The last few years have witnessed a complete change in the marketing strategy of the world’s leading equipment manufacturers for the wood based panel industry, with two major German suppliers opting to produce all equipment and machinery in-house. This includes everything from mills to chippers, blenders, bin scales, glue kitchens, screens, air graders, silo extractors and, recently, sanders as well, with an ‘all from one source’ philosophy, points out Loris Zanasi, president of Imal-Pal.

Headquartered in Pozzagliio de Uniti near Cremona, EMG is a specialist in handling equipment and panel transport.

Pal says it has demonstrated once again this year that it is a major innovator in the wood based panels industry.

Imeas says it has over 1500 lines installed worldwide and has offices in Europe, America, Asia and Oceania.

Instalmec has been designing and building plants for the production of particleboard, MDF and OSB for over 30 years and says it has paid special attention to the study and development of innovative solutions meant to save energy and reduce wear and maintenance costs.

On January 1 this year, Siempelkamp increased its shareholding in CMC Texpan from the existing 40% to 70%, gradually buying out the company’s president Dario Zoppetti, whose father founded the business known as CMC in 1962.

Luca Zappetti, process engineer and project manager with Instalmec srl of San Giorgio di Nogaro, Udine, said that 2009 was a very good year for the company, even if Europe in general, and the company’s traditionally strong Italian market in particular, were not so good.

Established in 1974 close to its present home in Vigevano in Lombardy, Tocchio srl has a well-established global position in the manufacture of paper impregnation lines, but founder Umberto Tocchio admits that the last two years have been every challenging for his company as orders “fell off a cliff” in the global economic downturn, in common with many machinery makers.

The two constituent companies of the Imal Pal group had rather different experiences during the economic downturn.

In May of this year, Globus srl, established by Fabio Paron in 1981, bought shares in EMG do Brasil in Curitiba.

Bernardo Vitali Nari and Claudio Lommi entered thewater treatment field more than 15 years ago, setting up Claber Ecologia, head quartered in Parma, in 2002 as a specialist in water treatment plants.

Riccardo Ferrari has spent more than 30 years working in the Italian  wood working machinery  field and in the course of that career has visited panel mills all over the world, becoming very well-known in the industry.

We reported in WBPI last year, following the Ligna exhibition, that EMG had supplied in 2008 a high-speed feeding line for Nelson Pine of New Zealand’s Steinemann sanding line,  which broke through the 150m/min ‘barrier’.

Antonio Pozzoli founded his company in 1976 in Monza as an engineering business, designing and supplying turnkey plants to various sectors and by the late 1970s was well-known as a manufacturer of combustion plants for textiles, ceramics and printing.
In 1978, ITAS supplied its first thermal oxidiser (which is still in operation and meeting today’s European standards) for cleaning of gaseous emissions.
Another prominent product of the company, literally, is the construction of very tall flares to burn off excess gas in the oil and gas extraction industry.

When Roberto Longoni started his private company in 1997, he acted as an export agent for timber. However, Mr Longoni soon moved into the fields of exporting
secondhand particleboard plants and supplying laminate raw materials.
Prior to that he had worked as an engineer in the HPL industry since 1972, subsequently gaining experience in production, plant erection and management.
It is the laminating side of the Longoni business which has become its mainstay and this has moved on from simply supplying laminate raw materials of all kinds to also being the sole international agent for NTST of China, which makes impregnation lines.
Based in Nantong, 250km south of Shanghai, NTST manufactures smaller-capacity impregnation lines for decorative and surfacing papers and since the cooperation began in 2003, Longoni has supplied more than 15 NTST lines worldwide.
Destinations include Pakistan, Turkey, Iran, Peru and India. In Argentina, Italian resin producer Sadepan, sister company to panel maker Saviola, has a particleboard plant called Sadepan Latinoamericana producing decorative-surfaced boards and that factory has an impregnation line supplied by Longoni.
In Ethiopia, the Maichew particleboard line, supplied secondhand and refurbished by Modul Systeme of Germany, also purchased an impregnation line through Longoni, which also supplies the technologists to set up and help run-in these lines.
The company has also upgraded and refurbished some lines supplied by others, to increase their efficiency.
“These lines are suited to customers who do not require the highest throughput speed, but a reliable and economically-priced line to do what they require it to do – ‘horses for courses’, so to speak,” said Roberto Longoni’s son Ludovico, who joined the company in 1999 after graduating from university in physics. “Our lines are guaranteed to run at speeds of at least 30m per minute.
“Over the years, NTST’s technology has developed and it received CE certification for its lines in 2007. We are getting serious enquiries from some big panel making concerns; these days, smaller capacities are required and smaller investment cost is important.”
Impregnation and lacquering lines for finish foil are also offered by NTST, as are single- and two-stage impregnation with urea and melamine; lines for producing phenol Kraft paper for shuttering; and one-step Kraft impregnation for continuous pressure laminate (CPL) production.
“We offer a lot of experience in the impregnation business,” said Mr Longoni.
Longoni also sources resin plants through NTST, and other suppliers, to complement the impregnation lines.
The company’s expertise in high pressure laminates (HPL) has enabled it also to offer the technology for its customers to make high-gloss HPL, as well as HPL which does not use phenolic resin in its construction but a special urea recipe.
“Essentially, we operate in three main areas,” said Mr Longoni. “The supply of machinery; know-how and technology; and raw material supply.”
The Longoni company is also a major shareholder in two other companies in China: Shanghai Top Style Furniture Materials Co Ltd makes semi-finished products for furniture; Beijing Ludo Food Tech Co Ltd, together with Shanghai Ludo Cold Food Co Ltd, makes and markets ice cream.
For the decor paper business, Longoni has its own representative office in Shanghai and the company markets Chinese-made paper products in its
own name.
Sandvik Surface Solutions is represented by Longoni in all of South America for its press plates for the HPL, CPL and short-cycle press market – a relationship which began with Hindrichs-Auffermann.
In India, Longoni also represents the Aluminium Feron Company, a manufacturer of metal foil.
Machinery supplied worldwide encompasses not just impregnation, but everything from chippers to short-cycle press lines to complete particleboard plants.
“We represent a variety of suppliers in a variety of markets by selecting suppliers of the right quality for our clients, in order to reach the required performance at the best price,” concluded Mr Longoni.

Efficient transport of panels through the various processes in a factory is of course key to the efficiency of the whole operation.
Founded in 1986, EMG (the name stands for Engineering Manufacturing Group) set about specialising in that field and the end of April 2009 saw the completion of its biggest and highest-speed project to date, at Nelson Pine Industries MDF line in New Zealand.
Murray Sturgeon, managing directory of Nelson Pine in Richmond, Nelson, takes up the story.
“The background to this project was developed when we visited the Ligna exhibition in Hanover, Germany, in 2007,” said Mr Sturgeon when interviewed at Ligna this year.
“Nelson Pine Industries’ objective was to install a new sander line from Steinemann and a new cut-to-size saw line to complement the existing MDF finishing line, consisting of three Steinemann sanders, two saws and packing lines. This would enable us to sand, cut and pack the total output from our three Küsters continuous press lines, producing 1200m3/day over seven days, in a finishing line operating on day-shift only over five days, Monday to Friday.”
Mr Sturgeon went on to explain that to feed the new sander line required a high-speed panel feeding and stacking system.
“I had witnessed EMG sander infeed equipment, introduced to me by Mr José Lobo of Tafisa Brazil in operation in their plant at Piên in Brazil and was satisfied that EMG could handle our requirements,” he said.
The Steinemann Satos sanding line was itself a major project, having 14 heads and a designed maximum running speed of 150m/min.
“To this end, at the time of placing our order with Steinemann, and for the saws, Nelson Pine Industries Ltd favoured EMG to supply and supervise the installation of our panel handling equipment, which incorporated EMG’s patented Sequential Panel Feed System to reach sander throughput speeds of 150m/min for thin panels,” said Mr Sturgeon.
“I am happy to report that our programme was completed in March 2009 and all plant and equipment is operating to our satisfaction and at Nelson Pine Industries Ltd we have reached our objective and now process all MDF on a five-day-per-week basis.”
The line that EMG supplied for the sanding operation included loading and unloading stations, transport to and from the sander, and a system to guarantee that only one thin board feeds into the line at a time, explained Marco Conzadori, sales manager and son of one the founders of EMG.
“The sanded master panel is 2.75x7.3m. The complete line took only three months to assemble on site, including all the mechanical and electrical work,” he explained.
Other recent contracts for EMG include all panel handling after the Dieffenbacher continuous press for line 3 at Eucatex’s mill in Brazil, with delivery completed in July this year, and handling for an Imeas sanding line for a Russian client, which was due for delivery in August.
While the panel industry provides the vast majority of EMG’s work, the company has also employed its handling expertise in the steel sheet industry, where the synergies are obvious.
Four years ago, the company branched out into a completely different field with the design and manufacture of a gun cartridge filling line, bringing automation to what had previously been a largely artisan-based operation.
Returning to the panel industry, EMG has other projects in the pipeline, including one of similar size to the Eucatex order, and was expecting a down-payment from the client imminently at the time of WBPI’s visit to Cremona in June.
“South America is traditionally our main market, though Russia has been growing for us recently,” said Mr Conzadori. “We have also had a lot of interest from India.”
That South America is important is illustrated by the fact that EMG has its only manufacturing operation outside Italy located in Curitiba. EMG do Brasil was set up in 2007 and today employs 32 people, while the Cremona operation employs 35. One of the main products made in Curitiba is a conveying system for chips in the green end of panel mills.
Globus of Italy, a manufacturer of wood size-reduction machinery, is moving the manufacture of its smaller machines to EMG do Brazil, which also produces lines for pellet production.
Mr Guido Conzadori, Marco’s father, is leading the business and reflected on the current market.
“We are a young company in years but not in experience,” he said. “At the moment, in spite of the global crisis, we have used our flexibility and skill to cover our manufacturing needs until the end of 2009 and possibly half-way through 2010. This is largely due to our special relationships with our customers/friends, like Nelson Pine, Duratex, Eucatex, Outokumpu and so on, who have helped us to promote our success.”
Close cooperation with other companies, such as Arco International of Pontevico, Brescia in sawing systems, and the creation of Novopellet as part of the group to produce pellet systems, has helped EMG to weather the economic storm and to fill the extra 33% of extended factory space which the company opened in June 2008.

