Administrators have been appointed at French plywood producer Plysorol.
The company, which has three sites in France and production facilities in Gabon, was put under court protection following parent company Sonae Capital’s application for judicial recovery in the Commercial Court of Lisieux.
Sonae Capital said Plysorol was facing reduced demand and market decline. The global financial crisis has also presented serious obstacles to restructuring the company.
The court protection is for three months, during which administrators will be trying to sell the business, or parts of it,
Plysorol’s products include okoume, poplar and exotic panels.

The owners of the successful ZOW show are taking a rival exhibition to court for using a similar name and event format.
German company Survey Marketing + Consulting has filed a lawsuit against the Pordenone-based International Show of Semi-finished Goods, Components and Accessories for the Furniture Industry (SICAM). The first court hearing was held December 10.
Survey believes the name and event format are too similar to its own, which in full bills itself as the International Exhibition of Components and Accessories for the Furniture Industry (ZOW). It says having two such similar titles creates confusion.
ZOW recently held its eighth show at Pordenone but has moved the event to Verona for 2009. Pordenone Fiere launched SICAM following Survey’s decision to move ZOW away from the city.
Survey’s decision to move the Italian ZOW show to Verona was to allow more space for suppliers to the furniture and interiors industry.

TRADA Technology, which provides the research and information services for TRADA, the UK based Timber Research and Development Association, has published a guide to Corporate Social Responsibility

An auction scheduled to take place last month (January) to sell buildings and machinery at the shuttered K Ply Inc plywood mill in Port Angeles, Washington has been put on hold, with support apparently growing for the efforts of a former mill worker to save the mill, reports the Peninsula Daily News.
Port Angeles resident and former K Ply sales manager Josh Renshaw had asked Sterling Savings Banks to postpone the auction. Renshaw and a group of investors hope to reopen the mill under the name Peninsula Plywood.
Mr Renshaw said he was in negotiations with Sterling Savings Bank of Spokane to acquire the mill equipment it acquired from the plywood mill in a lien agreement with the mill's owner, Klukwan Inc of Alaska.
Mr Renshaw was permanently laid off with 131 other employees in April. He is backed by a group of Port Angeles business investors and estimates he needs US$5m to reopen the mill.

The 43rd International Wood Composites Symposium and Technical Workshop will be held March 30-April 1, 2009 at the Red Lion Hotel on Fifth Avenue in Seattle, Washington.
Organised by Washington State University’s Wood Materials and Engineering Laboratory, the symposium is an industry-driven forum presenting the latest advances and developments in wood composites technology.
The agenda for the two-day symposium will feature sessions on life cycle assessment, adhesive developments, and product and process improvement. www.woodsymposium.wsu.edu

The risk posed by formaldehyde emissions from pressed wood products is to be investigated by the US government.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has started an assessment into the possible risks posed by the emissions, including looking at the costs and benefits of control technologies and determining what role EPA should take in addressing any identified risks.
The assessment follows a citizens’ petition received under the Toxic Substances Control Act, signed by organisations and individuals concerned by formaldehyde emissions. The issue of formaldehyde emissions “significantly increased” in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina according to EPA, with temporary wooden shelters allegedly causing illness in New Orleans residents.

Universal Veneer Mill Corporation has announced the lay-offs of 48 production employees as it dropped from three to two shifts at its Newark, Ohio, hardwood veneer facility, reports the Newark Advocate.
The lay-offs followed the sudden loss of a customer that accounted for 20% of local production.
Before the job cuts, the company employed 252 at the Tamarack Road plant and 30 at its sales office near Heath, also located in Licking County, Ohio.
Dieter Heren, ceo, stressed that the company, which also has operations in China, remained committed to its US business.

Broomfield, Colorado-based Casey Industrial has been contracted by Uniboard to serve as general contractor of its new MDF and HDF plant in Moncure, North Carolina. Uniboard is investing over US$140m in the Moncure plant to develop an integrated mega-site offering cost efficiencies and one-stop shopping for its customers.
The project represents Casey’s third major project for the Moncure facility. Cassey installed the original particleboard line in the 1970s and returned in the mid-1980s to install the MDF line. This new project will incorporate work-class MDF and HDF manufacturing technology.
“Very few panel industry capital projects are underway in North America. Casey Industrial is blessed to have won the Uniboard project,” said Tom Lepak, Casey Industrial’s vice president, business development.

Employees at Tolko Industries Ltd's Meadow Lake, Saskatchewan, OSB mill have been informed of possible layoffs in anticipation of deteriorating North American market conditions.
Brad Thorlakson, president, Tolko marketing and sales, said that the company was continuing to work with the provincial government "to identify and address issues which are within the government’s control and negatively impacting MLOSB’s competitive position. These include unreliable and uncertain rail conditions, and access to fibre.”
At full operations, Meadow Lake OSB has 130 direct employees and an equivalent number of contractors providing timber harvesting and forest management services.

Vermont-based Rutland Plywood Corporation has moved from two shifts to one laying off 76 employees ¬– about 50% of its workforce – as a result of the economic downturn.

Boise Cascade’s Medford, Oregon plywood mill has joined APA – The Engineered Wood Association. The mill will become Boise Cascade’s third APA member facility. The other two are its plywood plants in Oakdale and Florien, Louisiana.
”We are delighted to welcome another Boise Cascade mill to the APA membership ranks and look forward to providing the Medford facility the very best in quality assurance, technical assistance and market support services,” said APA president Dennis Hardman.

Lumber, glulam and plywood producer Rosboro has indefinitely ceased plywood production at its mill in Springfield, Oregon according to Random Lengths

Temple-Inland Inc is ending production of hardboard siding products at its fibreboard plant in Diboll, Texas, with the loss of 70 jobs, reports The Lufkin Daily News.
Jack C Sweeny, Temple-Inland's Group VP, building products, said the products made at the fibreboard plant were heavily influenced by single-family housing starts, which were at their lowest rate since record keeping began in 1959.
In a statement, the company said it would continue to produce softboard products at the plant, retaining about 60 employees.

Elisabeth Zenker, head of the central marketing department for many years and member of the Interprint management board has taken early retirement. Interprint praised her very committed performance.

Colombian wood panel manufacturer Tablemac SA has agreed to purchase an area of 1,450 hectares of forest plantations close to its southern production plant in the city of Manizales.
Agreement to the acquisition of the forest land located in Herveo in the Tolima area was reached with local forestry company Corporación Forestal del Tolima SA by Medellin, Colombia-based Tablemac.
The plantations are being added to supply the Manizales plant, which has a 36,000m3/year particleboard production capacity with one single-opening press line. This facility was closed in 2005 and subsequently relaunched in August 2007.
Up to November last year (2008), Tablemac also planted 486 hectares of forest on land it previously acquired close to its second panel plant in Yarumal, Colombia.

Malaysian timber company Ta Ann has opened a new rotary peeled veneer mill at Smithton in Tasmania, its second in the Australian state.
A Tasmanian government release said the mill would process 150,000 tonnes of eucalypt logs per year, supplied from regrowth forests and plantations in north west Tasmania.
Forestry Tasmania has signed a 20-year agreement for log supply.
The two mills cost A$75m to build and will produce 145,000m3/year of dried veneer, worth about A$35m/year.

Swanson Group Inc intends to press on with plans to upgrade its Springfield, Oregon plywood mill, purchased last year from McKenzie Forest Products LLC, reports The Register-Guard.
Company president Steve Swanson said the last company to invest significantly in the Springfield mill was Georgia-Pacific in the 1960s.
The work, due to be finished in May 2009, include major modifications to the lathe and lathe charging system, upgrading the veneer dryers, and installing an automated grading and sorting system and an automated system for making plywood.
Swanson said the decision to move ahead with the improvements comes from a need to remain competitive. The company is competing with plywood from Canada, Mexico and South America, and its panels compete with OSB, he said.

In 2008, Steinemann Technology AG has installed a total of 243 sanding heads in 38 lines, allocated to 18 different countries. Compared to the previous year, this implies an increase of almost 65%.
More than 70% of these 243 sanding heads were installed in Eastern Europe (including Russia and Turkey) and South America. The remaining 30% were for facilities in Asia and China.
Regarding the machine type, more than 70% were sanding heads for plants that produce particleboard or MDF panels wider than 1,900mm (Satos machine of Steinemann). About 22% were for panels up to 1,600mm (Nova-H series of Steinemann).

