago and has already sold over 40 machines to smaller particleboard and MDF mills, mainly for new Chinese-made lines.
Imeas spa sold four 7ft and 8ft wide lines in China in the last year, to Asia Dekor MDF; Hebei Yingyang MDF; Jilin Forest, Changchun, particleboard; and Langxiang Forestry, Heilongjiang, also for particleboard. Imeas ran a seminar on the second day of WM Fair, attended by 45 delegates.
Kuper from Germany normally supplies new veneer processing equipment and secondhand lines but at the WM Fair was exhibiting its new PUR Lightboard System for making honeycomb-cored lightweight furniture panels using PUR glues and cold pressing. Kuper sells in China through its agent, Golden Field.
Maier, also from Germany, attended both shows, bringing with it a knife-ring flaker (KFR), series MRZ-1400HS, which it transported to the Chinawood show as well.
Maier is now delivering a high speed KFR, MRZHS with 60 knives to Fuzhou Company, a Metso main contract, to produce both homogeneous and normal particleboard, by using two different rings. The client also bought a sharpening machine with automatic knife protrusion setting.
Jilin Forest Industry Co will take delivery of a high-speed KFR in June, again for particleboard on a line supplied by Metso.
The Langxiang Forest Bureau particleboard mill in Heilongjiang will receive two high-speed KFRs and an MPM surface layer chipper in September.
Having brought its KFR for display purposes only, Robert Loth, chief executive of Maier, was pleased to report at the Chinawood show that he had sold the machine on the first morning to Dong Dun of Changshu, together with additional components to be brought from Germany. He was even more delighted to report a similar, second, sale in the same afternoon!
Among the three complete line general contractors for composite panels, Metso Panelboard was one of two to exhibit at both shows. As part of the Metso Group, this company has access to a sales and service operation, principally serving the group’s paper machinery operations, in Wuxi.
“We are getting an increasing number of enquiries for particleboard lines,” said China area manager Thomas Sternold. “The price of particleboard is rising, while that for MDF is falling, at least for thicker board, and end-users are increasingly looking at the quality of particleboard as exports increase.”
Metso Panelboard has two recent orders for complete lines. One is the Robina ll line at Yichung, Jiangxi Province, a 200,000m3 MDF line due to start up in early 2005, with a Metso continuous press.
The second line is for Fujian Furen Wood Industry Co Ltd at Fuzhou, Fujian Province, which is to be a 255,000m3 particleboard line, again with a Metso continuous press.
In common with many other observers of the Chinese market at the present time, Mr Sternold believes that there will be more MDF lines built, but that particleboard will become increasingly favoured.
Minimax of Germany attended both shows to present its equipment for fire protection and spark detection for MDF lines. It also has a subsidiary in China, Minimax (Beijing) Firefighting System Co Ltd.
Modul Systeme, also of Germany, exhibited at the Chinawood event only; this was the company’s first exhibition in China.
“In the past, we had problems supplying our secondhand, reconditioned, machinery to China because of the 30% duty,” explained Eberhard Kühnlein of Modul. “Now, with more joint-venture companies, there are more possibilities because the duty does not apply.We can also now offer a new Berstorff Mende-type press as well as secondhand ones.”
Pallmann of Germany took a booth at Chinawood but not at the WM Fair. The company opened an office in Beijing in November 2002 for sales and service of its wood-size-reduction machinery and refiners.
“We have had many orders from China over the years,” said ceo Hartmut Pallmann, saying that the company had received nine new orders in 2003 which it sold directly to the mills, in addition to those which it sold through the main contractors. Recent orders include two 62in MDF refiners for Sichuan Guodong and Dare Global.
Pallmann will also deliver the complete flake preparation system to the massive Mieco particleboard project in Malaysia in June/July.
Raute of Finland also only exhibited at Chinawood. A spokesman admitted that the Chinese market was difficult because of low price expectations, but said the company was looking for customers who want world quality machinery for plywood, LVL or parquet production lines.
Sandvik and its partner, Hindrichs- Auffermann, were at both exhibitions. Jan- Ola Johnson of Sandvik said that his company had supplied belts to 18 out of 31 continuous panel lines in China, as well as 10 belts to Chinese makers of multi-opening presses with continuous belt carrier systems.
Hindrichs-Auffermann, in whose name the Chinawood stand was listed, currently produces technical plates (for PCBs) in China but will soon start refurbishing press plates supplied to the panel industry as well.
Shanghai Wood Based Panel Machinery Co Ltd (SWBPMC) exhibited at both shows, reflecting its increasing interest in exporting its range of panel making and processing machinery. The industry still awaits news of this company’s first continuous press, which is likely to come next year. Sia Abrasives of Switzerland exhibited only at the WM Fair, showing its range of abrasive belts for all sectors of the woodworking industry.
Siempelkamp showed only at Chinawood in line with VDMA and Eumabois guidelines. This supplier of complete lines has recently supplied the Luyuan and Dare Wood MDF plants in China.
The company also sees the rapid rise in MDF production in the country slowing and the strong possibility that particleboard lines will become more popular investments. Shortage of raw material is always a constraining factor, pointed out Rolf Kamper of Siempelkamp. However, he does believe that OSB will come to China in time.
The company has full representation for sales and service in China through its Beijing office.
With its many subsidiary and partner companies, Siempelkamp can offer the full range of equipment for a complete continuous, or indeed discontinuous, panel production line, from design to final commissioning, including all electronic and computerised controls.