Imal srl was founded in 1970 and sister company Pal srl in 1978. For years the two companies operated entirely independently and in fact competed in some areas where their product ranges overlapped.
Both were highly profitable companies in their own right.
In 1998, the two companies’ owners saw an opportunity in combining their strengths and eliminating those product overlaps, so shares were exchanged in each company.
In 2006, Romeo Paladin, founder and president of Pal, decided to sell his shares in his company, Imal became the majority shareholder in Pal, and holding company Imal-Pal was born.
However, the two companies continued to trade as separate entities, complementing each others’ products and expertise.
Major complete plant supplier Siempelkamp of Germany had held shares in both independent companies for over 20 years but in 2008 Imal-Pal bought back those shares, becoming completely
independent on September 3 last year.
Pal and Imal are now owned by the three families who founded the businesses – Benedetti, Dal Ben and Zanasi, each currently represented by two generations in the business.
Loris Zanasi, managing director of Imal is, quite naturally, troubled by the current economic crisis.
“2008 was a record year for both Pal and Imal, with a combined turnover of approximately €86m,” he said. “But orders have dropped off dramatically this year.
“Up to now, glue blending systems were the mainstay of Imal, with 38 being sold in 2008 and 1,407 blenders being sold in total – the largest number in the world for particleboard.”
The company has also supplied 768 glue preparation/dosing systems, 638 thickness gauges for use on the production line and 566 laboratory moisture meters, to name but a few products.
Orders included the gluing line for Homatherm’s thick insulation board line, which is a dry-gluing system using MDI resin in a blender; a new fibre resination system for Eucatex in Brazil; and one for Kastamonu in Turkey.
“Thick insulation board is in a growth mode due to building regulations,” said Mr Zanasi. “Since the earthquake in Italy all new houses must be built with an external linked-box construction that will not fall down in earthquakes and the cavities between the walls must be filled with insulation at least 10cm thick. This offers good insulation in winter and summer.”
These rules came into effect on July 1 this year. Wall insulation was of course already compulsory, but thinner.
However, when markets take a dive, it is sensible to have another option to offer to the market and Imal has just that: The company’s pallet block manufacturing line, using a particleboard-like material extruded through a mould, has been very successful and can utilise urban waste wood easily.
A factory supplied recently was built on a greenfield site near Cork in southern Ireland (Eire) to utilise waste wood from the city. The complete wood cleaning system was supplied by Pal as part of a turnkey project for Imal which included the boiler, dryer and three press lines.
“Although we are aware that we are in difficult economic times, we are extremely optimistic for the future,” said
Mr Zanasi.
For instance, the Ligna exhibition in May was a great success for the company, with 17 contracts being signed at the show. “These orders totalled over €3.4m, ranging from values of €5,000 to €1.2m,” said the managing director.
A major new product shown on the Imal stand was the GA717-2 laboratory formaldehyde tester. The number refers to the appropriate EN standard number.
“Formaldehyde levels are becoming more and more important to furniture makers – particularly IKEA – and our system takes four hours to produce a result, compared with two weeks for the conventional chamber method. Ours is based on gas analysis,” explained Mr Zanasi. “The California Air Resources Board [CARB] accepted this EN standard in March this year.”
Also new at the Ligna show was the TM200 thickness gauge for use on the panel production line at speeds of up to 210m/min. It is normally installed just after the press and is claimed to offer a resolution of 1/100mm.
The top and bottom heads are moved simultaneously by a pneumatic panel and the electro-valves are designed to close the heads as soon as the gauge detects the presence of a board, and to open them at the end of the board.
The visualisation software monitors thickness in real time at each position along the length and width of the board and provides averages and trend graphs.
Measurement of the fibre geometry in MDF production and the particle geometry in particleboard is also an important part of quality control.
FiberCam 100 is an optical fibre screen which operates with dry fibre and optical measurement, avoiding the problems of clogging screens. The measuring range is 0.05 to 25mm and as many as one million measurements a minute can be taken, measuring the width and length of the fibre.
ScreenCam 100 is an optical particle screen which operates on the same optical principle as the FiberCam and can be adapted for on-the-line operation as well as laboratory use. The measuring range is 0.15 to 50mm and the measuring time is said to be one minute, in real time.
So, Imal has plenty of established and new products to offer to the global panel producing market now and when things improve.
“This year will be quiet but we do still have big projects under discussion,” concluded Mr Zanasi.

The ability to diversify can be the key to survival in difficult economic times and the company founded by Fabio Paron in 1981 is well placed to do just that.
Globus’ product range includes vibrating and chain conveyors, drum chippers, knife ring flakers, hammermills, refiner mills and the Cam Classifier. This latter machine is designed to screen particles using elliptical cams with a ‘V’ profile which make the particles jump to different heights according to their size, while adjustable gaps between the cams, of varying size along the length of the classifier, allow appropriate-size particles to fall through and be collected.
Another example of Mr Paron’s
engineering flair being used to adapt more common principles is the use of the patented ‘wobble spreader’ in Globus’ knife ring flaker SRC 1400-AR. This device is designed to distribute the chips more uniformly across the length of the knives than in a conventional knife ring flaker.
That range of products is one key to the ability of Globus to diversify its markets; the rapidly increasing interest in biomass energy generation is the other.
“Today, 30% of our business is related to the biomass energy sector and we are currently quoting on projects to a total value of around €6m,” said Mr Paron.
“We are not yet involved in the household recycling sector but that is another possibility for us. We go step-by-step in these developments.”
In July, Globus delivered its first mobile chipper for biomass chipping in the forest. This is to chip the ‘waste’ in the forest, such as small logs and
branches, which in the past would have been burned in situ. This chipping unit has a 640HP motor for an average production of 150m3 of chips per hour. The unit weighs around 25 tonnes.
Another mobile unit under preparation will have a 1200HP motor, capacity of about 300m3 per hour, and will weigh in at around 35-40 tonnes.
“We already have two enquiries from eastern Europe for this larger machine,” said Mr Paron.
Of course the panel industry is still a vital component of the company’s business, as it has always been, and this year’s Ligna exhibition produced two orders for equipment for particleboard lines – one in Uzbekistan (a 400m3 per day line) and one in India (800m3 per day).
Unlike many in the industry, Mr Paron believes that Africa offers potential for his products and he recently installed a small flaker at a panel line in Zambia and another chipping and flaking line at the William Tell particleboard line in South Africa, close to Johannesburg. Another project in South Africa is also under discussion.
South America is another important market for Globus and the company is moving the production of some of its smaller machines to its new subsidiary, Globus do Brasil, in Curitiba. Here, Globus will collaborate with EMG Brasil, a subsidiary of EMG of Italy, which
produces conveyor and panel handling systems.
The machines are being sold with the brand name “EMG with Globus Technology” and in September, engineers from Curitiba will come to Galliate to spend three months learning about the machines. Then, all assistance for the market in North and South America will be based in Curitiba.
“Our strategy there is to establish a marketing, service and commercial network for the continent,” said Mr Paron.
A keen poker player, Mr Paron has decided to offer his “Four Aces” to the market in 2009: the knife ring flaker (‘Hearts’); the drum chipper (‘Diamonds’); the refiner mill (‘Clubs’); and the hammermill (‘Spades’).

CMC Texpan’s name is synonymous with forming machines, but its engineering expertise means it can offer a lot more to the industry as well.Carpenterie Metalliche di Colzate, meaning the Colzate Steelwork Company, may not seem a familiar name until one looks at the initials: CMC. Today, those initials, when combined with the name Texpan, would be very familiar to anyone involved in composite wood panel manufacture. Formed in 1962 by the father of the current president of CMC Texpan, Dario Zoppetti, CMC fabricated metal structural elements for the textile industry, which at that time was very important to Colzate.

Globus, based in Galliate, has enjoyed a good market in the last two years, with a number of projects around the world employing its wood preparation and handling equipment. Fabio Paron founded his company, Globus, in 1981 based on his machinery experience and a background in research and development, as well as in machinery design. The company manufactures and sells chain and vibrating conveyor systems, drum chippers, knife ring flakers, hammer mills and double stream mills, as well as the cam classifier launched at the Ligna exhibition in Germany last year. Globus also makes other products for the wood based panel and biomass energy sectors.

Part of the Mauro Saviola Group, Sadepan Chimica produces resins for the panel industry as well as other fields and, like the rest of the group, is keen to emphasise its ‘green’ credentials.Sadepan Chimica, with factories in Viadana, Castelseprio and Truccazzano in Italy, and Genk in Belgium, makes a range of products including formaldehyde, liquid and powder urea resins for panel production, melamine and urea resins for the impregnation of decorative papers and phenolic resins for Kraft papers. Trade names are Sadeform, Sadeform UFC, Sadecol Resins, Sadecol Glues, Sadecol MUF (melamine urea formaldehyde), Sadecol P, Sadefen and Papersad.

With a group capacity of 1.7 million m3 of particleboard and MDF, all produced from post-consumer wood waste, the Mauro Saviola Group has strong ‘green’ credentials in which it is continuing to invest. The group has been making particleboard since 1963, starting in Viadana, and there is nothing unusual in that. What is unusual is that, in 1997, the company made a life-changing decision in how it sourced its main raw material.

The sanding and grinding of various materials has been the speciality of Imeas Spa since it was established in 1966 and it has always used that wide-ranging experience to inform its product design for the panel industry

Pagnoni was founded even before the state of Italy and, at the age of 160 this year, can celebrate the fact that it is still finding new products for new markets, based on its long experience in the panel industry. The original Fratelli Pagnoni company was founded in Monza in 1848 by the two brothers Stefano and Martino Pagnoni. That is a long time ago, but when you consider that the original family business was founded in flour milling in the 1700s you begin to realise the truly long history behind today’s family business, Pagnoni Impianti.

With the cost of resins and glues rising almost constantly, Imal sees a bright future for its new MDF resination system, as well as its wide range of other products. From its factory in San Damaso near Modena – the home of Ferrari and Maserati motor cars – Imal has been designing and manufacturing a variety of technical equipment for the panel manufacturing industry since 1970.

Wood preparation specialist Pal srl of Ponte di Piave, Treviso, will celebrate 30 years in business this November and continues to invest heavily in research and development (R&D) to ensure it continues to prosper for a lot longer yet. Founded in 1978, Pal srl has established itself as a major supplier of equipment to clean and prepare wood raw material for the panel industry, as well as adding other product areas to its portfolio.

I frequently find myself wondering why it is that this industry always seems to be fighting to defend itself.

Formaldehyde emissions, certification of the wood sources, tree conservationists/preservationists, competition for wood supply coming from subsidised energy generators – there always seems to be a new threat for this industry to counter.

Then I find myself wondering whether the steel, aluminium, concrete and brick industries are subjected to anything like the same attacks. They certainly should be.

However, it seems there is far less public criticism of those who dig massive holes in the ground to extract non-renewable minerals and then convert them in the most horrendously unenvironmentally-friendly, energy guzzling, carbon dioxide-generating processes into often unattractive finished products.