Swedish wood products company Setra is making moves to improve its sale efficiency to the domestic building materials trade.
The company will integrate the business of Setra Trävaror and Setra Byggprodukter – the group’s two specialised channels for selling into the Swedish building materials trade.
Setra Trävaror is responsible for sales of Setra’s own production of wood products, including construction timber, interior products and glulam. Setra Byggprodukter is responsible for import and distribution of board and joinery products.
“Coordination of these operations will allow more rational order processing and more efficient distribution solutions,” said Per Fredrikson, Setra Byggprodukter managing director.

Ontario Wood Products Export Association (OWPEA) has appointed Mark Angelini as its executive director. His primary role will be to put services and programmes in place which will help to develop export markets for Ontario wood products manufacturers.

Harry Purainer and Vladimir Denisov, directors of
Schattdecor’s new decor printing production facility in Chekhov, Russia, recently welcomed over 300 guests from Russia and neighbouring Eastern European countries.
The welcoming address by Reiner Schulz, ceo of Schattdecor AG, pointed out that 100% of Schattdecor’s share capital was “personally present” at the event in the form of the three Schatt family members attending the inauguration ceremony.
He said that this made it clear that the company’s capital is not traded on the stock markets but spent with dependable regularity on the firm.

A Russian-American forest products company plans to invest nearly US$137m in the face of the global economic crisis to build a large plywood complex in the Krasnoyarsk region of Russia.
Midway United Ltd, with corporate offices near Boston, Massachusetts in the USA and in Moscow, Russia, is set to construct the new plant this year as part of its Yenisei industrial complex close to the Yenisei River in the Siberian city of Sosnovoborsk, reports Russia's Marchmont Capital news service.
The plywood unit is designed to make use of the Krasnoyarsk region's predominant deciduous hardwood resource of birch and aspen for its raw material. The facility's output will be aimed at the North American market, regional authorities are quoted as stating. Midway already has lumber and plywood operations in Krasnoyarsk and Irkutsk regions.

Russia’s next round of tax increases on log exports has been shelved by 9-12 months. The announcement, from Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin, “pleasantly surprised” Finnish prime minister Matti Vanhanen.
The controversial log export taxes, which are being implemented in stages and were set to rise to euros50/m2 on January 1, 2009, has irked Finland, as the increased cost of Russian logs stands to leave Finnish timber processors short of timber because of the unaffordable exported material. Thousands of job losses could be made as a result and mills left short of timber.
Stora Enso also welcomed the postponement.
“This is an indication of the desire to avoid barriers to international trade that would hamper the economies on both sides of the border,” said Stora Enso ceo Jouko Karvinen. “This decision gives us more time to adjust our operations to the postponed wood duty.”

Pfleiderer AG has announced delays in the construction of a new medium/high density fibreboard (MDF/HDF) plant at its Podberesje (Novgorod) location in Russia.
In a recent statement the company said it was exercising interruption clauses specified in its contracts with machinery suppliers because of considerable delays in the progress of construction attributable to the lead construction contractor.
The future course of the project will be decided after further progress is made in construction, at the earliest at the end of the first quarter of 2009.

Wood based panel and laminate flooring companies Pergo, Uniboard and Unilin have reached agreement to settle all outstanding disputes between them.
The parties have agreed to enter into a cross-licensing agreement relating to mechanical joint, bevel, moulding and surface technologies. Legal actions against each other will be withdrawn.
“The parties are happy to have found a mutually beneficial solution that recognises the strong patent portfolio of each party,” said a statement from Pergo and Uniboard both owned by the Pfleiderer group.
Unilin is own by US company Mohawk Industries. The parties have agreed not to disclose the specific terms of the settlement.

Panolam Industries’ Huntsville, Ontario plant is not in danger of closing, contrary to some reports, says its plant manager Glenn West.
Mr West made the comments as reports circulated about substantial job cuts at the company in the past year. Since March 2008, Panolam has reduced its workforce from 214 to 152, reports The Huntsville Forester .
Mr West said that, overall, 2008 had been slower than normal, but that the industry had still experienced the historical slowdown in the fall.
The Huntsville plant produces particleboard and thermally fused melamine panels for office furniture, kitchen cabinets, and retail shop fixtures.

The first Executive Order issued by the California Air Resources Board (CARB) ranking a No Added Formaldehyde (NAF) Exemption under the provisions of the world’s toughest formaldehyde emission regulation was recently issued to SierraPine.

Atcon Group has reportedly reached an out-of-court settlement with Wagner Forest Products, which filed a suit against Atcon's plywood division last November
Wagner's suit claimed the Miramichi, New Brunswick-based company had failed to pay for products delivered to it, the Miramichi Leader reported in December. Wagner was seeking C$111,279.45.
No details of the settlement were given.
Atcon indefinitely closed its Miramichi plywood mill in March, with the loss of 100 jobs.

Leading-edge technology is being developed in Prince George BC, which could save the OSB industry millions of dollars per year.
University of Northern BC (UNBC) researcher Matt Reid is working with Del-Tech Manufacturing to test the feasibility of using terahertz radiation to improve quality control and reduce raw material input in OSB production, according to the Northern Development Initiative Trust.
The Trust provided UNBC with C$200,000 to purchase critical equipment to test the groundbreaking concept.
NASA uses terahertz to examine foam on the space shuttle, but wood industry applications had only been considered in recent years, said Reid.
Mr Reid explained that Terahertz radiation falls on the light spectrum between microwaves and infrared light. By passing a terahertz beam through a wooden object and measuring the signal on the other side, Reid is able to “see” inside the wood. “The shape and amplitude of the wave has all the information you need,” he said. “You can see density and fiber structure.”
It is the fibre structure which is most critical to OSB producers: in order to achieve maximum strength, the fibers of each layer have to lie perpendicular to each other.
OSB manufacturers currently have no way to tell how well aligned the fibers are when the boards are made. They have to produce the boards, then test them for strength. “With this technology, they could make a 2.5% reduction in raw materials – that’s C$2m a year for an average-size OSB mill,” Del-Tech strategic planner Dennis Callaghan said.
OSB manufacturers would also be able to more accurately gauge how strong the board will be before it’s made, he said.

Norbord Inc and Kruger Inc have announced an agreement in principle to form a joint venture to combine their respective hardwood plywood operations.
Following the creation of the new company, Kruger’s Longlac plywood facility will close down and all customers will be supported from the Cochrane site.
Eric Bisson, senior vice president, Forest and Wood Products, at Kruger said the joint venture would "secure ongoing business for both companies and provide a solid platform for the sustainable growth of our panel products by reaching more customers than ever before.”
The decision to close Longlac will directly affect 130 employees, some of whom will transfer to the new venture.

Moncure Plywood workers who have been striking for several months have been replaced, but continue their protest outside the plant in Chatham County, North Carolina
Melvin Montford, business adviser to the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers Local 369, said the main issue was Moncure’s proposal to require employees to work 60 hours a week, up from 50, forcing some to work six or seven days in a row.
With North Carolina's unemployment rate at 7%, there is no shortage of people willing to take the striking workers' jobs.
But Jeff Matuszak, the plant's sales and marketing manager, said the company was committed to reaching an agreement with the union based on its final offer and that talks between the two sides were ongoing.

Leading Latin American panel maker Masisa SA has introduced cost cutting measures in response to the global economic crisis, including layoffs in Chile and a reduction in group investment plans for 2009.
The company, with 13 panel production plants in Mexico and South America, revealed in December it was making 34 Chilean executives redundant as part of a structural shakeup designed to improve the efficiency and competitiveness of its operations.
In October, Masisa confirmed it was laying off 350 workers at its sawmill in Cabrero in the face of a dramatic downturn in demand for solid wood mouldings from the construction sectors in North America and Asian countries.
In 2009, the group is committed to reducing its overall investment programme with capital spending halved in comparison with the major 2008 projects, not least its new 550,000m3/year Brazilian MDF plant in Montenegro set to launch in May this year.
Investment in the coming year is likely to be around US$90m, Masisa chief executive Enrique Cibié told the Chilean financial paper Estrategia.
Masisa's shareholders agreed in December to increase its capital by US$100m but the funds were earmarked to pay off group financial liabilities; Mr Cibié was quoted as saying. He forecast the company faces "a difficult year" but that its markets may recover in 2010.

Louisiana-Pacific Corporation (LP) recently detailed a number of additional actions it was taking to reduce its rate of cash use, including slashing its planned capital spending for the next several years.
LP has already in recent months suspended dividends, indefinitely curtailed operations at four OSB mills, and taken significant downtime to manage working capital and preserve cash.
Rick Frost, ceo, said: "We have also reduced planned capital spending to US$25m/year for the next several years. This compares to expected 2008 capital spending of US$170m."
Mr Frost said around 200 salaried positions ¬– about 14% of the salaried workforce – had been eliminated.