Steinemann of Switzerland is the major European supplier of wide belt sanding machines to the panel industry in China and has supplied 90 lines to mills there, including orders for 14 Satos models in the last 18 months. The company attended both Beijing shows. “This year, about half our total sales will be to Asia, mainly China,” said vice-president of Steinemann Technology Hansjörg Fritsche.
New lines are not the only source of business as a number of mills with locally supplied production lines want to improve their surface quality, he said. The company has had an office in Beijing since October and a service person in Guangzhou as well.
Vits Systems also exhibited at both shows. In fact, at WM it was represented twice as its Chinese joint venture company, Vits-Imaco, also had a stand there.
The company has around 18 of its paper impregnation lines in China, with two currently under installation, at Dare Wood in Danyang and at Krono-Sinhua in Beijing.
Vyncke of Belgium has supplied over 20 energy generation plants to China – 14 of them since 2002. The company had five plants under erection at the time of the shows (it exhibited at both) and had just received an order from Guodong in Chengdu, Sichuan Province. Other projects include Dare line ll in Fuzhou and Dare lll, Asia Dekor and Weihua in Guangdong, Beihai in Guangxi (a locally-made MDF line) and Dongying in Shandong Province.
“We are moving our China office from Beijing to Shanghai to be nearer to our customers and to the sea port for storage of spare parts.We are also taking on four more people for service and project management,” said sales chief Lieven Tarras.
Wemhöner Pressen of Germany has an enviable reputation for its short cycle press lines in China, in spite of, or perhaps helped by, local competition which seems unable to match its quality. It exhibited only at Chinawood.
Wemhöner supplied a short cycle line to Asia Dekor and several other Chinese panel mills and was just completing commissioning of a line at Dare Wood MDF. It also supplies 3-D presses to the furniture industry in China.

The final part of the drive to Guangxi Sunway Forest Product Industry Group’s mills in Wuzhou has to be one of the most spectacular in the Chinese panel industry, as the road winds along the side of the Zhujiang river valley for several kilometres. The company’s latest mill is built in a commanding position on the banks of the river a few kilometres from Wuzhou itself.
To be fair, I suspect the approach to the Lishui Oak mill may be equally spectacular, also along a river valley, but as I arrived there at far too well past midnight, and from the wrong direction, it was difficult to be sure.
Founded in 1921 as Wuzhou Zhicheng Board Mill, Guangxi Sunway produced particleboard largely by hand on a small scale. In 1989, the company imported a Sunds (now Metso) single-opening press line from Sweden to manufacture particleboard and this line has an annual production capacity of 50,000m3.
The line has a two-head wind former. The press is large, at 32ft long and 8ft wide, meaning it can accommodate eight panels per cycle, and operates on the recycling steel caul belt system. It is enclosed in a housing and the small glazed control room with synoptic controls is located alongside the press at ground level.
The line is supplied with steam and thermal oil by a locally-made energy plant.
In a neighbouring building on the same site in Wuzhou, a few kilometres from Sunway’s latest project, there is a more modern continuous MDF line. This has its own energy plant, independent of the particleboard line, and the wood supply for the two lines is also kept in separate areas of the same woodyard. The whole line, including the energy plant, was supplied by the former Sunds company in 1996 and fibre from the Sunds refiner passes to an ABB Fläkt Pendistor former.
The continuous press was made by Küsters of Germany, now also part of the Metso group of course. It was originally supplied with a length of 12.5m, but in 1999 was extended to 17.5m, increasing the MDF line’s output capacity from 50,000m3 to 100,000m3 per year.
The Steinemann sander has six heads, followed by a further two heads, added more recently and made by Chinese company Sulin.
Another building on the same site houses the laminating lines. Here there are three short-cycle laminating lines, giving a total capacity of six million m2 of surfaced panels per annum.
All three lines are from Wemhöner of Germany and the newest is a single-opening 4ft x 16ft press, used mainly for the manufacture of laminate flooring.
The factory employs manual lay-up for the surfacing films, rather than the automatic systems which are perhaps more relevant where labour costs are higher than in China.
The same building houses the two laminate flooring lines employing Paul multi-rip saws for cutting the flooring strips, while machining of the edges is carried out by Homag and Torwegge equipment. Annual output is five million m2.
In 2000, Guangxi Sunway Forest Products Industrial Co Ltd was established and a new factory built in Cenxi City, Wuzhou, which went in to production in 2001. Sunway Forest Products Cenxi Artificial Board Co Ltd produces 150,000m3 of MDF annually on a mixture of Germanand Chinese-sourced equipment.
The latest line for Sunway is unusual in that it brings together two major equipment suppliers in one line; the press is from Dieffenbacher, but the contract for the rest of the line was placed with the successor company to the supplier of Sunway’s other lines at Wuzhou, Metso Panelboard.
“We bought this line by open bidding on the internet,” said Mr Fang Fengchao, an engineer with the Wuzhou factories. “Which company would win was dependent on price, quality and a number of other factors, including the fact that we wanted to make mainly HDF panels.
“Metso and Dieffenbacher offered the best combination of price and of meeting our requirements for production. I am not saying one press [Küsters or Dieffenbacher] is better than the other – they are different.”
The site chosen for the new line was cut back out of the hillside beside the river Zhujiang and building work commenced in September 2002. The first board was produced from the line on December 5, 2003.