Headquartered in Monza, on the northern outskirts of Milan, Angelo Cremona has been supplying complete plywood production lines and veneer slicing lines for a very long time.
While plywood is the oldest sector of the panel industry, tracing its history back to the time of the ancient Egyptians, the machinery used in its production has been the subject of continual development.
Cremona says the need to obtain a quality product, while achieving savings in labour and materials, is increasingly felt by all manufacturers of peeled veneer and plywood.
The material costs, the number of workers assigned to the drying process and the need to select the sheets based on grading features have all increased, taking an evermore important share of the final product selling price.
The most logical solution, then, is an automatic system which dries the veneer without breaking it, has the ability to recognize the dried product’s humidity, density and surface defect parameters, and automatically stacks the sheets in bundles determined by these parameters.
Thus Cremona’s latest automated drying system is structured in four areas: sheet preparation and infeed; drying; sheet analysis; and bundle stacking.
The bundles of moist sheets are positioned on roller ways placed on the ground, and placed close to one another in order to obtain optimum use of the dryer width. The bundles are conveyed on platforms and then positioned under the vacuum feeding device which rises to allow the suction pick-up of the sheets and their introduction to the dryer infeed rollers.
The position of the rubber rollers, the possibility of adjusting the suction strength and other selection devices are designed to ensure that the sheets placed on the roller conveyors never overlap, even when they are very moist or have been stacked for some time before drying.
Cremona says the speed of the feeding device ensures productivity is maintained, even with thin or very small sheets.
The variable speed of the roller ways feeding the upper decks, together with front alignment devices, is designed to allow a good infeed rate suited to various working conditions.
To obtain maximum machine utilisation, Cremona says it has integrated within the loader a fast ejection device for the pallets on which wet veneer bundles are normally supplied.
When the veneers have entered the process, a series of rollers conveys the pallets under the connection roller-ways, where a special chain-driven device pushes them to one side and stacks them, if necessary, ready to be picked up and brought to other lines to be re-used.
The drying process must ensure fast water evaporation, conveying inside the dryer without bumping or excessive pressure, and allow physiological wood shrinkage. Cremona’s patented ET Dryer employs bars to do this. The material to be dried is conveyed between two decks of rods moved by chains at the sides of the dryer and towed by two gear motors at the end of the machine.
The small diameter steel rods, connected by strips of steel plate, allow the heat to reach the surface of the sliced veneer and don’t ‘hit’ the sheets, as roller dryers can, during drying. Cremona says this limits the height of possible curling of a sheet during the water evaporation phase.
 This kind of conveying is designed to ensure that all sheets fed to the dryer will be conveyed with care throughout and that possible cracks in the veneer will not be increased. Also, the sheets will not be shattered when they are dry as tends to happen in roller dryers, says the company.
Depending on its length, the dryer is divided into two or three areas whose environmental parameters can be set according to need; the temperature and moisture values are automatically controlled by setting the reference measurements.
A moisture circulation system between the various areas ensures a precise distribution to optimise water movement from the inside to the outside of the wood and to obtain a very elastic, dry, peeled veneer which is not fragile.
The dryer is made of modular panels whose thermal insulation ensures that the outer plates of the machine are just a few degrees above room temperature, minimizing the loss of heat inside the dryer and avoiding energy wastage. The radiant batteries inside the machine, whose pipes have an elliptical section, are designed to ensure low load losses and to maximise thermal exchange performance. Flow conveyors divide the air on various decks to ensure constant drying on each deck and in all positions in which the sheets are conveyed.
In a factory, it is normal to find a container near a roller or net dryer where broken veneers are dumped during the drying operation. Cremona says that, with its roller bar dryer, this container is no longer necessary.
For sheet analysis at the dryer outfeed it is necessary to bring all sheets back to only one conveying deck to start the dimensional and qualitative analysis. A series of angle, belt and roller transmissions aligns the sheets and sends them towards a belt conveyor which passes the first measuring device: the moisture and density analyser.
The reading of the residual water content is performed on the entire sheet surface and the data obtained is stored in the virtual directory assigned to each sheet. The analysis of the various readings will then be processed to automatically adjust the dryer speed up or down.
Sheet density values are also analysed and stored in the virtual file. The reading of the two parameters is performed at a speed which ensures the sheet outfeed operates without interrupting the drying process.
Continuing the path, the sheets are aligned at the side, by a belt conveyor which, unlike rollers, does not jolt the sheet, thus preventing fall-out of dried knots.
The veneer is then analysed by a colour camera, which scans the sheets and reads their defects. This can identify open and closed knots, cracks, colour differences and fake thickness due to blind holes, the presence of bark and any other defect which must be considered in describing the overall quality of the sheet. The data read by the camera is added to the virtual directory of each sheet and stored in the PC memory.
After the camera, a vacuum stacker with different stations places the sheets on top of each other to obtain a homogenous bundle.
Where to convey the sheets is decided by the PC which, depending on the parameters chosen by the operator during production line setting, analyses the virtual directories of each sheet and compares the data with the reference setting. The number of sheets, with quality information and general features of each bundle, is thus known, making it possible to define another value which can identify each bundle in order to help in the stacking or composing operations for pressing.
The data processing produces a bar-code, placed on the bundles to report the specific quality, which can also be printed out.
There is only one conveying speed for the whole line after the dryer; speed differences between the single machines are no longer necessary. A device on the angle transmission ensures the necessary space between the sheets so stacking in the stacker is performed smoothly.
To unload the bundles, a powered double carriage, which runs along the vacuum stacker, takes the bundle from the platform and, by means of a special feeding device, positions the pallets on the empty platform.
Two stacking stations on the ground will house the unloaded bundles and the pile of spare pallets, ensuring stocking of the products and giving enough time for the operator to best manage the ejection operation of the bundles already processed.
The advantages claimed for this system are that it is managed by a single operator from a computerised control station; the only other personnel required are the ones who position the sheet bundles on the infeed rollers and remove the dried bundles.
This, says Cremona, both saves labour and means the material choice is performed with parameters no human can assess, and remains constant through a working shift.
Also, it says, the dryer always works at the maximum speed appropriate to the moisture of the material, to give constant high production values. The adjustment of the dryer optimises energy consumption, allowing considerable savings, while the identification of the sheet quality allows optimal use of the material to obtain constant quality and size.
The mechanical features of the resultant panels will also be ensured by the identification of the distinctive parameters of the processed and graded product, says Cremona.

It is only a few kilometres to the ski slopes of the Alps to the north and the historic and beautiful town of Bergamo to the south, and the sides of the valley rise steeply on either side of the river Serio, which runs alongside the headquarters of CMC Texpan in Colzate.
But in spite of its scenic beauty, this is still an industrial area, famous for textiles and the machinery used in their manufacture, although that business is struggling against the competition from the Far East.
However, CMC Texpan is one company here which isn’t struggling – it has a healthy order book for its traditional products for forming lines for MDF, particleboard and OSB  lines and has recently added components for short-cycle press lines – for its part-owner Siempelkamp GmbH of Krefeld Germany – to its portfolio.
The CMC Texpan company was originally founded as CMC by Mario Zoppetti in 1962. His son Dario cooperated with the Texpan company in the 1970s and the company name became CMC Texpan in 1997 when the two companies merged.
Meanwhile, in the mid-1980s, complete panel production plant supplier Siempelkamp took a 25% share in CMC Texpan, and in February this year, it bought another 15%, leaving Dr Dario Zoppetti as the major shareholder, with 60%.
“The target of this was to increase the presence of Siempelkamp in the company in order to increase the range of products made here and the cooperation between our two companies,” explained Dr Zoppetti.
CMC Texpan has for some years been the supplier of the forming lines used in virtually all Siempelkamp-supplied particleboard and MDF production lines. Today, the company’s order books contain quite a high proportion of projects to upgrade older lines and increase their quality and capacity with the latest forming technology, as well as supplying to new projects.
“We are continually working on refreshing our lines – increasing the quality and characteristics of existing lines as well as making new products,” said Dr Zoppetti. “In fact, about 50% of our turnover is in upgrades and 50% in new plants these days. Usually they are our original lines but sometimes we replace other suppliers’ lines.
“For the foreseeable future, I think there will be more upgrades because there are many plants with older machinery which is often OK but needs to be more productive.”
Recent contracts for upgrading include Depalor’s particleboard forming line in France, completed in August 2004. The two mechanical heads were upgraded to improve cross-weight distribution and thus the properties of the panel.
Kaindl of Salzburg also took delivery of two upgraded mechanical forming heads, and a balanced pressure roller after the final mechanical head, this May.
Other upgrades include Ernst Kaindl’s Osmoloda factory in Russia which, requiring a number of modifications, took the opportunity of planned down-time to implement CMC Texpan’s mat width adjustment system.
Besides upgrading the mechanical forming heads to the latest system, engineers from Colzate removed the disc separators between the dosing bin and the wind chamber for the surface layer, inserting glue lump extraction screens. They also eliminated the disc separators between the dosing bin and the underlying mechanical head and then installed a new separator above the dosing bin. The width adjustment system with chip recycling devices now produces a mat with variable width from 2,490mm to 2,070mm.
Following such modifications, Osmoloda will reach a production capacity of  approximately 1,200m3/22hr, based on 16 mm-thick panels. The agreement between the two companies was signed last January and the modification should be delivered, installed and commissioned during this summer.
In Thailand, Metro ordered a press extension from Siempelkamp to increase its ContiRoll from 23.8 to 30.4m, requiring the addition of a fourth forming station as a second mechanical core former. Capacity there is planned to increase from 750m3/22hr to around 1,100m3/22hr on a 16mm basis.
Pfleiderer’s Russian particleboard plant also received modifications to its forming line, as did Egger’s particleboard line at  Rambervillers in France.
In OSB, CMC Texpan is to supply the mat forming station for the Slocan project in Canada as part of the complete line supplied by Siempelkamp and currently under erection. This is a six-head forming station with a 3,860mm forming width.
Designed for particleboard production with variable width and thickness, the Kastamonu plant in Turkey has wind mat formers for surface layers and oversized mechanical machines for the core layer. The forming station has a width adjustment system for panel widths from 1,830mm to 2,150mm. The plant will have a production capacity between 1,200 and 1,500m3/22.8hr, 18 mm basis.
China is also on the project list. CMC Texpan is supplying  mechanical-head mat formers for both surface and core layers, with width adjustment from 2,550mm to 2,110mm, to Dare’s mill in Sanming – another Siempelkamp main contract.
“Forming is normally part of the press line package for new or upgraded plants, so being part of Siempelkamp is certainly an advantage, but of course we still have to fight on price!” said Dr Zoppetti.
“It is a partnership with Siempelkamp and we work together, sharing our knowledge on start-ups and so on. For example, at the Slubice project in Poland, we suggested larger storage bins for wet and dry flakes and cooperated with Siempelkamp to get the best efficiency from the line.
 “We have produced bins and bunkers for MDF and particleboard many times before, but not for OSB, so we are delivering a new, cheaper kind of bunker, which we have tested together with Siempelkamp, for the Slubice OSB line.”
Parts of the bunkers are being made by a local company in Romania, to CMC Texpan’s drawings and under its supervision.
A new development by CMC Texpan is a weighing system, or mat scale, to go after the former and in the former, with the dosing system regulated by the mat scale within the former.
CMC Texpan also cooperated on a Crown Former forming machine for particleboard, jointly with Siempelkamp, in 2002 for those who prefer mechanical forming.
In 2003, it launched the Star Former for MDF, designed by Siempelkamp’s R&D department in Krefeld to reduce the cost and increase the quality of the former. This machine is made by CMC Texpan.
Talking of reducing costs – as everybody is these days – CMC Texpan is looking at the manufacture of some components for its equipment in China for the Chinese and other Asian markets.
“We did a similar exercise in Romania and made many parts for dryers and other machinery locally in a commercial arrangement with a manufacturer in Cluj Napoca in Transylvania,” said Dr Zoppetti. “The quality is acceptable and the costs are lower.”
 Such far-flung places as Romania, Russia, China, Thailand and North America seem even further away as you look out of the windows of Dr Zoppetti’s three-year-old head office building in CMC Texpan’s mountain valley home.