With settlements in the US OSB antitrust case now totalling US$120.73m, the plaintiffs’ lawyers could earn as much as US$39m, reports Law.com.
In the weeks following a fairness hearing in Philadelphia in November 2008, US district judge Paul S Diamond was expected to decide the size of the fees to be awarded to the lawyers.
In the suit, direct and indirect purchasers accused nine OSB companies, which they say control 95% of the North American OSB market, of conspiring to raise OSB prices in June 2002 by reducing supply.
The suit alleged the defendants kept OSB from the market through mill shutdowns and by delaying or cancelling the construction of new OSB mills.
Judge Diamond also ordered the lawyers to complete the case without acrimony after a dispute arose between the firm acting as co-lead counsel, Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll, and one of its former partners Michael D. Hausfeld who was ousted from the firm on November 6, 2008.

Romano Ugolini has taken up the post of managing director of Survey Marketing + Consulting srl, Milan. The Italian Survey team is now preparing for ZOW 2009 at its new venue in Verona which will take place October 21-24, 2009.

Hexion Specialty Chemicals, headquartered in Columbus, Ohio recently formed a cooperation with the Finnish Lappeenranta University of Technology giving the worldwide supplier of resins and adhesives for the wood products industry the opportunity to hold a series of lectures in an academic setting.
One of the lectures focusing on ‘Formaldehyde emissions from wood based panels’ was well received by students and customers from Hexion alike.
The highlight of this series of lectures, which took place last November, was a plant visit to Hexion’s site in Puhos, Finland where students experienced the manufacturing products studies during the ‘Synthetic polymers, glues and resins’ course.
*Hexion’s research and measuring process has resulted in the development of EcoBind products that today are said to meet or exceed all global emission standards including E1, EO, Japanese F**** and the new California Air Resource Board (CARB) standards.

Plywood export volumes from Guyana bounced back in the third quarter largely due to increased US consumption, according to the International Tropical Timber Organisation’s latest market report.
Plywood exports made up 41% of all timber products leaving the country with third-quarter volumes up 9% on the second quarter and 14% up on the first quarter.
The American market consumed 54% of all plywood exported during January-September.
Log exports also grew as a result of greater demand from India, which now accounts for 53.8% of all logs exported from Guyana.

Composite wood products dating from before their manufacturers were certified under California’s new formaldehyde emission rules can still be regarded as compliant if the manufacturer has followed certain steps, according to the California Air Resources Board (CARB).
A CARB product advisory issued in November explains how inventories produced before their manufacturers were CARB-certified can still be seen as CARB-compliant.
CARB approved an airborne toxic control measure (ATCM) last year which is now in effect under Title 17 of the California Code of Regulations. The ATCM’s phase 1 emission standards took effect on January 1, 2009 for hardwood plywood with veneer core, particleboard, MDF, and thin MDF (8mm or less).
The phase 1 emission standard for hardwood plywood composite core will take effect on July 1, 2009.

Chinese government tax rebates have been raised from 5% to 9% as the administration seeks to support falling sales. The increase affects plywood, particleboard, OSB and MDF. Joinery and other processed wood product exports also benefit.
Chinese export tax rebates have been hiked three times in 2008, effectively providing additional support for the country’s export industry.

BASF Polyurethanes Basic Products has opened a new state-of-the-art Woodbinder Applications and Testing facility in Wyandotte, Michigan staffed by a team of wood experts and containing the latest equipment for preparing and testing engineered wood products.
“To maintain our success and grow MDI resin applications in the wood industry, we have expanded our application and testing capabilities, which help our customers," said Kevin Kilkenny, commercial manager Rigid Products for BASF.
The Polyurethanes Basic Products business supplies Lupranate® M20 Series Isocyanate binder resins to the wood industry. These premium, non-formaldehyde containing, MDI resins are used successfully in the OSB industry. Recently, the business decided to expand the application of Lupranate® to non-structural composite wood products, MDF and particleboard.

IKEA Group has acquired a particleboard and furniture production company in Lithuania.
The company said its takeover of UAB Giriu Bizonas in Kazlu Ruda would further strengthen Lithuania’s position of being an important and competitive purchasing market for IKEA flat line furniture.
“By acquiring Giriu Bizonas, the main particleboard producer in Lithuania, we will secure access to particleboard at the right quality and to competitive prices,” said Bruno Winborg, chairman of IKEA Industrial Groups, Swedspan & Swedwood.
He said Giriu Bizonas’ furniture operations, already a main supplier to IKEA, are expected to grow substantially in the coming years thanks to the acquisition.
UAB Vakaru Medienos Grupe, which sold Giriu to IKEA, said the acquisition would have a “huge” positive impact on the Lithuanian furniture industry.

Weyerhaeuser has signed a letter of intent to sell its commercial Trus Joist operation to Connecticut-based investment company Atlas Holdings.
The sale includes four manufacturing facilities in California, Oregon and Ohio, as well as 13 sales and engineering offices. The business area currently employs 428.
No financial details of the sale have been released, although it is expected to close before the end of the year.
The decision to sell the commercial operation comes after a prolonged period of review which saw Weyerhaeuser investigate a number of possibilities for the future.
“After a thorough review of the alternatives, we believe the decision to explore the sale of this business and its assets to Atlas Holdings is in the best interest of our shareholders, employees and customers,” said Carlos Guilherme, iLevel vice president of sales.

More than 4,000 visitors were attracted to the Chinese leg of the ZOW trade fair for furniture components and interior design, which took place at the JSWB Global Home Furnishings Centre for the first time after moving from the Shanghai New International Expo Centre.
ZOW founder Peter Meyer said expansion plans at the JSWB venue, which will increase exhibition space from 200,000m2 to 700,000m2, meant “the sky’s the limit” for the show, aided by Shanghai city council’s plans to make “the west of the city the focal point”.

Panel producer Finsa is expanding its range of products by launching a plywood range in the UK.
The technical specifications of the FSC-certified radiata pine core clear-faced WBP Class 3 product provides something different from other competitor products and could carve a niche, says the company.
Finsa’s purchase department and export spokesperson Ramón Prieta Trigo said that Finsa’s original plywood factory in Santiago de Compostela was shut three years ago for being uncompetitive. It has now opened a 3,000m3/month capacity plywood plant in South Africa, where production started in April this year.
“We’re now actively starting to promote this product in the UK,” he said.

An e10m I-joist factory has been opened in Sweden by Masonite Beams. The factory I-joist line and finger-jointer have a line speed of 120m/min giving a production capacity of 24 million m/year of I-joists.
Production will include asymmetrical I-joists where the dimensions of the upper and lower flanges differ, as well as joists featuring a flange with a tailored section rather than the normal square shape.

The Wood Awards is billed as the UK’s premier architecture and furniture competition celebrating excellence in design in the world’s most sustainable material. This year the London event introduced a new Special Award, ‘Best Use of Panel Products’ in recognition of the increasing importance of materials such as MDF, OSB, plywood and particleboard.
For Geoff Rhodes, specialist in the wood panel product sector, former president of the Timber Trade Federation and marketing and business development director of Collate Panel Products, the move is an important step forward for a burgeoning industry which, through significant capital investment in new technology and innovation, is confirming its place in 21st century construction around the world.
He said: “This special recognition is a great way to improve the understanding of wood panel products and to showcase their adaptability and quality, particularly as nearly a quarter of this year’s Woods Awards entries used panel products.”
For the new award 14 projects made up the long shortlist; a quantity unprecedented in the awards since its rebranding in 2003.
The outright winner was the Taylor Library at Corpus Christi College in Cambridge which showcased fine examples of European oak veneers bonded onto a variety of wood based panel substrates, specified for their strength, stability and robustness by architects Wright & Wright.
Of the 13 remaining projects shortlisted for the new award, seven went on to be highly commended or win almost every other category.
Coillte Panel Products is sponsor of the Wood Awards website. www.woodawards.com

Grenzebach Corporation, a leading manufacturer of veneer and plywood equipment, with North American headquarters located in Newnan, GA, has opened a new sales and service office in Gladstone, Oregon. This is in addition to an office in Eugene, OR.

Danzer group is expanding its customer service with a new Virtual Veneer Warehouse that simplifies purchase of veneer. Customers browsing www.danzerveneer.com can sample and choose veneer.

Hexion Specialty Chemicals, headquartered in Columbus, Ohio recently formed a cooperation with the Finnish Lappeenranta University of Technology giving the worldwide supplier of resins and adhesives for the wood products industry the opportunity to hold a series of lectures in an academic setting.