The wood raw material is a mix of softwood and mixed hardwoods, mainly thinnings, branches and mis-shapen logs. Some bought-in chips are also used. Sunway does not employ a debarker.
An undercover belt conveyor takes the chips into the chipper building where there are two Bruks-Klöckner chippers. Hardwood and softwood are chipped separately and the chips conveyed to two separate, round, concrete silos which are tiled on the outside, as is common practice in China.
For some board 100% hardwood chips are used, while for most production hard and softwood are mixed 50/50 or 60/40.
The silos have a circulating rotating screw in the base to move the chips to an  underground conveyor and up to the chip screen which separates out the oversize chips and the fines for fuel. Accepted chips pass up a bucket elevator to the chip washer at the top of the adjacent refiner building.
The refiner is a 66in Metso unit but the motor was supplied by a Chinese sub-contractor. Everything from here to the press, and beyond the press, was in Metso’s scope of supply.
The dryer is a two-stage system, with the first stage outside and the second stage, with fibre bin and sifter, inside the main production building.
The energy plant is fuelled by sanding dust, sawdust, screening rejects and board trimmings.
The mechanical former has adjustable width, from 8ft to 9ft, and this is followed by the Metso pre-press, Cassel metal detector, and GreCon traversing x-ray mat density analyser. GreCon also supplied thickness gauges after the main press.
The production hall which houses the main line is well lit by roof windows during  aylight hours and houses the Dieffenbacher CPS continuous press. This is 42.88m long, with room for extension, although there are currently no plans at Sunway to increase its length. It is nine feet wide.
Fumes from the press are extracted by pipe, meaning that the press is not enclosed in a full housing – which must be advantageous for maintenance (as well as photography!).
The control room alongside has all the latest controls and is, unusually, equipped with the latest flat screen monitors.
A Lukki robotised panel handling and stocking system handles the panels from the line. A Steinemann eight-head sander and a Metso cut-to-size line handle the finishing of the raw panels.
Capacity is around 300,000m3 a year, based on 9ft wide, 8mm HDF.
The company has no plans to increase its MDF/HDF capacity at present and has an eye on the rapid expansion of the supply in China in recent times.
Any future plans seem more likely to relate to particleboard than to fibreboards. Other, related, activities of the group include the production of 100,000 tons a year of urea formaldehyde resins to E1 standard.
Value-adding, as we have seen, is important to Sunway and, in 2002, the company added a Vits melamine paper impregnation line on the 110,000m2 Sunway Hi-tech Industrial Park where its new HDF line is located. This has a capacity of 20 million m2 and the full range of treatment for all products, including wear-resistant layers for laminate flooring.
The group also has a furniture production line making 60,000 items of panelbased furniture annually, on equipment imported from Italy and Germany in 1993. The furniture is exported worldwide.
Raw material supply for the Guangxi Sunway Forest Products Industry Group’s wood-based activities is guaranteed and underpinned by its forestry activities, giving the company a sustainable approach.
In fact the company has its ‘Double Million Project’ which aims for one million acres of forest base and one million m3 of what it calls ‘synthetic board’ capacity.
And to go with that scenic approach to its new Wuzhou factory, Sunway also has ISO 14001 certification for its environmental management systems.

Many companies involved in the MDF business in China are now realizing the need to produce a high-quality panel that will meet the kind of standards expected in western Europe, for example.
Asia Dekor Industries (Shenzhen) Co Ltd, headquartered in Shenzhen City in China’s southern province of Guangdong, has been making overlaid panels to those high standards for some years.
In fact, the company claims to be the largest manufacturer and distributor of laminate flooring in China and the Power Dekor brand has been ranked by the China Industrial Information Issuing Centre as the best selling laminated floor product in China for five consecutive years from 1998 to 2003.
The company is part of Asia Dekor Holdings Ltd, a truly international company in both structure and manufacturing policy. Asia Dekor Holdings Ltd is incorporated in Bermuda and its ordinary shares are listed on the main board of Singapore Exchange Securities Trading Ltd.
The group has a total of three factories in Guangdong and started out with one line for tongue-and-grooving (T&G) flooring in Shenzhen in 1997. Two years later, a second factory was built, also in Shenzhen, with two paper impregnation lines, one by Vits of Germany and the other of local manufacture, and two laminating lines, one by Dieffenbacher and the other by Wemhöner, again both German companies.
The second factory also added two T&G lines by Torwegge to replace the first machining line. The first factory was also closed and the equipment moved to another factory closer to the second one.
In order to achieve the high quality of flooring on which the company based its sales message, Asia Dekor imported high density fibreboard (HDF) from European manufacturers such as Fantoni, Egger, Kronotex and Kaindl.
The panels imported are 2070mm x 2610mm because of the size of the printed decor paper sheets, which are also mainly imported from Europe. European suppliers of this paper are Schattdecor, Interprint, Mepa and others, as well as Schattdecor’s printing works in Shanghai.
Once the second factory was established, Asia Dekor also started to produce veneerfaced flooring on an MDF base, as well as skirting to match the flooring.
“Sales of laminate flooring in China are growing at 20-30% a year on the domestic market,” said Mr Tong Guang Zhou, mechanical engineer and vice general manager with the company. He is the man responsible for the development of Asia Dekor’s latest, ambitious project, as well as for its existing flooring factories.