Imal, a certified ISO 9001 company, not only specialises in gluing systems, blending equipment, on-the-line quality controls and laboratory testing equipment, but also in the supply of patented blending systems for the production of MDF.
“These gluing systems allow the end consumer to achieve substantial resin savings, lower formaldehyde emissions and increased dryer capacity,” says managing director Loris Zanasi.
Founded in 1970 in Modena and currently having 120 employees, Imal is still growing.
“Sales continue to increase due, above all, to our constant research into new products and technology for applications in the wood based panels sector,” he says. “Our policy to annually invest 4% of our profits in research and development, a division where five full-time engineers collaborate in close conjunction with the Modena and Bologna University Research laboratories, enables the company to retain its reputation as an avant-garde manufacturer in this industrial sector.”
Mr Zanasi is delighted to report that his company has supplied its first fibre resination system in the Far East, after having completed 13 such installations; and 23 MDF blenders worldwide. Start-up of this newly installed system in South Korea is planned for the third quarter of this year.
Imal is also planning to put its first fibre resination system in Greece into operation over the same period.
With this new fibre blending technology, which he says is fully tried and tested in 13 MDF mills, Mr Zanasi says Imal is able to guarantee customers resin savings of around 20% on current resin addition rates with traditional blow-line blending. This guarantee is accompanied by a spot-free board surface and the same physical-mechanical board properties.
What basis does Imal have for this claim? Mr Zanasi says it is justified because the results are even better in practice.
“In the case of flooring production, for instance, where small surface spots are reasonably acceptable because of the paper covering process, it is possible to achieve even better resin savings,” he asserts.
In this system, the fibre and resin are mixed together in a special blender after the dryer, to avoid the destructive effect which the heat of the dryer has on the resin; to offset the loss of resin properties and binding capacity, most producers tend to increase the amount of resin they use.
The first factor Imal takes into consideration in a mill using traditional methods is dryer temperature – the higher the dryer temperature, the better and more visible the results are, says the managing director.
“Another benefit of this system is the reduction in dryer energy and consequent increase in dryer capacity, since less resin, and hence less water, is introduced into the dryer, making it possible to dry greater quantities of fibre,” he explains.
For traditional fibre resination plants with blow line injection, Imal has designed a new ‘common rail’ system, so-called because it closely resembles the latest diesel engines. The glue is sprayed through injector nozzles into the blow line. An accurate digital pressure gauge measures glue pressure, which is kept constant, despite variations in flow rate, and Imal claims this results in efficient blending at both high and low flow rates.
Imal also supplies lines for the production of particleboard-based pallet blocks. These lines can be installed parallel to existing particleboard lines as much of the equipment used to prepare the material will be the same.
Compared with traditional, solid wood pallet blocks, the new generation blocks have excellent mechanical and physical properties, says the company, because it is possible to vary density, impermeability, dimensions and thickness. Also, the blocks do not split when nailed and, above all, waste wood and recycled wood may be used to produce them.
“The concept of making pallets with pressed wood, rather than solid wood blocks is rapidly catching on,” says Mr Zanasi. “In May alone, three pallet block production lines, equipped with the new patented steam pressing system, were put into operation in Italy, enabling the mills to reach an elevated daily production capacity.”
In the OSB sector, as well as supplying glue blenders and kitchens, Mr Zanasi says that Imal is a leader in the design and installation of the Fines Recovery System. This system screens out the face and core strands and diverts the small-sized particles to a traditional particleboard blender.
The low concentration of the glue mixture injected into this blender reduces the amount of glue the fines can absorb.
“The Fines Recovery System has been installed in several OSB plants in North America, with excellent glue savings confirmed by the testimonial letters received from our customers,” says Mr Zanasi.
In the plywood field, Imal has designed several moisture control systems for veneer, with automatic dryer control to reduce dryer energy waste and increase productivity.
Imal also manufactures on-the-line thickness gauges and board quality control equipment and Mr Zanasi says this division is strengthened by the Imal R&D team upgrades, which are designed in conjunction with on-site experience acquired in a variety of applications installed worldwide.
“The careful choice of components and circuit configurations makes system operation possible in even the most adverse environmental conditions, which are typical of many of today’s emerging markets,” he says, “and special attention has been given to upgrading the hardware to meet recent safety standard requirements, such as ATEX.”
Among new quality control designs presented in 2005, pride of place is given to the PSD (on-line Press Security Device), made to meet the increasing need for composite board manufacturers to identify impurities such as tiny pebbles, stones, metal and other high density impurities like plastic or lumps of glue, which could be present in the wood flow.  Identifying and eliminating impurities at the pre-press outfeed helps protect press and steel belts.
With an appropriate processing of the received signal, it is also possible to obtain the real time transverse density profile of the mat, which may be reproduced with current graphic technology (3-D in colour) for a clear view of the mat and to highlight any forming defects which may be present.
Other new quality control devices include the RSD (Refiner Security Device) to detect and automatically eliminate impurities from chips at the refiner infeed; also the IBX600,  a brand new laboratory machine for carrying out all mechanical property tests and X-ray density profile at the same time, and the LOS (laboratory optic screen), able to carry out fast optical screening by means of a computer and specially designed software to rapidly produce a continuous graph, rather than a discrete graph, as is the case with the traditional screening process, says Mr Zanasi.
Among Imal’s traditional and well-known quality control equipment is the thickness gauge and blister detector; TS100 mat water spraying unit; CDP200 on-line density  profiler; and complete range of moisture detectors for installation before and after the  dryer, on the forming line and in the laboratory.
For the laboratory, there is the DPX200 X-ray density profiler; IB600 laboratory testing machine; and the ROC100 roughness optic control, the new laser technology surface analyser. “Last but not least, in addition to the PSD and the RSD, there is the SDS (spark detection and extinguishing system) which fully meets the current ATEX safety requirements, and the APX (cyclone anti plugging device), which completes the range of safety control equipment,” says Mr Zanasi. “Imal also has a wide range of instrumentation to offer for the measurement of moisture content, such as the UM300, suitable for installation after the dryer, the infrared UM700 and the new infrared UM700F with fibre optic technology for installation in ATEX areas.”

Since its foundation in 1978, PAL srl of Ponte di Piave, Treviso, in the north east of Italy, has dedicated itself to the area of wood preparation for the particleboard industry.
The company’s wide range of equipment covers crushing, extraction, screening, cleaning, refining, sifting, de-sanding and weighing and metering of the chips used in panel production.
Italy is a country with a very poor forest resource and, as a result, has in a sense been forced to become expert in the use of recycled wood. For instance, the largest Italian panel maker, the Mauro Saviola Group, uses 100% recycled, or urban, wood supply to make well over a million m3 of particleboard panels annually.
The use of such raw material presents particular challenges, as it must be thoroughly cleaned to remove anything from sand to bullets to avoid damage to the panel maker’s production machinery – or to the saws and moulders of his customers during subsequent processing.
Thus PAL was ideally placed to adapt its technology to this task and has developed machines which cover the spectrum of cleaning and sorting of chips; and exported that technology all over the world.
Until now, PAL has only dealt with the products of chippers supplied by other companies, but that is about to change.
The company has formed an alliance with fellow Italian company Globus of Galliate, west of Milan, close to Novara.
“We have joined forces to strengthen the position of both companies on the market,” explains Romeo Paladin, founder and president of PAL. “The target of the alliance is to become stronger on the market, which is increasingly selecting its individual suppliers. We are engaged in global solutions for wood preparation where there are chipping and flaking operations. Globus is a specialist with a very new patented solution for flaking to improve the quality of the flakes, to increase the capacity of its knife ring flakers and to drastically reduce the wear inside the machine.”
Fabio Paron is the managing director of Globus and he explains the innovations on his flakers: “The problem with a flaker is always to spread the chips throughout the flaker and this leads to localised wear and to uneven-sized flakes. Our idea is to install a spreader inside the machine which is oval and runs eccentrically – it is called a wobble spreader – and which is separately driven and acts as a real spreader.
“Flakers generally haven’t changed for about 10 years, until now. This new flaker is also the largest on the market, giving increased capacity with constant quality.”
Mr Paron claims the spreading effect enables an increase from a maximum blade size of 500mm to 700mm, or plus 40%.
The new flaker is known as the Knife Ring Flaker SRC 1400-AR. This patented Globus system has already been supplied to customers in South Africa, South America, Italy, Greece and Indonesia.
Globus has been on the market in debarkers, chippers and flakers for over 20 years. In its earlier days, it repaired and reconditioned machines made by other manufacturers before moving into the manufacture of its own machines, using the experience gained to improve and modify the concepts.
“A second innovation of Globus is a type of rollscreen, debuted as a prototype at this year’s Ligna exhibition in Hannover, Germany,” says Mr Paron. “It is known as a ‘lobe screen’ [due to the shape of the screen components] and it will be integrated into PAL’s range of Dynascreen and Quadradyn screens to complete the ‘roll screen family’.
“The lobe screen makes the material jump, thus helping to increase separation of pollutants, fines, wet fines and so on; jumping is much more efficient, especially for ‘sticky’ fines.”
Mr Paladin takes over the story: “To complete our solution for the wood preparation area, there were two machines missing from PAL’s portfolio: chipping and flaking. Now they are part of our offering to the market. We are working together in the alliance, shortening the communication line between supplier and customer. The lobe screen will be integrated with the Dynascreen to provide the most appropriate solution.”
The innovations were presented at Ligna under two banners: Globus Pal Screening Alliance and Flaking Alliance.
Meanwhile, PAL has been experiencing considerable success in its traditional market, as marketing and sales manager Fabio Chiara points out: “We have received orders for all the recent particleboard plants in Turkey and for a new sawdust sifting system at Kaindl’s plant in Salzburg, Austria. Also the upgrading of preparation areas at the Kronospan pant in Scharja in Russia.”
In April, PAL also received the order for preparation areas for Kronospan’s Osmoloda and Kharkov plants in the Ukraine.
North America has been a good source of orders for the company as well, especially for the Quadradyn screen.
The first of these screens, specifically designed for screening the strands used in OSB production, started operation in April 2004 at the Huber Broken Bow 504,000m3 per year OSB mill in Oklahoma, US.
“We have sold 16 Quadradyn primary screens, together with several secondary screening machines since then and completed assembly of a plant in Jihlava in the Czech Republic for Kronospan in early April.We are also installing three Quadradyn screens at the Canfor/Louisiana-Pacific mill in Fort St John, BC, Canada.” That mill will employ the  largest multi-daylight press in the world, supplied by Siempelkamp, to produce over 725,000m3 a year of OSB and is due to start up later this year.
Martco in Louisiana has also signed up for three Quadradyn systems for its new OSB line, while Grant Forest Products has bought six. “Quadradyn is the only OSB screening system with proven results, by which I mean installations up and running, and every new OSB mill built worldwide in the last year – since Huber proved the worth of the system – has specified the Quadradyn,” says Mr Chiara proudly.
Research and development (R&D) has always played an important role in the development of PAL’s business and Mr Paladin is proud of this fact.
"We have moved our R&D department to a new location in a new building here at our headquarters with much improved facilities,” he says. “We are continually expanding this department because it is very important to be able to test customers’ materials and to be able to verify our methods. The new laboratory also has a 3ft x 16ft 6in Quadradyn screen, which is an industrial, not a laboratory size, and we are continually testing many pounds of materials from our US customers and others.”
Since it entered into cooperation with IMAL srl of Damaso, Italy, in which the latter took on responsibility for marketing glue systems and quality testing equipment in 1998 – an area in which the two companies previously competed – PAL has been able to concentrate that R&D effort solely on the area of wood preparation. Thus the company already had a considerable track record in the area of cleaning and screening. What it couldn’t offer directly to the customer was the machinery to produce the chips and flakes.