Russia’s Scheduled 80% Log Export Tax will reduce log exports, disrupt global forest product trade flows and create a supply shortage in China, says the International Wood Products Group, Vancouver, Canada.
It says that higher prices and increased demand will create substantial opportunities in logs, lumber, pulp and other products for a variety of exporting countries to China and other Asian countries in a press release dated October 17.
“Russia’s log export tax is set to increase from 25% to 80%, (or minimum 50 euros/m3 or US$400/MBF, Scribner scale) on January 1, 2009, making Russian logs too expensive and creating a supply shortage for Russia’s key customers in Finland, Japan, China, South Korea and the Baltic States.
“As a result of the pending tax, major wood product companies in Finland and the Baltics have already announced permanent capacity closures in pulp and paper, as well as sawmills and plywood mills.
“The strategies of companies in Japan and South Korea are to find suitable replacement species or products. However, our preliminary analysis indicates clearly that China does not yet have any practical strategy and, consequently, will not have enough wood volume to replace Russian logs and to run all of its factories,” says IWP.
The impending supply crunch that will develop within China could be similar to the crisis created by the spotted owl in the US Pacific Northwest in the early 1990s.
For more information go to www.woodmarkets.com

Wood and wood products are known to help regulate the humidity in buildings because they are hygroscopic; when there is high humidity in a room, wood products will absorb water and swell. Conversely, they desorb when humidity is low.
The relative humidity (RH)
of air depends on temperature and pressure. In this article I only want to cover RH at atmospheric pressure.
Air at 20°C and 100% RH will contain 14.6g of water vapour per kg. So if the air in a room has an RH of 50%, and it is at 20°C, the air will have 7.3g of water vapour per kg of air.
Everyone has seen the effects of wood shrinking and swelling. Many assume wood products swell in winter and shrink in summer. This is generally true of exterior timbers, but the opposite is true indoors, because people keep room temperature around 20°C, so rooms are cool in summer and warm in winter, relative to the outside.
As I write this article, it is 6°C and 90% RH outside. Thus the amount of water in the outside air is 5.5g/kg. As the air from outside enters, it is warmed to 20°C and its RH falls to about 38%. This is a dry atmosphere so the wood products in my room are probably drying out, slowly.
My furniture and floors drying out means the water lost
raises the RH in the room. RH affects our perception of comfort. Wood products provide a useful regulation of RH.
In my current research on reducing formaldehyde emission from panels I have been investigating emission from glue-free plywood-type products to try to differentiate between formaldehyde from the glue and the wood.
I am beginning to conclude that the formaldehyde found in wood does not necessarily originate from the wood but from the water in the wood. Formald-
ehyde is very soluble in water and in ambient conditions prefers to be dissolved in water rather than to be a gas.
If formaldehyde is dissolved in the bound water of wood, when we measure its release the formaldehyde observed may not originate from chemical reactions within the wood but simply be driven out of solution.
If true, then wood products are sinks for formaldehyde and not necessarily sources.
I am confident that wood products cannot only regulate RH but also the concentration of other water-soluble compounds, like formaldehyde, in
the air.

All the patience and efforts in developing its mechanical fibre resination system have paid off with outstanding results, says Imal,
headquartered in San Domaso, Modena, Italy. It says that excellent glue savings and no change in surface quality or board properties have been attained with the new system.
To illustrate this, we will take the last two systems Imal installed as examples.
The first is at the Alfa Wood facility in Greece, where the company says reductions in resin consumption of up to 28% have been achieved.
The second and most recent system was put into operation at Fibraplac MDF, Porto Alegre in Brazil. Here Fibraplac runs two continuous Siempelkamp press lines, processing approximately 25 tonne/hr of fibre.
Fibraplac signed the acceptance protocol for the Imal blending system on August 8, 2008, confirming it has managed to reduce resin addition rates by as much as 25%, without affecting the already excellent quality of the board produced.
To be precise, resin consumption dropped to around 70kg of liquid resin per cubic metre of finished board.
Barely a month later, Imal says it received a second order from Fibraplac, for another system on its MDF line 2, confirming its satisfaction with the first.
After visiting the Alfa Wood Greece plant and seeing the Imal system in operation, both Eucatex, Brazil and Kastamonu, Turkey placed orders for the fibre resination system.
Another order has been placed by Homatherm of Germany for its new fibre plant where it plans to mix the fibre
with MDI resin.
Customers with existing conventional blowline resination systems may choose to combine this with Imal’s mechanical system, while new lines can go for 100% mechanical blending.
A full description of the mechanical blending system can be found in WBPI issue 4, 2008, p37. n

The awesome growth in Chinese panel consumption and production since the beginning of the century seemed a year ago to be uninterruptable. Total consumption (domestic plus exports) of all types of panels (plywood, blockboard, MDF/HDF and particleboard) leapt from little more than 21 million m3 in 2000 to over 82 million m3 in 2007. This near-quadrupling of consumption in just seven years is unprecedented, if only in terms of the absolute volumes involved (see chart below).
Consumption grew for each panel type: Plywood leapt from 9.4 million m3 in 2000 to 33 million m3 in 2007; blockboard jumped from 4.3 million m3 to 12.8 million m3; MDF/HDF soared from 5.6 million m3 to 27.8 million m3; and particleboard leapt from 3.1 million m3 to 8.9 million m3.
Most of this growth was concentrated in domestic markets. Thus, even though total panel exports increased strongly from 0.66 million m3 in 2000 to 11.44 million m3 in 2007, domestic market consumption more than tripled, from around 20 million m3 to more than 70 million m3 over this seven-year period. Thus, while export growth was a lot faster than that for domestic markets, we should not lose sight of the fact that markets are dominated by domestic consumption (86% of total consumption
in 2007).
The other part of the panel story which has drawn attention is that consumption has increasingly been met by domestic production. Imports of panels have slipped since 2003 as the average quality of Chinese production has improved. Total panel imports peaked in 2003 at 2.2 million m3 and dropped to 1.2 million m3 in 2007. Meanwhile, Chinese panel production leapt from around 21 million m3 in 2000 to a record 84.5 million m3 in 2007. This increase was led by large increases in plywood and MDF/HDF which, when combined, reached almost 63 million m3 in 2007 (compared to 15 million m3 in 2000).
That, in brief, is the remarkable story of Chinese wood based panels since the end of the 1990s.
The unspoken assumption has always been that this growth would continue for as far as people could foresee. However, developments over the past year, both within China and in the global economy, now cause us to question this assumption.
Obviously no market grows for ever without interruption. The problem for the forecaster has always been to determine the point at which physical growth passes first from surging adolescence to young-adulthood, and eventually to full maturity.
In China, the first turning point seems to have been reached in 2008. As we peer through the economic gloom, it would seem that prospects for China’s panel industry, while still healthy by any normal measure, have begun a transition to a new paradigm whereby industry and markets are now approaching maturity rather than being at the early stages of development.
Several factors support our expectations for slower future growth:
Firstly, the global financial and economic crisis is propelling the major developed economies into recession and many other countries will experience much slower growth (albeit avoiding recession) than over the past several years. This will impact negatively on the demand for manufactured goods, commodities and other
traded products.
For China, ‘recession’ could easily be defined as when GDP grows at just 6-7% annually rather than the 10-11% rates it enjoyed over the past several years. This global slowdown has major implications for Chinese exports, particularly of products which consume huge volumes of lumber and panels, such as furniture.
Secondly, the over-building of homes, and non-residential structures, in China even before the financial crisis became evident was negatively impacting the level of new construction, as well as the volume of wood products being consumed in finishing and decoration. This construction downturn will continue well into 2009, and possibly into 2010, before new government stimulus packages may reverse the direction of activity in China.
Third, China’s furniture industry has been facing a growing need to re-structure in the face of an appreciating currency, rising production costs, labour shortages and growing international competition. We have already seen significant growth in furniture production in Vietnam over the past five years (often from Chinese-owned
component and assembly plants).
Recently, furniture plants in China’s booming coastal region have been closed in large numbers and moved further west to where labour is more abundant and less expensive; and where land costs are lower. It is not clear if this growing western China-based furniture industry will be focused primarily on domestic rather than export markets. But with further appreciation of the Chinese yuan, and relatively high internal transport costs, these operations will likely be hard-pressed to be major factors in offshore trade.
Fourthly, the on-going increase in the Russian log export tax has major ramifications for the cost structure of China’s furniture industry, particularly the sectors utilising a lot of solid wood in bedroom and dining room furniture. Assuming that the Russian duties are effectively implemented (perhaps a huge assumption), one can expect further restructuring of both the primary and secondary wood products industries in China over the next five years.
For the panel industry, one of the major changes will be the encouraging of further investments in plantations to secure domestic supplies of fibre to produce plywood, MDF/HDF and particleboard.
In addition, substantial consolidation in the panel industry will result, partly in response to government policy to close multiple smaller, older and less efficient operations, and partly because of market pressures, particularly on those companies unable to secure adequate credit and working capital to operate efficiently.
CFPA’s new forecasts assume that China’s GDP growth rate drops to between 7 and 8% in 2009; construction activity slides nearly 10%, 2007-2009; and furniture production falls 10% between its 2007 high and 2009, before starting to recover in 2010 (see chart below).
Furniture is the single largest factor driving Chinese wood product demand and any projection of weakness in this all-important sector will have profound impacts on panel production, pricing, profitability and investment (particularly given the over-building of capacity seen over the past several years).
Between 2000 and 2007, China’s furniture production vaulted 490% (a compound annual rate of growth of 29% – see chart below). For 2008-2009, we project
a 10% drop in furniture production because of weakness in both export and domestic markets.
For example, through the first seven months of 2008, inflation-adjusted US furniture imports from China were down 15% from the same period in 2007. The forecast then calls for a return of growth in 2010. Between 2009 and 2013, a solid 47% increase in total furniture output is projected (average of 10% annually).
By any non-Chinese standards, this would be regarded as strong growth, but given China’s recent past this forecast marks a substantial shift, at least for the furniture industry.
What will this economic outlook mean for China’s wood based panel consumption? For the two-year period through 2009, we anticipate an 11% drop in total panel consumption, led by a 15% fall in MDF/HDF (the panel most dependent on furniture – see chart on right).
In the recovery period, panel consumption will again climb to set new records. Total panel consumption will jump 29%, 2009-2013 (but the increase would be just 14% from the 2007 peak – see table above). Plywood is expected to lag other panels because of its higher costs and a switch of users to MDF/HDF and particleboard.
Consumption of MDF/HDF by 2013 is expected to exceed plywood, and blockboard consumption will jump further as more of this product is used as a substitute for lumber, which will be sourced either directly from outside China or made within China from expensive Russian logs.
Five-year forecasts given the current (October 2008) economic uncertainty may have little credibility. However, once this economic crisis is resolved, then it will be important to be aware not only of short-term cyclical factors, but also of the longer term secular trends that are also undergoing seismic shifts.
This forecast attempts to combine both cyclical and market trend factors and provide insights into the likely transition of the very important Chinese panel market to a more mature growth path.
Risks can be identified on both sides of the forecast: China’s panel industry could continue to astound by maintaining further massive rates of growth for several more years, or it could experience little or no further growth if the furniture industry accelerates its shift offshore, perhaps because the yuan strengthens well beyond predicted levels.
These are indeed both interesting and dynamic times in which we live!