That latest project is the construction of a new state-of-the-art continuous HDF production line.
“Our production of laminate flooring in 2002 was six million m2 and in 2003 it was 10 million m2, with about five to ten per cent exported to South Asia, the Middle East, Australia and South America,” said Mr Tong.
“In China we go for the top end of the market with the best quality in the country because we are using the highest level technology, as used in Europe, and our raw material is the same as Europe. So is the management of our company,” he added.
“We actually started out selling laminate flooring imported from Europe in 1995 but the price has gone down a lot already on the Chinese market, with a lot more competitors. We need to have the best quality and the best service but also a competitive price.
“Imported board is expensive so we decided it was time to make our own board.We have those two laminating lines which, at full capacity, can produce 12 to 14 million m2 of laminate flooring a year, equivalent to 100- 120,000m3 of panel, so we already had the basis for a good-sized MDF/HDF factory.”
So the company decided to invest around US$36m in a 200,000m3 a year line which would provide 50-60% of its production for Asia Dekor’s own laminate flooring consumption and 40-50% for sale as raw board.
The first requirement for such a large production line is an adequate supply of wood and the warm climate of Guangzhou, together with the founding of eucalyptus plantations in the province up to 10 years ago, means that wood supply is plentiful. There is also availability of pine.
“I see no problem with raw material and we have already discussed with the local government renting land for plantations in the next two or three years, so our wood supply will increase,” said Mr Tong.
Actually, of course, the first requirement for a factory of this size is scheduled industrial land. That Asia Dekor found in Heyuan City in the north of Guangdong Province, about 200km from its existing factories in Shenzhen.
It is a long and narrow strip of land sandwiched between the main road at the front and the river at the back. It is opposite the railway station on the Beijing to Hong Kong main line, which may provide opportunities for transport when the factory is up and running. At the time of purchase the land also sloped, with a fall in height of 14m from one end to the other.
“We first had to build what we call ‘the great wall’ alongside the river for nearly one kilometre, as a retaining wall to stop our land slipping into the river,” recalled Mr Tong. “The land was also undulating and before we came, it was flattened by removing the tops of the high parts and using that material to fill the hollows. This meant that the land was relatively soft in the made-up areas and hard on the former high points. Thus we needed different foundations in different areas of the site – including along the length of the new continuous press.”
The other major requirement for a project of this size – a strong and reliable electricity supply – was no problem.
“Two years ago this was not the case and electricity supply would have been a problem, but the local government has supported industrial development in the area,” said Mr Tong. “It also appreciates the help that the tree plantations give to the local farmers and has given a lot of help and support to our company.”
However, Heyuan is in a beautiful area, one that is popular with tourists. The river supplies the drinking water to Shenzhen and Hong Kong and there is a lake/reservoir nearby so the government would not encourage any polluting industries.
Asia Dekor’s new MDF/HDF line has a waste water settling and treatment plant which will enable it to recycle a lot of its process water, while solid waste will be removed by a specialist contractor for treatment, or burnt in the energy plant together with bark, sanding dust and other wood residues.
Groundwork started on March 26, 2003, but progress was then effectively halted until May by the rainy season. At the time of my visit in early March this year, all major machinery was installed and under final assembly and electrical installation for the main production line, while some parts, such as the resin plant, were still under construction; the latter being surrounded with bamboo scaffolding. The foundations for the boiler house and woodyard were also awaiting completion of ‘the great wall’.
It was expected that the first board would be produced by mid- to end-May this year.AThe total area of the new factory is 160,000m2 and the layout is very typical of a European MDF mill.
Asia Dekor appointed five main contractors for the project: Dieffenbacher was awarded the main contract for the CPS continuous press and associated line; Andritz the woodyard and refiner; Vyncke of Belgium the energy plant, Anthon of Germany the cut-to-size; and Imeas of Italy the sanding line.
The scope of supply of Dieffenbacher actually covered from the Schenkmann & Piel dryer to the Scheuch of Austriadesigned complete dust filtration system, gluing, forming, pre-press, main press and a sub-contract to Kontra for cooling and panel handling after the press.
The cyclone tower, still under construction, will be the tallest building in the city when it is finished, topping out at 67m.
Debarking will be carried out by a locally- made debarking drum. Chipping is by Andritz Oy of Finland and the Andritz of Austria refiner is a 54/60in unit, to be started at 54in as Asia Dekor will build up its capacity over a period of time; it anticipates producing 75-80% in its first year.
There are two, 15m-high, concrete chip silos and chips will be transported underground to a bucket elevator to lift them up to the chip screen by Andritz Oy. Behind the silos, the Vyncke energy system was under construction.
The dryer tube is 2.6m in diameter and will transport 30 bone dry tons per hour (bdtph) of fibre across the site. Forming is mechanical with a scalper located very close to the Schenck/Dieffenbacher weigh-scale for a rapid reaction time. An Imal bottom belt dampening unit precedes the former and there is another before the hot press to damp the top surface of the mat.
“The pre-press is a new generation which does not have an endless belt, but one which we can joint on site and this makes belt changing much easier,” said Mr Tong.
The Dieffenbacher CPS press has 24 frames and is 31.5m long and 2.65m (net) wide. It is extendable to 35.5m. The master panel ex-press will be 6.3m x 2.65m.
A combined quality control unit by GreCon has five thickness and 12 blow detector heads.