Paper impregnation is a very specialized business and Tocchio, as one of only two major manufacturers of such impregnation lines in Europe, and one of very few worldwide, is the first to admit that it could not do it alone.
“Any new developments in this industry are the result of close cooperation by paper makers, resin producers, the end-user and our research and development team. We work together and Tocchio makes the necessary investments to achieve the desired targets,” explains Emiliano Tocchio, who, with his father Umberto, runs the 31-yearold, family-owned company.
Umberto Tocchio started with a small workshop three kilometres away from the existing, expanding factory to which the company moved in 1996. The original premises are now used for storage.
Today’s factory stands on a site of 20,000m2 on the outskirts of Vigevano, which, until recently, had an undercover area of around 9,000m2. However, an extra 2,000m2 was added to the production facilities in May of this year and this extra space is primarily for the assembly of the company’s large impregnation lines. With those lines currently being anything up to 80m long, some space is obviously needed.
However, that may be about to change as Tocchio is working on the development of a revolutionary system which will result in shorter impregnation lines and, claims Emiliano Tocchio, a more efficient way of carrying out the impregnation process.
Like everybody in manufacturing of anything these days, Tocchio faces continual pressures to make lines which will run faster but, of course, cost less. Not that there haven’t always been challenges to face, explains Umberto Tocchio.
For example, 15 to 20 years ago paper weights for impregnating papers were 100-160g/m2 but now they are often 60-70 grammes. This is not just due to the efforts of the  paper makers, but there is more accuracy in the forming of a particleboard mat and in pressing, glue distribution, sanding, and so on, to produce a better panel surface. This then enabled the use of such low grammage papers.”
So what was the next challenge for a company like Tocchio? You probably guessed – it was cost.
“China and Asia can compete using their low labour costs and, sometimes, lower material costs,” explains Mr Tocchio. “The challenge we have to answer is how to improve and increase sales of our impregnation lines against this competition from Asia. Our  customers are asking us for a lower price but the best performance at the highest speed.”
Emiliano Tocchio points out that they can achieve certain targets, as they already have, working with their customers’ laboratories, Tocchio’s own extensive R&D facilities and specialist laboratories in universities. But the company needs to go further in the current market.
“We are trying to develop simpler impregnation lines at better prices but with higher speeds – a different range of products for different markets,” he says. “There are some customers who do not require [the speed of] a ‘Ferrari’ but want the same end result in terms of quality and reliability.
“Up to now we have concentrated on the high-level production end of the market but we have to address the price-sensitive markets as well.We will launch a new range of machines shortly to address these needs.”
One does not have to travel far in the panel industry in China to find a panel mill which has a European made impregnation line such as Tocchio’s which it uses for preference, but a cheaper, inferior, locally made line in another shed that is pressed into service for periods of high demand.
“We are developing a new coating system to coat with one or more layers of resin,” says Mr Tocchio junior. “The resin is not exactly a liquid – it is a different formulation – and the system can work with two different kinds of resin: a urea and then, say, a melamine for low pressure melamine papers.
“The conventional system employs a bath but, as this new system is enclosed and pressurised, it enables the building of a smaller line.We are also developing a new drying system.”
The use of in-register embossing, particularly for laminate flooring producers, but also for furniture, is a rapidly growing trend and, if this is to work successfully, it is vital to limit the expansion of the paper, explains Mr Tocchio. “This is why we are developing a drying system which does not use air or high temperatures – to reduce the expansion of the paper.
“In all this R&D, which is at an advanced stage, we are working closely with universities and foreign partner companies.”
Talking of these new developments brings us back to the issue of the length of impregnation lines. “With this new injection and drying system, we should be able to about halve the length of the line,” says Emiliano Tocchio. “Thirty to 35m should be more than enough and we will still achieve speeds of around 200m a minute. A  conventional line for low-pressure melamine runs at about 60-80m a minute and costs around €2m. Customers may pay a similar amount, but they want to produce about 50% more.”
Umberto Tocchio agrees: “The future is definitely high speed but with the maintenance of good quality. One of the major panel producers in the world is already rewinding paper at 120m a minute, 24 hours a day, and higher speed is already here and is certainly here for the future.”
There has been some heightened publicity surrounding formaldehyde emissions recently and Tocchio is already supplying a bio-filtration system to clean formaldehyde emissions from impregnation lines. The company has also developed an on-the-line measuring system for weight and moisture content for its lines.
In common with many machinery suppliers, Tocchio offers a teleservice/remote  monitoring assistance service to its customers, including the facility to connect via  modem to one of its supplied machines anywhere in the world and make remote adjustments.
“In the unlikely event that that is not enough, after-sales service is not just words for us, but a fact – we guarantee physical intervention in 24 hours maximum, if it is necessary,” says Emiliano.
“We also offer chemical and technical assistance to our customers with new products, new resin formulations and it has always been this way for us.”
Internally, the company has a new storage system for components, to rationalize and improve efficiency, and it has installed an ERP Business Management System for ‘cradle to grave’ tracking of every order; the company knows exactly what stage every order has reached at any given time.
“It has always been my dream to have such a system – an exact picture of the situation – how many hours spent and so on. Now we have it,” says the founder proudly.
It may have been tough in the panel market recently but Tocchio’s turnover increased by 10% between 2003 and last year, with exports going to Spain, Portugal, Turkey, Syria, Germany, Russia and South America, as well as to the home market in Italy. It supplies about 12 impregnation lines a year.
The company is also planning a joint venture production company for impregnation lines with a partner in Asia.
Apart from its activities in the panelrelated industry, accounting for over 80% of turnover, Tocchio also makes impregnation lines for the specialist filter paper industry, the food industry, and for the manufacture of masking tape. Lines for the glass fibre industry are another speciality.

Giben International, founded in 1947 in Pianoro as Gino Benuzzi, says that a revolution in the function of its machines was introduced in 2000, when it won the Challenger’s Award for technological innovation for its PM System at that year’s IWF exhibition in Atlanta in the US.
In Giben panel saws, the ‘PM System’ (PM stands for ‘pinze mobili’ in Italian and moving grippers in English) is the system which automatically positions each individual gripper along the length and cross axis of the machine pusher.
The position is controlled by the saw computer, ‘Giben G-Drive Control’, and is always optimised depending on the size of the boards, the cut sequence, the size of the strips or the size of the parts. The PM System is now an established feature of most of Giben’s machines.
This year the company introduced a brand new model, the Y-3000 SPT/MR panel saw in its ‘Professional line’ series, with automatic loading of boards from the lift table and a pusher with moving grippers along the ‘X’ and ‘Y’ axes. It also features Giben’s MR rotation system.
Giben claims this represents the simplest and most effective solution to carry out both first and second rotation of the in-fed stack of boards. Overall dimensions of the machine remain unchanged, since rotation is carried out in the space between the machine working table and the front air flotation tables.
The machines in this series offer high performance saw carriage speed (170m/min) and pusher return speed (90m/min) and also feature pneumatic saw blade release, a split and independent pressure beam and an automatic side-aligning device with two independent rollers.
“The single cutting line model Y-3000, with manual or automatic loading from a lift table, is a high performance and versatile panel saw designed for the furniture industry,” said marketing manager Stefano Conti.
For big sawing jobs, Giben offers the Formula S model, an angular system with two cutting lines featuring the PM System on the cross-pusher which can be equipped with robotic unloading systems and is controlled by G-Drive Control. This can also be equipped with a panel rotation system for staggered and/or checkerboard head cuts.
Giben has always supplied the panel processing industry with big sizing plants with two or more cutting lines, such as the Matic 17/170 and Hypermatic 19/200 models, but it is the Tetramatic which tops off the product range. It is claimed to be the biggest saw in the world and can cut stacks of panels 220mm to 310mm high (upon request), offering “huge yields” according to Mr Conti.
“Every Tetramatic cutting centre has two saw carriages, one on the top and one on the bottom, each equipped with two blades, thus combining the cutting height with high speed,” he said. The key feature is that the two main saw blades, of 470mm diameter and 4.4mm thickness, share the cutting strain equally on a stack of boards 220mm high as if it was a stack of 110mm.
Because of these features the cutting strain is reduced and a higher feed speed than would be possible using blades of 700/800mm is achieved, he explained.
The other two blades are scoring saws: the traditional bottom scoring saw prepares the cut on the bottom side of the stack and the top scoring saw avoids any chipping on the top of the stack.
“The Tetramatic has been designed to meet different tasks such as high capacity, extreme flexibility according to cut-to-size components, lower cost for tools and higher cutting speed,” Mr Conti said. “Tetramatic can be integrated into highcapacity cutting lines for largedimension panel processing industries, in full loading and unloading lines and robotized stacking and strapping lines which can be equipped with an anthropomorphic robot, with an automation level never achieved by any sizing system.”
Under assembly in the factory at the time of my visit was a Sigmatic angular system with 6000 x 2700mm cutting length, complete with an ‘SR’ stack rotation system for the execution of one or more head cuts with the length panel saw.
This sizing system was on its way to a customer who makes hardboard, suggesting that the rotation system is capable of handling thin wavy panels as well as rigid ones.
Of course none of the automation of the PM System moving grippers, optimised saw movements, panel rotation and automatic robotised unloading would work without a coordinating system: the G-Drive machine control software. This was developed by Giben to run on Microsoft Windows multitasking operating system and to control all the complex machine movements.
The machine layout and cutting pattern being processed are displayed to scale on the screen and the cutting operations and panel movements are simulated in real time.
A further software system available to Giben’s customers is the Optisave (Optiwin) optimisation software, which it says provides the best cutting patterns, taking into account the waste factor, cost of the saw, cutting time and the cost of the material.
Although Giben is a regular attendee at major exhibitions, the company also has a large, permanent showroom at the Pianoro factory, where machines from its product range are always operating. It also held an open day in November last year and in 2002.
“This complements our attendance at the shows, in fact every year this showroom hosts many customers who can touch with their own hands the Giben solutions and newest products,” said Mr Conti. 