Satipel launched its first fibreboard unit, a 350,000m3/year Siempelkamp ContiRoll line, at its expanding main panel complex in Uberaba, Minas Gerais state in July. Its first MDF board went on the market in September (2008).
That project has been achieved in parallel with another huge scheme in which the São Paulo-based firm is constructing a big 700,000m3/year continuous MDP line to replace its old batch line in Taquari, southern Brazil.
Phase one of this plan will see a new 30.7m-long Siempelkamp press going onstream in the middle of next year with an initial output of 460,000m3/year – more than twice that of Taquari’s 38-year-old 12-daylight press unit. A second phase, reaching the full 700,000m3/year capacity, is currently due for completion in 2011, according to the firm.
The timing of both projects has been prompted by Satipel’s reading of the Brazilian panel market and forecasts of continued growth, particularly for MDF consumption, in coming years.
The company’s two expansion schemes involve a combined investment of around US$250m and theirs is just one of a number of major expansion plans the Brazilian industry is currently undertaking.
Confidence remained high among producers earlier this year. They believed fervently that their markets would continue to demand more panel products, justifying these significant investments.
This confidence seems to be underpinned by the strength of the domestic panels market, which grew at a rate of around 10% in 2007 and is forecast to expand by a further 5-10% this year.
“Overall growth this year will be about 8%, which is still quite good,” said Satipel’s Roberto Sczachnowicz.
Producers justify the latest cycle of panel industry capacity plans based on Brazil’s longer-term sustainable development and, particularly, construction industry growth, according to Satipel’s commercial vice-president Mr Sczachnowicz.
“We all know Brazil has a real deficit of housing and living conditions. We have more than 100 million people who need to move to new and better housing. And one day, they will be furnishing those empty spaces that are now being built.
“So, that was the main driver for the expansion programme which is happening in the panel industry today,” he explained.
Even so, the executive admits to some concern about the medium-term market position, with a big jump in supply as new panel lines, including Duratex’s one for one million m3/year of MDP, due on-stream [maybe] in 2010, are launched.
Brazil’s panel producers are aware that they will likely have to start to export some of their increased output with up to two years of over-capacity at home. But export may prove more difficult in the face of currency exchange fluctuation, higher tariff barriers and a lingering global economic downturn.
Meanwhile, Satipel is confident its new lines, especially the MDF plant, will prove competitive in the marketplace. At Uberaba, the new 2.75m-wide MDF line will benefit from efficiency and lower costs, sharing an optimised existing infrastructure installed with Satipel’s existing 2,000m3/day Siempelkamp ContiRoll MDP line there.
At Taquari, Satipel still runs its 200,000m3/year Becker & Van Hülen multi-opening-press MDP line, along with two lamination units: a 1980 Siempelkamp melamine overlay line with 72,000m3/year capacity and a 216,000m3/year Wemhöner installed in 2006. It also runs a 1980s Babcock impregnation line.
Unusually, the southern Brazilian plant also operates its own furniture components unit with a variety of semi-finished cut-to-size MDP parts, employing edgebanding, profiling and post-forming techniques and sold on to furniture manufacturers.
Production of the well-invested 20-year-old line is limited, accounting for only around 5-10% of the plant’s board production this year. But it provides a valuable extra value-added business.
The Taquari mill occupies a spacious site surrounded by forest plantations and with a large 30,000m2 lake softening the hard industrial landscape, as well as providing a valuable water resource.
The new continuous MDP line is being integrated gradually alongside the old batch line. Some existing infrastructure, including the woodyard and some wood processing equipment, such as one Bison dryer and a ring flaker, are being retained.
Apart from the new press, Satipel will install a Büttner dryer with a 33-35 tonne water evaporation drying capacity.
Also, all downstream resources including finishing will be installed and ready for the line’s ultimate capacity, explained Satipel’s operations vice-president Mauro Pini França when WBPI visited the site in July 2008.
Next year, the Taquari plant will see its laminating paper impregnation section upgraded with a new Italian Tocchio line due to be installed in the second quarter. A similar line has been ordered and will be delivered to the Uberaba site at the same time.
Major ground works were still under way at Taquari in July, including the
construction of a new perimeter route allowing trucks serving the new plant to circulate smoothly.
Wood used at Taquari varies from virgin roundwood to chips, sawmill offcuts and a selection of industrial waste wood, some laminated.
Satipel recycles material from clients as well as from its own components line. Up to 50% of the plant’s total wood supply has been made up of recycled waste material, but that proportion should fall when panel making expands, according to Mr França.
Satipel intends to capitalise on its close proximity to the River Taquari, part of a network of rivers reaching across the state of Rio Grande do Sul.
The firm expects to establish a small river dock at the foot of a maintenance road for barges to unload wood chips from more distant forests. It will move the chips the few hundred metres up to the plant by conveyor.
“It will allow us to have extra wood from other regions of the state at a competitive price....chips brought by river could amount to 30% of the total wood used, where the river is much cheaper than trucking,” said Mr França, who has since left the company to take up another post.
Satipel’s latest investment in Taquari will mean that it can expect to remain Brazil’s leader in MDP production for some time to come.
From 2011, when the local line’s phase II is complete, the firm can boast a two-site capacity of 1.5 million m3/year. This takes account of its 100,000m3/year five-daylight press line at Uberaba.
It will also benefit from increased production there from its MDF line, which includes a 30m long, 2.75m wide, Siempelkamp ContiRoll press; CMC Texpan forming section; Andritz refiner; Büttner dryer; a glue kitchen from Imal; Siempelkamp SHS transport/storage system and a Steinemann eight-head sanding line.
In recent years, increasing industrial development by the panel industry in southern Brazil has been aimed at Brazil’s main Bento Gonçalves furniture making zone. Masisa do Brasil Ltda is set to launch its upgraded 750,000m3/year Dieffenbacher MDP line at Montenegro, Rio Grande do Sul (RS), early next year, while in the same state, Fibraplac Chapas de MDF Ltda could also launch a 500,000 m3/year MDP line at Glorinha, RS late in 2009 and two plywood makers were due to launch small Chinese MDF lines in Santa Catarina state by late 2008.
Meanwhile, new furniture manufacturing zones are developing in northern and central Brazil and the buying power of poorer Brazilians in the nation’s northeast and west is growing fast.
Satipel, which went public last year, is convinced it’s latest investments in Taquari, and 1,500km north in Uberaba, will allow it to take full advantage of future market growth in both southern and northern Brazil.