After cooling, the boards will be handled by an automatic robot stacking system byKontra, employing a rail-based system and concrete bearers. There is capacity for eight days’ production here.
To meet local safety regulations, unusually the whole storage area is surrounded by a brick fire wall. Asia Dekor already has equipment from Firefly of Sweden to protect its laminate flooring factories from the outbreak of fire and also awarded it the contract for the new continuous line.
As of March, Asia Dekor had few experienced staff to operate the new line, admitted Mr Tong. However, he was in contact with some experienced Chinese personnel and was also considering employing some European technicians on short-term contracts to get the line under way. He anticipates that 120 staff will be needed to run the entire Heyuan operation.
Its sales and distribution network is already well established.
“We have two completely separate systems operating in the company: production and marketing and the two are totally separate,” said Mr Tong. “The headquarters for all the company’s sales operations are located in Shanghai and the factories manufacture to order from there.We store all the various kinds of MDF and decor paper at the factory and when we get an order from Shanghai we decide which kind of production to schedule.
“We have 700 shops throughout China selling our flooring products.”
Asia Dekor has joined forces with another major MDF producer in China, Dare Wood (WBPI June/July 2003, p14) to achieve this coverage.
However, there is more to Asia Dekor than just laminate flooring, especially with the new Heyuan line coming on stream and able to offer raw board.
But that is still not the end of the story for this ambitious company. Plans are already foot to build a particleboard line near Huizhou, about half way between Heyuan and the flooring factories in Shenzhen. This will be another continuous line with a similar capacity to Heyuan – about 200,000m3 a year.
The company is already laminating some furniture panels in its Shenzhen facilities, using particleboard imported from Europe.
“Guangdong accounts for about 80% of Chinese furniture exports, to Europe and North America; Donguan, about 150km from here, has a lot of furniture production and one factory I know there is importing 450 containers a year of particleboard from Thailand.
“Particleboard is cheaper than MDF but the transport cost is high. If we make our own board, we can get the quality we want and save those transport costs,” said Mr Tong.
Further possible developments for Asia Dekor include the construction of a laminating factory behind the new MDF line at Heyuan, on the same site.
“There are four important points for a factory: resources, money, technology and marketing,” asserted Mr Tong. “We have all those.
“We aim to be a ‘show factory’ and we told all our machinery tenderers that. They will be welcome to bring their customers here to see our factory as a reference plant. We will be the best in China for MDF.”
Mr Tong is even talking to a Japanese landscaping company about making the outside of his factory look as good as the inside and helping it to ‘blend in’ as far as possible in a popular tourist area.

Another mill, another fantastically scenic journey, this time from Wuzhou through the mountains to Rongcheng Town, Ronxian County.
The road winds through terraced slopes of paddy fields and past fields of maize and other cereal crops, through villages and towns, to finally arrive at the home town of Guangxi Gaofeng Rongzhou Wood Based Panels Co Ltd in Rongcheng.
The factory site is impressive and houses the company’s latest investment in the form of a Dieffenbacher continuous MDF/HDF line.
The Gaofeng Group was founded in 1953 and has always been involved in forestry and the manufacture of industrial wood products.
In Nanning City, some three hours drive away, is an MDF line with a multi-opening press also supplied by Dieffenbacher, in 1997. This line has a nameplate capacity of 50,000m3 a year but can go up to 70,000m3, making MDF for furniture panels.
On the same site in Nanning is an older, smaller line, built by Shanghai Wood Based Panel Machinery Co Ltd and this was Gaofeng’s first line in that city. The capacity is a modest 40,000m3.
A third MDF line is located about 100km from Rongcheng in Luchuan, also in Guangxi Province. This 80,000m3 designcapacity line has a refiner from Andritz of Austria, but the rest of the line is from Chinese suppliers. Production exceeds the nominal capacity here too.
Thus the company already had in excess of 200,000m3 of MDF capacity when it decided to invest in a new European-made continuous line.
As is often the case, the existing lines were not suited to the manufacture of thinner boards and Gaofeng felt that a large part of its market in the future lay in these thicknesses.
The new factory is 75% owned by the Gaofeng Group, with 25% being held by an investor located in Macao. The Gaofeng Group itself is government owned and is headquartered in the city of Nanning.
“The new line is for thin board in 2.5mm, 3.0mm and 4.8mm thicknesses, to supply the furniture and specialist packaging industries,” explained Mr Qin Qiong Lin, general manager of the company with responsibility for the new factory.
“Later we will perhaps make 8mm for the laminate flooring industry, but there is so much flooring capacity in China already.
We hope to gain export markets with the new production as we currently only supply
the domestic market.”
Construction of the new line began on the 208mu (13.8ha) site in January 2001 and installation of the production line began in March 2003, with the first board being produced on November 12, 2003.
The woodyard contains mostly pine logs, with some eucalyptus. This area of the factory, the debarker and the chipper were all supplied by Pallmann of Germany.
A log-grab tractor first feeds the logs to the debarker, which discharges them to an unusual feature of this mill – a log washer – which Mr Qin believes leads to improved chip quality and reduced chipper wear. The next conveyor transports the logs end-on to the Type PHS disc chipper.
The chips are then conveyed to a moving floor chip bin, again provided by Pallmann, which also supplied the chip screen.
In the refiner building is the Pallmann 52/54in refiner and next door is the Dieffenbacher-supplied glue kitchen.