The printing of realistic designs imitating natural materials such as wood and stone has improved in leaps and bounds in recent years until it is difficult for even the experienced eye to tell paper from real wood or granite.
What held back the development of these decors was not the look of the design, but its feel. It might at first have looked like a genuine piece of ash veneer, but as soon as you touched it, or looked at it from an oblique angle, the deception became more apparent.
Sesa saw the limitations of the printing process a long time ago and realised that a decor must have a tactile reality as well as a visual one.
Marco Santori, chief executive, first showed the world an embossed-in-register tile effect surface back in 1982, but the market was not ready for it. “At that time, the market was geared only for huge quantities,” explained sales manager Paolo Rastelli. “It was not until 1998 that we produced the first limestone embossed-in-register tile effect, in cooperation with Uniboard of Canada.”
The panel was displayed at the Surfaces show in Las Vegas in 1999 to great acclaim. Since then, embossed-in-register (EIR) wood-grains and tile effects have gained in popularity in the laminate flooring sector and, frankly, made the older style decors look their age.
The texturing of surfaces, showing features such as the pores of a wood grain, is not so new, but EIR takes this to another level altogether. The secret is to emboss the grain in a totally natural way so that the vessels, pores and grain of a wood appear exactly where they would in the natural product; it feels real.
This process requires a close cooperation between the paper maker, decor printer, impregnator, press plate maker and the press maker – in fact everyone involved in the whole process.
The printer marks the edge of the décor paper with register marks to ensure that it is correctly aligned in the press – so that the texture matches the printed grain or stone features. The paper maker’s and the impregnator’s role is to ensure that the paper’s behaviour with regard to shrinkage and expansion remains predictable.
That first EIR flooring was a tile-effect and here it was important that the grout lines between the tiles lined up.
In addition to all that, the press plate is textured in such a way that the level of gloss is not uniform. Areas of differing matt, satin or gloss finish complete the realistic effect.
It is easy to see why the successful development of EIR took a long time to achieve.
However, it has now achieved considerable market penetration in the laminate flooring sector. “We did not want to wait another 15 years for the next logical development,” said Mr Rastelli and that was to move on to the application of EIR in furniture production.
“We decided to show the end product in the market and to go straight to the end-user and show them what can be done.”
Two years ago, Sesa held a ‘private’ showing of its latest ideas in a restaurant in Milan during the Sasmil exhibition. This year, the company decided to hold a similar event in the Grand Hotel Fiera Milano adjacent to the Sasmil fairground and to invite potential customers to see the new range.
“This finish uses the technology to move on from standard melamine finishes – it is not in competition with them. This is a product to substitute for real wood, at lower cost.
“Production costs of this furniture are the same as standard melamine products, but, because they compete with real wood products, they give an opportunity for increased margins [for the furniture producer]. There is a need to find something attractive and to provide margins for manufacturers between cheap furniture from China and so on and the  expensive real wood.”
On show at the Grand Hotel were items of furniture made using the new EIR wood-grain decors. To make the point that these new decors can be used in the same way as existing ones, Sesa displayed samples of existing designs of cabinet furniture, produced in collaboration with four partner companies in the value chain.
The cabinets were made by Jose Saez of Barcelona, a famous Spanish furniture producer; the printed decor paper was supplied by Lamigraf; the furniture was designed by JordiVIDALasociados; and edging was by ServiCanto.
“We are giving new birth to this market – it is time for new concepts and our partners agree with this philosophy,” said Mr Rastelli.
The main launch of the new range took place at the Salone Internazionale del Mobile, held in Milan in April.
In addition to the items of furniture, panel samples of various designs were also displayed, showing the effect of differing levels of matt, satin and gloss finishes.
These samples included decor papers by well-known printers Bausch, Schattdecor and Süddekor.
Sesa is an international company, active in markets other than Europe, and sensitive to their different requirements.
“The North American market has different tastes from Europe and, following the success of our event during Sasmil, we plan to hold a similar presentation, geared to the North American market, during the IWF exhibition in Atlanta in August,” said Mr Rastelli.
Once again, Sesa has demonstrated the importance of pushing design forward in the decor market and not standing still or being content to compete at one level.
Having seen EIR become established in one market – flooring – it has moved on to test the furniture market with realistic woodgrains which compete with other surfaces at a new level.

The company which started out to supply machinery to the particleboard manufacturing industry 26 years ago is still very much at the forefront of wood preparation equipment in that industry.
Pal has specialised in recent years in the preparation of recycled wood and is well-qualified to do so, coming from the country that uses the most recycled wood in Europe.
However, a major new product launched by the company last year took it into the OSB industry seriously for the first time.
The Quadradyn screen was a development of the Dynascreen roll screen which Pal has produced for some years for the particleboard and MDF industries, but took this technology to a new level.
The company claims that the accurate screening of the Quadradyn promotes maximum use of resources, good classification of strands and reduces resin consumption, as well as providing a consistently available screen area which does not become clogged. It was intended to substitute for the large rotary drum screens normally used in the OSB industry.
The first two Quadradyn systems were sold to Huber for its massive OSB mill in Broken Bow Oklahoma in the US, and these are reported to be running successfully since the mill started up earlier this year.
That has been followed by a contract to supply the screens to the latest huge OSB mill to be built by Slocan/Louisiana-Pacific as a joint venture in British Columbia.
Fabio Chiara, sales and customer relations manager for Pal, says that the company has also received a number of enquiries for Quadradyn from European companies as well as North America.
Meanwhile, back in Europe, and particleboard, Pal is currently involved in all the new lines being built in Spain, says Mr Chiara.
For the Starwood particleboard line in Turkey, it has supplied roll screens and sifters for the green end and screens and a sifter for the dry area. This equipment was being delivered in June for anticipated startup of the mill later this year.
“For the future, I see positive signs, especially in North America in OSB but I see the biggest increase in particleboard activity being in China,” says Mr Chiara. “Particleboard is cheaper and more suitable for some applications in furniture and it offers the possibility to easily use recycled wood. This is at a time when the authorities are reportedly concerned about the removal of too much plantation poplar from flood prevention areas and a possible shortage of rice, due to government encouragement to farmers to plant trees. We have several enquiries from China right now.”
Mr Chiara reported that Pal had sold several urban waste lines to Japan earlier this year and has received orders for upgrading plants in Indonesia and Thailand. Notable in Thailand is the former STA particleboard line now owned by M P Particleboard. Asia Panel has also ordered a new screening line.
In Australia, Pal is now delivering roll screens for the green end and dry screening and sifting to CHH for its Mount Gambier Lakeside and White Avenue lines.

The company which started out to supply machinery to the particleboard manufacturing industry 26 years ago is still very much at the forefront of wood preparation equipment in that industry.
Pal has specialised in recent years in the preparation of recycled wood and is well-qualified to do so, coming from the country that uses the most recycled wood in Europe.
However, a major new product launched by the company last year took it into the OSB industry seriously for the first time.
The Quadradyn screen was a development of the Dynascreen roll screen which Pal has produced for some years for the particleboard and MDF industries, but took this technology to a new level.
The company claims that the accurate screening of the Quadradyn promotes maximum use of resources, good classification of strands and reduces resin consumption, as well as providing a consistently available screen area which does not become clogged. It was intended to substitute for the large rotary drum screens normally used in the OSB industry.
The first two Quadradyn systems were sold to Huber for its massive OSB mill in Broken Bow Oklahoma in the US, and these are reported to be running successfully since the mill started up earlier this year.
That has been followed by a contract to supply the screens to the latest huge OSB mill to be built by Slocan/Louisiana-Pacific as a joint venture in British Columbia.
Fabio Chiara, sales and customer relations manager for Pal, says that the company has also received a number of enquiries for Quadradyn from European companies as well as North America.
Meanwhile, back in Europe, and particleboard, Pal is currently involved in all the new lines being built in Spain, says Mr Chiara.
For the Starwood particleboard line in Turkey, it has supplied roll screens and sifters for the green end and screens and a sifter for the dry area. This equipment was being delivered in June for anticipated startup of the mill later this year.
“For the future, I see positive signs, especially in North America in OSB but I see the biggest increase in particleboard activity being in China,” says Mr Chiara. “Particleboard is cheaper and more suitable for some applications in furniture and it offers the possibility to easily use recycled wood. This is at a time when the authorities are reportedly concerned about the removal of too much plantation poplar from flood prevention areas and a possible shortage of rice, due to government encouragement to farmers to plant trees. We have several enquiries from China right now.”
Mr Chiara reported that Pal had sold several urban waste lines to Japan earlier this year and has received orders for upgrading plants in Indonesia and Thailand. Notable in Thailand is the former STA particleboard line now owned by M P Particleboard. Asia Panel has also ordered a new screening line.
In Australia, Pal is now delivering roll screens for the green end and dry screening and sifting to CHH for its Mount Gambier Lakeside and White Avenue lines.