The move to MDF has emerged as producers in Brazil’s still large, but fragmented, plywood industry have seen their profits shrink over recent years, mainly thanks to a devalued US dollar. Meanwhile, they have watched the market for MDF and medium density particleboard (MDP) grow strongly.
Many smaller, family-run plywood firms, unprepared for the setback, keeled over and perished. Some initially switched to softwood plywood manufacture, later closing. But, others, eager to survive, saw evolution through upgrading to more sophisticated panels as the way forward.
The producers’ shift towards MDF was stimulated by the appearance of efficient, relatively low-cost Chinese-built MDF and MDP lines, as well as by fresh availability of credit in Brazil, according to Henrique Zanin of the Brazilian consultancy Organon Consultoria e Engenharia.
Among those plywood producers leading the switch are two companies, both based at Palmas in southern Paraná state, independent, but linked through family ties. They are Indústria de Compensados Guararapes Ltda and Indústria de Compensados Sudati Ltda.
Each firm opted to launch a 180,000m3/year multi-opening fibreboard line from the Chinese supplier Shanghai Wood Based Panel Machinery Co Ltd (SWPM) and both plants have been taking shape in Brazil’s Santa Catarina state: Guararapes in Caçador and Sudati in Otacilio Costa.
With Brazil’s panel industry still in the grip of a continuing raw material crisis and the forest resources of Paraná already exploited by the big panel makers, the newcomers chose to locate further south in still relatively timber-rich Santa Catarina.
In July this year (2008), WBPI took the opportunity, while in Brazil, to fly to the Santa Catarina town of Caçador to see progress being made by Guararapes on its MDF project first-hand.
The firm originally aimed to complete its new plant by mid-2008, but assembly only began on site in May and construction has been delayed by high winds and heavy rain in recent months. The revised plan now sees the plant start-up in December 08 or January 09, a little over a month after that of Sudati, Guararapes’ general manager Mariano Dantur Do Canto forecast in late October.
Guararapes’ Chinese machinery arrived at the Santa Catarina port of Itajaí aboard a single ship at the end of April. The equipment was ferried in 179 truck loads to the site in the state’s interior. Meanwhile, a team of Brazilian construction workers shifted some 350,000m3 of soil in the major task of levelling the hill-top industrial site.
By July, the company’s fibreboard offshoot, Guararapes Panéis Ltda already had its SWPM board line installed in a 14,000m2 production hall. Work was continuing apace outside to erect the Chinese-supplied wood processing equipment, including the 4m diameter drum debarker, 100 tonne per hour disc chipper, a biomass silo and a Brazilian-made chip silo.
Engineers from Austrian refiner supplier Andritz AG were due to finish assembling the new line’s refiner system – one of only two main sections not supplied by the Chinese – by September. In the meantime, Guararapes planned to complete erection of the energy plant.
Shanghai Wood Based Panel Machinery, part of the Kronospan Group, supplied Guararapes with a 400m3/day 12-daylight batch press MDF line with a nameplate annual capacity of around 144,000m3. But the panel maker has its sights set on bigger output.
“We know we can take [capacity] up to more than 500m3/day, gradually, depending on market demand, so we modified the [basic] Chinese line,” explained Guararapes Panéis’ general manager.
One section of the line to be modified is the chip silo. SWPM could only provide a small capacity unit of 1,000m3, equipped with hydraulic pushers to move the chips. Guararapes chose instead to buy a 6,000m3 silo with a screw system from a Brazilian supplier, said Mr Dantur Do Canto, former production manager at Porto Alegre-based Fibraplac Chapas de MDF Ltda.
The panel line, which includes a pre-press and Steinemann sanding section, will produce raw boards of 1.92x5.55m.
Last year, Mr Dantur Do Canto and Sudati’s general manager spent two weeks in China with SWPM, a trip which included a four-hour flight to western China to view two of the supplier’s lines in operation. They visited Jiangxi Green Continent Woodbased Panel Co Ltd in Jian city, Jiangxi province.
The Brazilians were impressed by what they saw – not least the finish of the sanded panels produced, in spite of the poor quality raw material being used there.
When WBPI visited the Guararapes site, Chinese personnel were still overseeing the unpacking and assembly of components from shipping crates. One engineer was responsible for outside equipment, while another dealt with the panel line itself and a chief engineer took overall charge.
The SWPM line will turn out 100% pine based MDF panels, initially with a sanded finish. Guararapes expects no shortage of wood from around Caçador, with chips acquired from numerous sawmills within a 40 km radius, while roundwood will be trucked in from up to 100km away.
Although Brazil’s panel sector is in the midst of a new wave of capacity expansion, Mr Dantur Do Canto is confident his firm, albeit a small MDF newcomer, will increase its share of the country’s sizeable furniture market.
Not only that, but the executive agrees with suggestions that local MDF manufacturers could exploit new markets beyond that of furniture. He admits small Brazilian MDF players like his could attract new niche business elsewhere.
“MDF in Brazil is barely exploited in segments such as packaging and civil construction,” Organon consultant Henrique Zanin told WBPI.
“In Brazil, when one talks about MDF, one immediately thinks about the furniture sector, which is more than consolidated and over-supplied. In Europe, MDF is very strong in construction, for example for door jambs, casings and doorskins,” he said, adding that such a trend should be followed in Brazil.
Organon Consultoria was alerted to the trend among Brazil’s plywood firms when in early 2007 it was asked by one company in Santa Catarina to coordinate a project to install a low pressure melamine lamination line. It turned out the firm planned to buy in MDF, from the new small MDF producers, which it would finish itself.
One potential supplier of the board was to be Maseal Industria de Compensados Ltda of Campo Grande, Mato Grosso do Sul state. Later, Organon, based in Campinas, São Paulo state, was asked to coordinate Maseal’s MDF project, which includes installing a Chinese SWPM fibreboard line, recalled Mr Zanin.
Maseal is understood to have put its scheme on hold pending success in its search for a suitable partner to join it in the investment project.
Mr Zanin believes that, despite the traditionally informal and rather dated management style of family-run plywood firms, these companies are flexible and prepared to change. One incentive to switch to MDF is that buying Chinese and integrating processes means a firm could establish an MDF/particleboard plant for one third the cost of a similar German plant, he observed.
Guararapes, with two well-invested
plywood plants in Paraná and Santa Catarina capable of making 540,000m3/year of board, aims to order a low pressure laminating line at its MDF plant, perhaps early in 2009 said its
general manager.
There is no doubt his firm is committed to MDF manufacture and, as with other plywood newcomers, will benefit from the experience brought to its new plant by Mr Dantur Do Canto and production head José Claudio Alves.