“We have our own glue factory just for this line, making urea formaldehyde to produce boards to E1 and E2 standards,” said Mr Qin. This is housed in a separate threestorey building on the site.
Energy for the plant is supplied by Vyncke of Belgium. This and the Pallmann contracts were negotiated directly with the suppliers, as was the supply of the Steinemann sander.
The main press is a Dieffenbacher CPS with a length of 23.2m and an effective width of eight feet. Design capacity is 120- 150,000m3 a year of 4mm thick HDF.
Gaofeng has a belt cleaning system on the press to clean the stainless steel belt continuously during operation.
Mr Qin intends to purchase belt repairing equipment at a later date.
There is a Holzma Powerline HFL 66 cut-to-size plant and a Steinemann Satos eight-head sanding line.
The Holzma will be used to supply customers with cut-to-size panels as required, giving a bit more versatility to the operations at Gaofeng.
The company has taken its own route to panel handling, combining various features of the systems commonly available.
Thus it employs an overhead, manned, gantry crane with the steel pack-carrier plates characteristic of the Metso Lukki system.
GreCon supplied the combined thickness/ blow detection system, weight-per-unit area and density profile measuring systems, as well as the spark detection and extinguishing equipment.
The purpose-built production hall is well illuminated with natural light and the layout of the whole production area is very similar to that employed in Europe.
The Gaofeng Group is broadly divided into the two divisions of forestry and industrial wood products and the two are, of course, inter-dependent.
“The balance is important between the resources and the products,” confirmed Mr Qin. “We build factories where there are resources and we grow trees where we have factories; this is a ‘green’ business. And although we have no firm plans yet, we will build more lines in the future and gain more power in the market.”

One would not expect to find a Dutch Canadian running a factory in north east China,  although early March temperatures of minus 140C should not be so much of a shock to  omeone accustomed to Canadian winters.
Adrian Kuypers, president of Innovative Board Technologies (IBT), Ontario, Canada,  came to Shenyang to take charge of IBT’s joint venture project to produce MDF  doorskins for the growing Chinese market.
“The project was originally my concept, back in 1996,” said Mr Kuypers, whose  experience includes working as a design engineer and project manager for engineering  consultancies to the panel industry and running the Noranda OSB factory in Scotland. He also set up the first MDF factory in China in the early 1980s, for Fuzhou Man Made Board Company.
“At IBT, we felt that moulded decorative panels had a good future and that doorskins, as a basic product of that type, had tremendous potential in Asia, and particularly China, as well as in Europe and North America,” said Mr Kuypers.
In 1997, IBT signed an initial joint venture agreement with Shenyang Heavy Machinery Group (SHMG). To IBT’s extensive expertise in the industry, SHMG added experience in equipment design and manufacture and engineering, the construction of 16  particleboard and seven MDF plants, operational management of its own two MDF plants in Shenyang and product sales and distribution in China.
In 1999, a second joint venture agreement was signed, this time including a third partner, Shenyang Industrial Investment Company (SIIC). This new partner brought financial services, management and admin- istration expertise, as well as involvement in 27 other joint ventures in China, including one with automotive manufacturer BMW.
The factory buildings for the new line were provided by SHMG, being a former engineering works which it owned. This meant the premises had full zoning for industrial use and were provided with all necessary services and road links.
The project then suffered a setback, due to financial problems of another (now ex) partner, but the construction of the new doorskin production line was completed in March 2003, when the first board, which, to the company’s credit, was of saleable quality, was produced. Full production really commenced in September of last year.
Of course, doorskin production has a long history in North America with Jeld- Wen and Masonite as market leaders there.
Machinery for all those North American lines came from Washington Iron Works, whose presses became the standard equipment for doorskin lines all over the world.
Shendor broke with that standard and placed the contract for the press with Dieffenbacher of Germany, which, said Mr Kuypers, “came in with the best deal”.
Quality of the raw material for a moulded panel line is critical and Shendor decided to go for Japanese export quality pulp chips from Jilin Province in north east China.
They are produced from mixed hardwoods such as poplar, oak and birch. Poplar makes up a very small proportion because, although it gives a good light colour, it also gives problems with thickness swelling characteristics of the finished panel, explained Mr Kuypers.
For the other major raw material, resin, Shendor worked closely with Dynea to develop a satisfactory recipe.
“We were going to use our own resin plant from the start, but decided to go with Dynea,” said Mr Kuypers. “We have built our own plant but I decided it would be better not to try and start up a resin plant and a new doorskin plant at the same time.That may be OK for MDF production but it is trickier for doorskins.We will have our resin production plant in production before June this year.”
Another tricky area for doorskin manufacturers is the painting process and Shendor worked closely with Akzo Nobel to develop a thermoplastic primer.
The chips arrive in sacks, and loose, in open trucks. They are offloaded and pushed into  two underground hoppers from where they are metered to a screen to remove oversize chips. A bucket elevator takes accepted material to the top of the refiner building, to the  locallymade chip washer and then on to the chip bin.
The plug screw feeder, digester and refiner are all by Andritz although, unusually, the refiner came from the ex Sprout Bauer, now Andritz, works in Pennsylvania in the US. It is a 42/44in unit with a 1600kW motor.
The dryers are locally made and energy is provided by four boilers – two for steam and two for thermal oil, all fuelled mainly by coal and some wood.