In what is currently a very quiet market for new panel production facilities, Instalmec of San Giorgio di Nogaro in Udine, has its eye on new products which will help to strengthen its position as a supplier of systems for cleaning and drying the raw material for the production of MDF and particleboard.
Instalmec has been present on the Italian panel market since its formation in 1978.
That experience is important in that Italy is one of the major users of recycled, or urban, wood in the production of panel products, due to its lack of trees. It has enabled Instalmec to reach a position where it currently exports around 70% of its production all over the world, utilising this expertise.
“Most of our clients are using recycled wood and the contamination in this raw material is a major problem in the management of these mills,” said Adriano Stocco, managing director and founder of the company. “Many of the conventional systems on the market at the moment have some problems and consume a lot of energy,” he added. “The problem for the panel makers using recycled material is the quality of the final product as well as the wear and tear on their production line – and we must not forget the danger of fire; the quality of cleaning of this material is very important.
“Our aim is to produce reliable machines which reach a constant, high production quality in the final product – the panel.”
His company has patented three new machines in the past year aimed at achieving this end. One of these is a new, pneumatic, screen at the outlet of the dryer, which can also be used in the wet area of the mill.
“Traditional screens oscillate and they can get blocked after a few hours, leading to reduced effectiveness and the larger particles staying on the screen. Then it has to be cleaned,” he explained. “Our screen is selfcleaning by a counter-flow mechanism and, due to its shape, it gives better separation of the different fractions, taking out all the very fine fraction, which can contain silica, metal, plastic and so on, which would otherwise end up in the surface of the panel.”
He claims that this produces a whiter, smoother panel, as well as increasing production on the press line by 10 to 20%, according to several customers who have bought this system.
The pneumatic screen is also claimed to eliminate problems of spontaneous combustion in silos, partly because it allows for de-gassing of the particles, but also because the dryer and screen operate in a vacuum rather than a pressure system.
The second of the new patents is for part of Instalmec’s new layout for the production of raw material from the woodyard to forming, for both MDF and particleboard.
This is a new cleaning system in the wet area with a gravimetric separator – the subject of  the patent – for larger contaminants such as glass, rocks, metal, silica and rubber. The system is claimed to have low energy consumption and to reduce wear and tear in other parts of the production line.
The third new patent is a complete, integrated, low-temperature system for the drying of sawdust in the preparation of fuel pellets. These used to be produced from fresh wood, but rising demand for the product has led to recycled wood being increasingly used in its production, said Mr Stocco.
“The particular problem with these pellets is that the moisture content has to be just right to ensure that the sawdust sticks together to form the pellets. It needs to be in the range of eight to 12%,” he said. He believes this dryer will interest panel makers who have excess waste from their production lines.
In collaboration with Geoenergy, Instalmec is also developing a new generation of wet electrostatic precipitators, or WESPs, which Mr Stocco said will have many improvements on the existing units.
Another new product, which he said is unique to Instalmec, is a new generation of vacuum dryers for particleboard, single- or triple-pass.
“We guarantee five years of no wear and tear for the complete dryer system – the combustion chamber, dryer and cyclone battery,” he said.
Instalmec has also developed a new combustion system to burn sawdust from the screens and waste dust from the WESP. “The combustion chamber has been studied and re-designed,” said Mr Stocco.
“As before, it has fully automatic ash extraction, which means no downtime for cleaning. But now we have introduced new technologies for the pneumatic system, including the vacuum system in the dryer.”
Operating the dryer in a vacuum rather than pressure situation means it avoids wear and tear to the fan. The company has also re-dimensioned the drum’s internal parts to improve the drying process, by improving the mix of air and particles and reducing wear and tear there also. “In this way we guarantee even drying throughout the material in the dryer, whether it is large or small particles,” said Mr Stocco.
“The experience of Instalmec, and our R&D, are very important,” he said, stating that Instalmec spends around €500,000 a year on R&D.

Antonio di Nunzio has long experience in the most sophisticated formaldehyde and resin production processes. The company, which he founded in 1977, has been responsible for the construction of complete factories around the world and in most cases starts with a blank sheet of paper.
His company, Mapco Engineering, is headquartered in an office block in the centre of Milan from which there is no sign of any kind of industrialisation at all.
That is not surprising when you understand that Mapco does not itself manufacture anything, but sub-contracts all manufacturing to carefully selected companies on the basis of very detailed specifications according to the strictest codes and norms.
What the company does do is to undertake turnkey contracts starting from that blank sheet of paper and, using its experience, together with some very sophisticated CAD 3-D computer programs, design and supervise the construction of highly developed formaldehyde and resin plants.
Talking to Mr di Nunzio, it becomes clear that he attaches enormous importance to the norms and regulations with which a resin plant must comply if it is to operate safely and efficiently.
Every component part of a formaldehyde and resin plant is carefully tracked during construction and that can mean anything up to 3,500 items – or more – each having its own paper trail to ensure that the finished plant starts up, and keeps running, free of problems or accidents. That could mean 50,000 pages of documentation in total for a project.
Mr di Nunzio claims that no other company offers this kind of service. “It is very simple to produce formaldehyde,” he says.
“The problem begins when you want to produce it at low cost and high levels of quality and safety. Our background and our computer programs enable us to do just that.”
The regulations governing such plants have moved on a lot in recent years and he claims there are now a number of plants in operation around the world that do not meet the current environmental or safety norms.
“In western Europe and North America today it is not possible to construct a formaldehyde plant that does not meet these norms, but in some parts of the world there are no norms to meet,” laments Mr di Nunzio.
“However, there are still some older plants in Europe that are not up to standard and, even up to a year ago, there was one in western Europe still producing formaldehyde without treatment of the waste gases.”
In most cases, he says, it is not possible to upgrade these old plants because it is uneconomic – you need to rebuild the complete plant.
“The future for Mapco is bright because of our specialisation in formaldehyde and resin plants and the fact that we are able to meet all the standards at a lower cost than many of our competitors,” he says.
But Mr di Nunzio does not mean that he cuts costs by saving on materials: “You have to use good quality material, good quality construction, everything – and that’s where we come in. We cannot supply to any company that doesn’t want to meet the norms but, if it does want to meet them, we can offer cost-effective, quality equipment. Another advantage for us is that many of our competitors are big companies and are thus much slower to react than we are.
“Although Mapco Engineering sub-contracts its fabrication, we buy all the materials and we buy the man-hours of specialists, but we don’t pay the margins of middlemen,” adds the chief executive.
For the panel industry, Mapco finds an increasing tendency for mills to build their own resin plant on site, particularly outside western Europe, where there may well be a low concentration of panel mills and so the nearest resin plant may be a long way away. The company then designs and builds a resin plant to match the output of the panel mill.
“For instance we built a plant in Cameroon of only 10,000 tonnes per year,” says Mr di Nunzio. “That is very small but then their nearest resin supplier was in Europe!”
The largest and most fully automated plant built to date by Mapco was 150,000 tonnes per annum (tpa) of resin.
“We are relatively small but very specialised in what we do,” he says.
The company’s main market is in the continent of Europe, but it does have a representative in Beijing for the Chinese market and is considering exhibiting at fairs in that country.
The main material for the production of formaldehyde resins is, of course, methanol and this always seems to be an unstable market, but Mr di Nunzio sees a change on the way.
“The methanol market is very cyclical, with prices going up and down, but the average price has been increasing over the years.
“You need a very big plant to produce methanol economically, because it is a commodity market and today the plant capacities are up to two million tpa and the overall number of plants is reducing as individual plants get bigger.”
However, another product reliant on methanol is MTBE, which takes about 40% of the production and Mr di Nunzio predicts that, if consumption of MTBE goes down, the price of methanol will fall. “Currently, California is having some problems with pollution of ground water and it looks as if some plants there may close.”
In conclusion, Mr di Nunzio returns to his strong theme of the importance of meeting norms.
“If you respect the norms, you are sure that the life of the equipment meets the requirements and that maintenance costs will be low. For example if the pump lasts longer, the amortisation cost is low. This is just one benefit of constructing a plant ‘properly’,” he says.

The rapid progress in electronic equipment in panel mills in recent years has perhaps reduced the scope to invent totally new devices to some degree. However, it has not by any means meant there is nothing new.What it has meant is that what may appear to be relatively minor modifications to existing equipment are as necessary as ever to stay ahead in a competitive market.
With that in mind, Imal srl of San Domaso near Modena has introduced new developments to existing equipment, as well as having some new product launches.
Examples of products which have been further refined and developed are the company’s well-known thickness gauge, blow detector and spark detection systems, all of which are for use on the production line.
A completely new product launch comes with the Surface Defect Detector SDG. This is an X-ray based system which marketing director Stefano Benedetti, son of Imal’s president Paolo Benedetti, describes as “similar to an airport scanner in principle”.
The SDG will show up high density areas in a mat prior to its entry into the press. Possible causes of these areas include glue spots, fibre lumps and metal or other foreign bodies that could damage the stainless steel belt of a continuous press.
“This is a completely new product for us, launched this year and it is particularly important if you are producing thin board,” said Mr Benedetti. “So we position the sensors at intervals of 0.1mm across the mat. It can also show the density profile of a mat across the full width.”
Another machine employing the same principle is designed to protect wood size-reduction equipment. The DCE can be used in the infeed of crushers, chippers or flakers to avoid damage to the blades. It detects stone, metal or large lumps of wood.
“Today, panel mills are using more and more urban, or recycled, wood with an increased risk of damage and downtime,” said Mr Benedetti. “The DCE can help to avoid these problems.”
Another area in which Imal has concentrated some research is OSB blending.
“The existing system is very old and in need of improvement. It involves a rotating drum blender with spinning spray heads inside the drum. You can’t access the spray heads to monitor their efficiency during production and they become blocked over time, which means the mill needs scheduled downtime to clean the blender – in particular the spinning head system,” said the
marketing director.
“We have a strong background in blending, both for particleboard and, more recently, for MDF with our mechanical blending system, so in April this year we patented a new system for OSB.”
Imal’s new idea draws partly on the experience with the mechanical blending of MDF. There is a weigh-scale with a small surge bin behind it to even out the flow. The weigh-scale directly feeds the new blender, which does not have a revolving drum, but a fixed one, as used for particleboard and MDF; it is only the shaft inside that turns.
The blender is water-cooled to reduce maintenance (again a principle employed for particleboard) and resin is sprayed into the feed chute and at the blender entrance.
“The difference is that the spraying takes place outside the wood flow so it is easy to check and clean,” said Mr Benedetti.
The advantages he claims for the system are no downtime just for cleaning the blender, and that the blender is much smaller than a conventional one, which can be up to 15m long and requires a large steel structure.
“Now you can clean the blender when you stop the plant, rather than stopping the plant to clean the blender,” he said.
The first of the new systems is due to be installed in Europe in August.
Another new product is the UM800 on-the-line microwave moisture meter.
This device is designed to read the moisture content of particles, fibres or strands before or after the dryer and also measures the density and temperature of the material.
Two years ago, Imal launched its first mat damping unit for use prior to the press for the application of water and/or release agent. This TS100 unit obviously answered a need because the company has sold 35 of them worldwide, including six in China.
Imal also continues to supply a wide range of laboratory testing equipment, including its fully automatic, robotized Auto-Lab for testing the physical characteristics of panel samples. Here there is another product launched this year, in the form of the Roughness Optical Control
system ROC 100.
This is designed to select and grade samples of panels in relation to their surface roughness and to supply an analysis of the surface profile of the sample. The equipment is self-contained in its own cabinet and is particularly requested by manufacturers of MDF cabinet doors to detect roughness before painting or lamination.
The company has also spent some time developing its pallet block production line, utilising wood chips to make the blocks.
After extensive testing of a prototype in its own R&D department, Imal has supplied one line to Xilopan in Italy and sees a big potential market for this machine.
For some years, Imal has had a ‘second string to its bow’ in the refurbishment and supply of secondhand lines for panel production. The controls are always new and the lines are offered with performance guarantees.
Complete new plants of small capacity are something else the company has to offer and it has sold one such line to Iran for MDF production. It has a Siempelkamp multi-opening press line.
The capacities of the new lines supplied by Imal are typically in the 100m3 to 200m3 a day range.
Other markets for refurbishment and upgrading of plants are to be found in Russia and the former Soviet states. Imal received its first large orders from these markets in the past year.
It is not possible to stand still and survive in the machinery market today. Companies must always be refining existing equipment and developing new products and it is by a mixture of these approaches that Imal has survived the last 35 years.
The supply of complete lines, both refurbished and completely new, has added another dimension to the company and opened up some of the developing markets, where lower costs are mandatory.