Some 340 wood panel and other wood manufacturers and suppliers gathered at the annual APA
meeting, Las Vegas, Nevada in late September to hear some good news and some bad news.
The attendance total was only
slightly less than 2007 – somewhat
surprising in light of the financial and market conditions.
The good news was that perhaps the construction market employing wood might begin a slight trend upward next year. The bad news was that, at the time, the US financial markets were poised at a point perhaps rivalling the deplorable conditions of the 1930s.
Ironically, the APA was celebrating the 75th anniversary of its founding, dating back to the middle of those dark days.
Chairman Mike Rehwinkel, Georgia-Pacific Wood Products LLC, said, “The US housing market is the worst it’s been in a quarter century. The cost of oil hit record highs earlier this year. Inflation fears are growing. Builder and consumer confidence levels are low. And for most segments of our industry, production capacity is out of balance with
market demand”.
He said, “This is a difficult time in our long history, but we are far better off today than in 1933, when the association was founded during the Great Depression by ‘incurable optimists’.”
He said industry must continue to look to the future, even when preoccupied with the challenges of the present.
“We have good reason to be confident [because] we bring to the challenges significant strengths, including a tradition of toughness that marks our long history.
“And yet, we continue to adapt, to strategise, improvise, plan and execute...in short, to survive as an industry…and as an association. In addition to our pride in our history, we also as an organisation are confident in our future. We continue to work together on a number of important programmes and campaigns that promise to yield significant results for us down the road.”
“Let’s remain confident. Let’s continue to stick together. And let’s keep moving forward,” he concluded.
Mr Rehwinkel reported the addition of seven new APA members over the past year for a total of 153. This includes 96 panel mills and 57 engineered wood plants. Twelve companies joined the Wood Technology Association for a total membership of 90.
Market forecasting is a difficult task in today’s market, but Dr Bernard Markstein, a fast-talking and dynamic speaker, led off on that responsibility. He is vice president for forecasting and analysis for the National Association of Home Builders.
He declared: “The fact that we are not in worse shape with all these problems [means something]. Housing is in a
21/2-year recession. We’re all feeling pain. There is a huge amount of inventory
out there.”
He said the turmoil in financial markets is feeding on itself. The demand needs to stabilise and improve before recovery.
He added: “We’ve never been here. We’re in uncharted territory. The closest was the Great Depression. The problems are largely of the financial market. There’s a lot of strength to our basic economy. Our forecast is for a mild recession, but it doesn’t matter whether there is a recession or not, it’s the condition of your business [that matters]”.
Dr Markstein predicted that single-family home sales will climb in 2009, but he said “Tough times are not over”.
He observed that single-family home prices dropped considerably in 2005-2007 and the formerly “hot markets” dropped the most. The inventory of unsold homes is still high. Multi-family has been relatively stable.
Through all this, he said, non-residential construction “has been a saviour, although it, too, has slowed. Multi-family housing starts have been fairly stable”.
He said new and existing home sales are still declining, but he believes they are close to bottoming out. NAHB expects a modest rebound in residential construction beginning early in 2009.
“I think we’re close to the bottom,” he said. “There will still be pain and pressure. People will be stronger.”
The Info Fair with 60 exhibitors provided the opportunity for mill people to learn about the latest machinery and supplies for their industry. Ventek and Hexion Specialty Chemicals Inc drew Supplier of the Year awards for equipment, and materials and supplies categories, respectively.
Dowell Myers, University of Southern California, explained the expected rise in the ratio of seniors in the general population which could trigger a number of crises, including Social Security insolvency, Medicare and health insurance cost rises, workforce and taxpayer replacement challenges, maintenance of infrastructure and over-supply of home sellers.
He said: “I’m going long term. You can’t build a house if there is no one there to live in it. But we’re still growing big time. Growth will be in the older age group. Developers are all going into retirement housing”.
He indicated that the work force is in crisis with retirees leaving and growth slowing.
He said that immigration and a better educated, and therefore wealthier, younger generation could help avert those crises.
Education had a part in his predictions. He said college graduates will pay 64% more for houses than high school graduates. “We’re not helping these kids for their benefit. It’s for ours,” said
Mr Myers.
He said the suburbs are America’s future slums with people moving to the cities. “Older folks want to live closer to more amenities,” he declared.
APA vice-president and corporate secretary Ed Elias ruefully told attendees: “I wish times could have been better so that we might be in a more festive mood to celebrate APA’s 75th anniversary. But it underscores and reminds us of our remarkable success in meeting all sorts of previous challenges.
“We met those challenges before. We’ll meet them today”.
He explained the association’s strategic plan with five principal goals:
• Grow wood product share in major
end-use markets
• Increase APA membership
• Provide a certification programme which assures member compliance
with standards
• Exercise fiscal responsibility
• Maintain organisational effectiveness.
Mr Elias said emphasis will be placed on construction markets due to their sheer size and available funding from outside sources. Industrial and international markets represent growth opportunities as well and are also addressed.
He said APA had had high-level meetings with two major prospective members.
The certification goal assures members’ standards compliance. He said, “This underscores the vital link between market growth and product quality. At the same time it recognises the challenges faced by US manufacturers during these times of low market demand and excess capacity.
“An important aspect of the APA brand in the marketplace is recognition that the APA mark on your panels and other engineered wood products stands for product quality. And it is vital that we protect that credibility,” Mr Elias advised.
He emphasised: “It is imperative that we take every effort to reduce spending, weigh the cost/benefit of all activities, leverage funding from outside sources and carefully monitor and forecast income and expenses”.
He said the board revised the budget to reduce expected income by 10%, or US$1.8m, reduced spending by the same amount and approved application of some outside funding to offset operational expenses.
Mr Elias added: “An important assumption is that current conditions are temporary, rather than permanent, and that the revised plan should be viewed as a bridge, rather than as a fundamental change in association direction.
“With this plan in place, with your continued strong support and with the eventual economic and housing market turnaround that is sure to come, our industry and your association have tremendous prospects ahead for success and prosperity,” he concluded.
Keith Koonce, Panelized Structures Inc, advised on selling to the non-residential construction market.
He strongly advised using panelised roof construction for its safer installation methods and 60% time savings. He said a typical crew will put up 20,000ft2 per day in 8ft and 10ft sections.
He said his firm insulates on the bottom side in voids.
A discussion indicated rising interest in raised wood floors compared with concrete slab construction. APA has sponsored seminars on the subject in its important southern market.
Mr Koonce said wood has 80% of the roof market in the US west, but only 5% in the east, where steel makes up the vast majority, despite its much higher cost.
APA’s Charles Barnes estimated 2008 North American panel exports at 1.27 billion ft2, the best year on record and a record for North American OSB exports.
Tom Williamson, APA, reported that Arkansas regulations prohibiting wood in school construction had just been reversed and using wood in seven schools had saved US$2.5m.
Marilyn LeMoine, APA’s market communications director, reported on the association’s new comprehensive website which draws 100,000 contacts monthly.