“The resins we use are melamine urea formaldehyde (MUF) to give a degree of moisture resistance to the panels but, more importantly, to produce low-formaldehyde emission panels,” said Mr Kuypers.
The Dieffenbacher former has one mechanical forming head and this company also supplied all the forming and pressing line as a sub-contract. Shendor acted as its own main contractor for the project.
The hot press is an eight-daylight unit, preceded by a belt pre-press. There is a Chinese-made mat moisture detector after the forming head.
The control room is fully computerized with monitors for refining, glue mixing and drying on one side; and forming and pressing on the other.
The press loader features an electronic mat positioning system and a belt to feed the mats into the press openings mounted on rails; it can be moved sideways to facilitate maintenance and die changes.
There is also a die changing cart on the press unloader, which moves into the press and picks up the dies.
The first set of dies came from Hunts Machinery of the US, but Mr Kuypers said he had now switched to a local supplier due to the import duty.
There are two dies per press opening, giving a total of 16 doorskins per cycle. The press is guaranteed by Dieffenbacher to give a 54-second cycle, although that is in excess of Shendor’s requirements – it would equate to seven million doorskins a year and the company’s target is six million, but it gives spare capacity.
The press heating system is set up to cater for phenolic glues, if necessary, being capable of running at 260-2700C but Shendor currently runs MUF glues at around 1750C.
After press unloading, a conveyor takes the panels round to a Globe/Burelbach sawing line, grading station and sorting line.
The panels are then fed into the finishing line by vacuum lifters and pass through a pre- eater from Forest Technologies Inc as a sub-contractor to Burelbach. The spray painting booth comes next, immediately followed by two curing ovens to flash off the water immediately. The next stage is cooling to avoid warping of the panels.
An extensive testing laboratory is under the watchful eye of a chemical engineer who has extensive experience in resin technology and tests all the raw material, and sample finished panels, for quality. The recipes are critical in moulded panel production.
There is an agreement between IBT and Shendor that IBT will export at least 25% of production to gain foreign currency and to underpin new plant developments in China.
Currently, exports go to India, Pakistan, Europe and south and north America. Shendor offers five different moulding patterns and three sizes for each pattern, some of which are produced by trimming the borders of the panels.
Design capacity of the plant is six million panels a year with a density of 1,010kg/m3. This is equivalent to 100m3 a day, but the factory is ramping up to this level gradually as the market grows. Mr Kuypers anticipates achieving full production in 2006.
“Our vision for Shendor was to build doorskin warehousing in several locations and then to build five more plants in China, either owned by the company, or as majority holdings in joint ventures,” he said. “That vision is still intact; consider that Jeld-Wen, Masonite and Craft Master had about 12 or 14 production lines in North America producing 100 million doorskins a year and, eventually, China will be a bigger building materials market than the United States.
“We forecast a consumption of 350 to 400 million doors in China by 2010 and 220 million by 2005.”

In common with many companies now involved in the Chinese MDF industry, Suichang Luyuan Wood Co Ltd started out with a wet-process hardboard line in Suichang County.
That was back in 1985. Ten years later, the company built its first MDF line, using a 15-daylight Shanghai Wood Based Panel Machinery Co Ltd press. It followed this with another two lines of similar size from the same supplier, one in 1996 and one in 1997.
These three lines gave the company a total annual capacity of around 150,000m3. Like many other Chinese MDF producers, Suichang Luyuan realised that, if it was to be truly competitive going forward, it needed to build a European-made continuous press line.
The company then bought a Greenfield site in a newly established industrial area in Suichang County in an area of wooded mountains in Zhejiang Province close to China’s eastern seaboard. The name Luyuan, literally translated, means ‘green source’.
The next step was to place the contract for the new MDF line and Suichang Luyuan chose Siempelkamp as the main contractor to supply the press line, while Siempelkamp’s subsidiary, Sicoplan, had the coordinating function, designing the plant layout and controlling the interfaces between the various items of equipment. The front end of the line was a separate contract for Andritz, while Steinemann had a separate contract for the sanding, and Anthon for the cut-to-size plant. Civil works began on the site in March 2003 and the project was completed by November of that year. The first board was produced on December 10, 2003, only nine months after the first hole was dug.
As the new continuous line came into production, Luyuan sold one of its three multi-daylight lines and moved the other two to new locations in the neighbouring county.
Those two lines are rated at 100,000m3 a year in total and the new Siempelkamp ContiRoll line adds another 150,000m3 at full capacity.
But that is not the whole story. The Suichang company is part of the larger Luyuan Group, headquartered in Hangzhou City, Anhui Province, which has 10 branch factories and a total of 11 MDF production lines in different provinces of China, mainly to the south of the Yangtse river. All the factories were built new by the group, rather than being purchased as going concerns.
Total production capacity for the group today is around 700 to 800,000m3 a year, although 2003 saw a total production of 480,000m3, because only seven of the lines were in production at that time.
The company claims to be number one in China in terms of capacity, although Mr Guan Qe Qin, general manager of Suichang and a vice-president of the company, admits that that is a fluid situation in China’s fastgrowing MDF industry.
What he is sure of is the fact that, in Suichang County, Suichang Luyuan is number three in output value for all industrial enterprises.
The well-stocked woodyard holds the pine and mixed hardwood logs, mainly in the form of branches and other small diameter roundwood. Sawmill residues are used only for fuel.