Stunning. That is the only word to describe the location of Fantoni’s factory complex in Osoppo.
The company’s multiple panel production lines and its furniture factory nestle in the shadow of the southern Alps, which provide a spectacular backdrop under a clear blue sky.
As we reported on our last visit to Fantoni Spa, the sympathetic nature of the architecture of this industrial complex, and its landscaping, minimise its impact on this especially scenic area. This is a company which takes its environmental responsibilities seriously, as becomes clear during talks with commercial director Dr Paolo Fantoni.
His company has been involved in the generation of electricity in hydro-electric plants for some years, holding a 45% stake in Cons CURI, a consortium involved in this technology, and Fantoni operates eight such plants in the Friuli area, assisted by the region’s high annual rainfall.
Now Fantoni is becoming more and more involved in the development of biomass. In partnership with Vivai Alasia and the University of Udine department of agriculture, it is developing plantations of selectively bred (not genetically modified) poplar.
Growth rates of 12m in 24 months have been achieved and the trees are ‘coppiced’ (cut at the base of the trunk which then sprouts new growth) on a two-year cycle. This produces wood raw material suitable for particleboard manufacture.
Dr Fantoni explains that the fibre is not suitable for MDF production as it is too soft and not sufficiently homogeneous.
“The first 300ha of this poplar have been planted in the Trieste region with the cooperation of the government and local agriculture. This is in line with the EU policy of reducing food production and increasing non-food production,” explains Dr Fantoni.
His company directly owns 15ha of plantation adjacent to its factory, eight of which are planted with poplar, but he points out that the planting is mainly done in cooperation with farmers.
“This initiative looks promising, especially in view of the competition from energy producers for biomass, and I see it as a must to engage in such research,” says the commercial director.
Returning to the business for which Fantoni is better known in our industry, Dr Fantoni confirms that there are currently five panel production lines in operation at Osoppo.
All are designated Plaxil, because that was the name of the subsidiary company responsible for panel production which was absorbed into the main Fantoni group in 1990. Historically (and that means going back to 1896) the Fantoni name was associated with furniture production only.
There is a 38,000m3 a year Mende line producing thin particleboard, then a Pagnoni 13-daylight press line of 3.66m x 1.87m, producing 130,000m3 a year of MDF. Next comes another Pagnoni press line, with 16-daylights of 4.25m x 2.2m, producing 170,000m3 a year of MDF.
There are also two continuous press lines, the first a Küsters, 2.8m wide and 38m long, with a capacity of 300,000m3 a year of MDF, the second a Siempelkamp ContiRoll line of 2.4m x 39m, with a capacity of 360- 390,000m3 a year of particleboard.
The Küsters press produces Fantoni’s ‘light’ and ‘ultra-light’ panels.
Another subsidiary company is Novolegno in Avellino, further south in Italy, and this has another Pagnoni press line of four daylights, 11.2m x 2.2m, giving a capacity of 130,000m3 of MDF, glued with MDI binder, mainly for the Japanese market. It also has two calender press lines, one 2.2m wide and the other 2.4m wide. Combined capacity is 205,00m3 of thin MDF.
Fantoni also has a 95% stake in Lesonit DD in neighbouring Slovenia. This has a capacity of 90,000m3 a year on a 10-daylight Motala press, which is 5.6m long and 2.08m wide.
That gives the Fantoni group a total raw board capacity of 1.025 million m3 of MDF and 428,000m3 of particleboard.
“We have carried out major works to optimise the production of Plaxil 7 [the ContiRoll particleboard line] and increase its efficiency, as well as starting up two Siempelkamp melamine facing lines parallel to it,” says Dr Fantoni.
The ContiRoll line was bought secondhand, but unused, from Russia in 1999 and erected in Osoppo.
The Lesonit operation is an older line which Fantoni took over and which it is still in the process of restructuring.
“We have totally rebuilt the chipping line and carried out a lot of other work on the green end. We plan to build a second line there as soon as the market gives more significant signs of recovery and that could be either MDF or particleboard,” says the director. Fantoni has also installed a secondhand melamine facing line, from the former Medaspan Italian particleboard factory, at Lesonit.
Other operations under the control of the group include LaCon spa, Patt spa and Flooring SA.
LaCon carries out melamine facing of panels and production of thin CPL on a Hymmen continuous press and has two Vits impregnation lines for decor paper.
Patt Spa, in which Fantoni has a 24% share, produces laminate flooring and acoustic panels.
Flooring SA is 40% owned by the company and produces laminate flooring.
The Italian panel market has changed quite dramatically in recent years and this has been reflected in the manufacturing industry, according to Dr Fantoni.
“A lot of mills have ceased production in Italy in the last 18 months and this has led to an improved equilibrium, especially in the particleboard market,” he says.
He lists the closed mills as Medaspan, Novasep, Novameblo (just over the border in Slovenia), Stat, Panda, Trada and Sipav.
“This has taken a total of 1.5 million m3 off the particleboard market and offers an opportunity to get the price up from the terrible levels of 2003,” he says.
His story is somewhat different for the MDF market. “The success of MDF producers in recent years is largely due to laminate flooring – it equates to slightly less than 40% of European consumption – so almost four million m3 of total production goes to flooring.
“Italy has a market of 5.5 to 6.0 million m2 of laminate flooring, which means about 60,000m3 of MDF, compared with a national capacity of around 1.3 million m3. That represents four to five percent of output. Thus there is diversified development between north and south Europe and consequently a difference in strategy between the two regions in the last four years or so.”
Dr Fantoni sees another peculiarity developing in the market, with powder coating finding increasing acceptance.
“At the recent furniture supply exhibition, the Salone Internazionale del Mobile in Milan, at least five large producers of furniture were introducing powder coated panels. Two major kitchen manufacturers – Febal and Aram World – both offered lacquered powder coated MDF doors, while Herman Miller, Frezza and Dazato all offered powder coated office furniture.
“We believe strongly that there has been great progress in this technology and that it will open up a strong flow of new products,” Dr Fantoni predicts. “Italy already has five lines owned by service companies ready to coat any components for the furniture industry and we offer a particular type of MDF which is conductive to encourage a more homogeneous spread of the lacquer.”
Called Metalwood, this panel was developed by Fantoni’s R&D department and, by the use of special salts in its manufacture, is 10 times more conductive than normal panels. It is also claimed that it has a high degree of workability which allows epoxy powder paint to be applied, even to milled surfaces, without the need for sanding.
“We think this will take over the market for white, grey and black in bathroom and kitchen furniture and TV stands. The cost is higher than for melamine facing, but the panels do not need to be edge-banded,” points out Dr Fantoni, who is an obvious enthusiast for this technology.
But this is not the only area in which this innovative company is seeking new markets for its MDF production. In the south of Italy, adjacent to its Novolegno factory, it is creating another new company to add to the Fantoni family, named Xilopack.
Fantoni’s R&D department has developed a new type of packaging for fruit boxes to be made and marketed by the new company. Made from thin MDF, the fruit box comes ‘flat-packed’ with ‘hinges’ on the chamfered edges so that it can be assembled by folding and clipping to make an opentopped box. In early June the company won a major prize from the packaging industry for this product and has a target of 20 million boxes a year. “We will also produce a half-size box as families are looking for a smaller box these days,” says Dr Fantoni.
“The law requires that all these boxes are recycled and so these will probably finish up back in panels as particleboard,” he adds.
Another unusual MDF-based product, developed by Swiss company Nueholz and now licensed to Fantoni, is TopaKustik. This specially machined MDF panel, first introduced at Interzum 2000, is gradually gaining acceptance in the construction market where noise reduction is a priority, such as in concert halls, and the company sees a good future for it.
As mentioned earlier, Fantoni began by producing furniture and its Osoppo factory still consumes 1,300m3 a month of particleboard and MDF in the manufacture of office furniture, although currently that market is still disappointing, says Dr Fantoni. “We are facing very tough competition, like the rest of Europe, although competition here is not as bad as it is in Germany where there is 40% less production than three years ago; Italy fell about 20% in the same period.
“We are aware that the office furniture sector multiplies the effects of a normal economic cycle. When GDP falls to zero, the furniture market goes into negative figures, but as soon as GDP improves, office furniture improves dramatically. So, we are waiting for better times.”
Dr Fantoni finds the current state of the MDF market less easy to explain: “I don’t really understand why this market did not rebound in September last year. It normally improves at that time of year, but it did not happen but I hope that, as particleboard has finally rebounded, MDF will follow.
“In the past, I thought equilibrium would be maintained by a growing market, but the loss of competitiveness in the European furniture industry on a world scale is changing the perspective. So I believe that explains why it has not improved and why there will not be an expansion in MDF capacity in western Europe.”
Dr Fantoni has always been a great supporter of the European Panel Federation (EPF) and its predecessor, the Euro-MDF Board (EMB), but feels that it needs to readdress its reporting strategy.
“Poland, Romania, the Czech Republic and other east European states are damaging the furniture industry – especially in Germany – and I think that, in future, the EPF must re-analyse the situation in east and west Europe and treat the two areas separately and not analyse Europe as a whole.”
After visiting the Osoppo factories, one comes to the inescapable conclusion that Fantoni is not just another panel producer.
Apart from the fact that it has maintained contact with its original roots as a manufacturer of quality furniture, it has also invested considerable resources in its R&D centre (doubled in size recently) and developed several very innovative products, as well as adding value to much of its production.
Now, with its involvement in plantation poplar, Fantoni has become fully vertically integrated and, quite possibly, unique in the west European panel industry.