A log grab feeds the roundwood to a locally-made drum debarker from which the bark is conveyed to the fuel storage area.
The chipping line was supplied by Andritz Oy of Finland, utilising an Andritz Oy HQ-chipper while the refiner, from Andritz of Austria, is a 52/54in model. After chipping, the chips are carried by a covered conveyor to a concrete chip silo and then to a locally-made chip screen to remove oversize and fines.
They then travel to the top of the refining building where they are washed thoroughly before entering the refining process.
The dryer came from Büttner of Germany and the gluing system from Imal of Italy, both as part of the Siempelkamp scope of supply. Sifting, forming, pre-press, continuous press, board trimming, cooling and stacking were all supplied by Siempelkamp, with subsidiary SHS supplying the latter components.
With thin board running at high speed, the roller conveyor is an important component to avoid the board jumping as it comes out of the press and so SHS supplied these components which might otherwise have been supplied locally.
All on-the-line quality control and monitoring systems were supplied as part of the same contract, as was the bag filter and fibre transport system for the forming station. The forming line has no scalping, leading to reduced operator cost because there is no need for a vacuum transport system to remove the scalped fibre. The scalping function in this ‘Starformer’ has been replaced by an equalising roller to give even distribution of the mat.
It also removes the problems of pre-cure of the resin during recirculation – possibly several times in a conventional, scalped system.
There is a Weko mat damping unit before the press.
“This is the fastest line in China, capable of running at 1300mm per second,” said Mrs Ma Hangqing, manager with Siempelkamp’s Beijing office. “Even when making 2mm board, it can produce 700m3 a day of very good quality, flat boards.”
The ContiRoll press is housed in an enclosure to trap and extract fumes and is 23.6m long and eight feet wide. It is equipped with a flexible infeed enabling it to quickly achieve high-speed production.
To achieve this flexibility, both platens are 60mm thick at the infeed, rather than the normal 100mm, and the radius of curvature can be adjusted in the plus or minus direction. The principle is to achieve a fast pressure increase in order to produce thin board at high speed without incurring blisters due to trapped air in the mat. Pressure can, in fact, be varied along the infeed section in a pressure ‘wave’, if required, explained Mrs Ma.
A variable position infeed conveyor also facilitates this process, going further into the press opening when thinner board is being pressed. This is in order to position the mat in exactly the right place so that it receives heat and pressure equally on both sides simultaneously, thus avoiding pre-cure of the resin on one side – a potential problem if one side of the mat touches the hot belt before the other.
Boards exit the press to go to two star coolers before being taken to intermediate storage.
A Steinemann Satos eight-head sander is available for panel sanding and there is an Anthon angular cut-to-size plant which takes books of up to 60 panels of 2.5mm thickness.
The central control room is conveniently located between the main production line and the refiner room, with windows on each side of the control room giving a clear view of either area to supplement the comprehensive computer real-time graphics and the CCTV monitors.
The region has a stable supply of electrical power, generated by hydro-electric power stations, said Mr Guan.
Energy for the MDF production line is generated by a GTS Energy plant supplying steam, thermal oil heating and the flue gas for drying. This American based company has had some success in supplying energy plants for the new wave of MDF lines in China, beating some strong European competition.
Process water is treated in a biochemical system to meet Chinese water quality standards, and much of it is recycled into the MDF production process.
Exhaust air is filtered in a bag filter system which is a mix of locally-made and imported equipment.
New mills in China attach increasing importance to quality control and to protecting their considerable investment. Suichang Luyuan chose GreCon as the supplier for both on-the-line quality control, with density and thickness measurement systems, weight-per-unit-area gauges and blister detection; and for spark detection and extinguishing systems throughout the plant.
The new Siempelkamp line has given Suichang Luyuan a whole new market area on which to concentrate. The old multi-daylight lines were only able to produce 9mm and thicker boards, but the new line adds thinner panels to the range.
Thus the group now offers thicknesses of 2.5, 2.7, 3.0, 4.0, 5.0, 6.0, 8.0, 12.0, 15.0 and 25mm panels. Around 80 to 90% of production from the new continuous line is under 6mm thickness.
Densities offered are 820-860kg/m3 for 12mm and 15mm board, 760kg/m3 for 18mm and thicker and 860-880kg/m3 for thin board.
The principle resin used is urea formaldehyde (UF), but for grade one board, melamine urea formaldehyde (MUF) resin is used to produce a moisture resistant E1 grade.
Currently, Luyuan only supplies the domestic market, all over China, with the main customers being engaged in the furniture industry, domestic decoration and some high-grade packaging of consumer products.
“At present we just manufacture raw MDF board, but in future we will maybe add some downstream products,” said Mr Guan.
An advantage for MDF in China is that it is exempt from the normal 17% VAT because it uses ‘waste’ wood, explained Mrs Ma. By waste in this context, she means branches, small diameter and crooked logs, forest thinnings and so on. In other words, wood that is not usable for lumber.
Larger logs incur VAT and this could be one obstacle to the development of an OSB industry based on fresh wood in China.
The limiting factor on MDF production in China is always the availability of wood to make the fibre but Mr Guan is confident that his factory faces no such problems in an unusually well-wooded region.
“We selected this area for the new factory because of the raw material supply and I don’t see any problem,” he said. “This is a mountainous area with plenty of wood, mostly from natural forest and some from plantations. The rainfall in this area is high and trees grow well by natural regeneration.”