Opening the symposium at the Maritim Hotel, Hannover airport, Kris Wijnendaele, secretary general of both the European Panel Federation (EPF) and European Federation of the Plywood Industry (FEIC), pointing out that federations can offer little except
communication, appealed to a sector of the audience: “Technical people, your challenge is to develop new products and solutions with your customers to create [more] demand”.
Returning to his theme of communication, Mr Wijnendaele highlighted the booklet produced by EPF and CEI-Bois entitled Tackle climate change: use wood.
“Use this book to spread the message through your own channels,” exhorted the secretary general.
President of the EPF, Ladislaus Döry, then summarised the current situation, gave some of the industry-specific statistics from the federation’s annual report (WBPI issue 5, 2008, p16) and outlined the recent activities of the EPF.
“We are in the same, wooden, boat and it is incredibly important that we hold together. Each one of us has a role to play in influencing the European Commission, Parliament or Council in reaching the right decisions.
“There are too many companies who think it is enough to be a member of a federation and do nothing more. We must make people aware of decisions being taken on our behalf by these organisations, which influence our industry – if we don’t we will lose,” he warned.
Expressing the need for cross-sectoral cooperation, Mr Döry said: “The larger the voice and the greater the repetition, the bigger the chance that the message is heard. The EPF wishes to expand its
traditional activity network to partners outside the traditional woodworking chain and invites its associate members
to enhance the cooperation and to
strengthen the industry voice.
“We aim to build a global coalition to: Strive for the recognition of harvested wood products under the Kyoto Protocol during the COP-15 convention in November 2009 in Copenhagen; and exchange information and experience that is useful for improving the image and enhancing the consumption of wood products all over the world.
“The EPF is setting up a partnership with associations in Australia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia and North America,” said the president.
Mr Döry added that the European Commission has stated, this year, in the Commission Communication on the competitiveness of the EU forest based industries that:
“Forests and forest based industries have a strategic role in climate change mitigation that should be strengthened.
“Carbon storage in harvested wood products can extend the carbon sequestration benefits provided by forests; their role in mitigating climate change should thus be developed”.
The next speaker was Jeremy Wall of the European Commission’s Textiles, fashion and forest based industries unit, who spoke on The impact of EU policies on the competitiveness and future of the wood based panel sector.
Mr Wall said that the policy situation is very complex with regard to national and European policies affecting the forest based sector policy, with no overall policy as yet. Hence the communication document COM (2008) 113 Final on Innovative and sustainable forest based industries in which the speaker is involved.
He pointed out that 7.5% of the total added value of EU manufacturing industries is accounted for by the forest based and related industries, with 9% of the employment of EU manufacturing industries (three million people) and more than 340,000 companies. These figures include pulp and paper and printing.
Mr Wall confirmed the perceived challenges for the EU forest based industries as: Access to raw materials; impact of climate change policies; innovation, research and development; trade and cooperation with third countries; and communication and information.
This appeared to be reassuringly
similar to the EPF’s own assessment of the situation.
Among the eight actions for the EC outlined by the speaker were: Member states, industry and forest owners to facilitate and promote afforestation, reforestation and active sustainable forest management; to explore additional solutions, besides mobilisation, to the gap between supply and demand for wood; to increase the recovery level of wood products; to pay attention to the different uses of biomass when developing the national biomass action plans and in the context of general monitoring and reporting on resource efficiency.
Additionally, Mr Wall said member states and industry are to consider the Strategic Research Agenda of the Forest-based Sector Technology Platform in their RTD programmes and make adequate provision for education and training in the forest based sector. This was one among many proposals to assist the forest products sector.
The speaker said there is a need for the panels sector to lobby nationally and at EU level. “Lobbying is not just writing letters then hoping, it is active formulation and presentation of alternative policy scenarios into the policy making process,” said Mr Wall.
Professor Udo Mantau of the University of Hamburg looked at wood availability in Europe with specific reference to panels in a project with the UNECE/FAO Timber Section.
His work predicted that wood consumption for energy use, if EU targets are realised, will rise from 349 million m3 in 2005 to 768 million m3 in 2020.
Professor Mantau said that the consequences are that: Overall energy and resource efficiency are crucial, while the significance of the gap in demand and supply lies in the need for increased wood supply (from existing or new sources, or through imports); policy targets will not be met (with wood); and the development of the wood based industries is in question.
The next speaker was Volker Thole of the University of Applied Sciences in Eberswalde, who looked at Agricultural residues for particleboard and fibreboard production: Potentials and properties.
He said that around 248 million tonnes per annum (tpa) of such residues are ‘available’ to the panel industry, although with a total loss factor of 0.80.
However, Dr Thole said that the need of the wood based panel industry in Europe for lignocellulose-containing raw material was 34 million tpa and the existing amount of agricultural plants was 54.5 million tpa – more than enough.
Annual plants have a higher ash content, shorter basic fibres though longer technical fibres (bast fibres), a lower bonding strength, more parenchyma, a lower crop cost and a higher storage cost than wood.
Dr Thole concluded that the utilisation potential of annual plants is high, but the main problem is their availability, high ash content and the resin usage. However, boards with sufficient mechanical properties can be produced.
Marie-Lise Roux of the French furniture institute FCBA reported on the mechanical performance of furniture constructed of particleboards made from agricultural residues. She advised the audience that low density boards gave some problems in breakage and screw/fastening holding and that strength would be improved if they were laminated with high pressure laminate (HPL).
GreCon of Alfeld Germany, in the form of managing director Kai Greten, gave a presentation on Safety engineering in the wood based panels industry and outlined his company’s various products and processes for fire detection/extinguishing.
The next speaker was Trajan Sandweg of Siempelkamp, Germany who described the company’s fifth generation of prodiQ software for monitoring and controlling the whole production process of composite panels on the line and coordinating all the process data inputs received.
Hauke Kleinschmidt of Electronic Wood Systems, Hameln, Germany, explained his company’s on-the-line quality control systems and concentrated on the Gauge Controller and the latest development of the Conti-Scale non-contact board scale.
The famous Sunds name has been revived by Dieffenbacher following its takeover of part of the former Metso Panelboard business and Kenth Eklund and Fritz Schneider jointly presented Sunds MDF Technologies’ Evojet dry resin blending system.
Helmut Roll of Pallmann, Germany, described the principle of refining and his company’s radial discharge system for the fibre exiting the refiner.
The last of the supplier/sponsor presentations in this session was by Marko Pertillä of Raute, Finland, who explained how his company can maximise quality veneer yield in plywood production.
Opto-electronic evaluation of veneer cutting tests and strategies to optimise veneer yield was the lengthy title of Jochen Aderhold’s presentation. He reported on work by the Wilhelm-Klauditz-Institute, Braunschweig, Germany (WKI and co-organiser of the symposium) to best utilise large diameter logs for high-quality veneer. Using surface data recording, image processing and cutting simulation the researchers were able to confirm trends from cutting trials and visual post-grading and evaluate yield potential, said
Dr Aderhold.
Joris van Acker of the University of Ghent, Belgium reported that moisture dynamics might be a very good tool to help in predicting the service life of plywood, especially when focusing on use class 3 (exterior); and may have applications for OSB as well.
Georg Börste of Andritz, Austria, was the final presenter on day one and he explained how the company’s Durametal LemaxX logarithmic spiral technology in refiner grinding plate design can save energy for the panel maker, as well as increasing plate life.
Kicking off day two, Mario Beyer of the Institut für Holztechnologie (ihd), Dresden, reported that when coating MDF with liquid or powder, electrical conductivity improved the coating of edges, and evenness of coating with powder, and that increased raw density and homogeneous raw density profile improved the finish. He also found that low equilibrium moisture content would avoid bubbles during powder coating.
The next speaker, uniquely, came from a panel maker – Luigi Frati of Italy. Giulio Merlino explained the advantages and flexibility of design obtained by digital printing of Frati’s NEXTfloor digitally printed flooring.
The next presentation, by Michael Ketzer of Johns Manville Sales was unusual in that it described the use of StabilStrand glass non-woven material for surfacing all kinds of engineered wood products, including panels, to improve a variety of panel properties.
Chris Phanopoulos of Huntsman Polyurethanes looked at how MDI bonds to wood and how it can be modified to reduce thickness swell, while at the same time reducing resin loading.
Peter Meinlschmidt of the WKI reported on the success of his work on developing a non-destructive testing method for checking bond quality using ultrasound-excited thermography. He was able to detect many cracks, bonding problems and structural weaknesses on the production line. Future work involves making his ultrasound system contact-less.
The resin production process needs careful monitoring to optimise the system and Dimitris Papapetros of Chimar Hellas, Greece, described the use of NIR Spectroscopy and Chimar’s patented GNOSSI software in monitoring the entire process in real time.
In a departure from pure wood or other fibre based panels, Wim Grymonprez from Deceuninck NV of Belgium talked about wood plastic composites (WPC). He defined these as: “A material or product made by the combination of one or several cellulosic materials with one or several thermoplastics and being, or to be, processed through polymer processing techniques”. Uses include decking and cladding panels.
A CEN Technical Specification became official in mid-2007 and an EN standard for WPCs is expected in 2011.
Durability of wood products is a big issue, especially if its use is to be extended to exterior applications. One way to add durability is by acetylation of the wood. Michael Maes of Titan Wood in the Netherlands reported that Titan’s trademark Accoya wood first went into commercial production in March 2007 making solid wood products.
Acetylation effectively transforms free hydroxyl groups into acetyl groups, reducing water absorption and making the wood indigestible to organisms which would attack it. It also gives dimensional stability and durability.
Test have been carried out on MDF made from acetylated wood, giving potential applications in facades, fascia and soffit and use in wet interior applications such as swimming pool furniture/signage.
Professor Rainer Marutzky of WKI and co-organiser of the symposium reviewed, compared and contrasted global formaldehyde regulations and requirements.
“If you want to export to anywhere in North America [next year] you will have to meet the CARB [California Air Resources Board] regulations,” he warned.
Jean-Marie Gaillard of FCBA then reported on an FEIC plywood formaldehyde testing project. He said the determination on correlations was due by the end of 2008.
Staying with formaldehyde, Professor Edmone Roffael of the University of Göttingen, Germany, gave an overview of formaldehyde scavengers in wood based panels, added to the resin prior to pressing or to the boards after pressing. He also said that some wood extractives have scavenging potential.
The final speaker for this year’s symposium was Kristina Durkic of resin maker Dynea. Her subject was Performance efficient technology for low emission panels. She presented Dynea’s AsWood resin, which she said performs better than E1 grade melamine urea formaldehyde resin.
This was a well-attended conference, especially given the economic circumstances (although many may have booked before the real economic bad news hit) and attendees included 76 people representing panel manufacturing concerns (with multiple representation from some).
Reactions of delegates I spoke to concerning the quality of the content were mixed, but of course it is true that you can’t please everybody.
For further information or copies of the proceedings, please contact the EPF at info@europanels.org

Helsinki University of Technology’s (TKK) Department of Forest Products Technology is well-known in the international wood products industry for its expertise in wood generally, but particularly in veneer-based panel
products such as plywood and laminated veneer lumber (LVL).
Located in Espoo on the outskirts of Helsinki and adjacent to the Dipoli conference centre, TKK made the perfect host for IPPS’ first meeting outside the UK and its 12th since it was founded by the BioComposites Centre (BC), Bangor University in 1997.
This year’s conference took place against a backdrop of economic woe and uncertainty about what the future holds.
However, as conference chairman Rob Elias of the BioComposites Centre pointed out: “We are continuing to see a demand for panel products with excellent environmental credentials combined with higher performance…...to deliver these novel functional materials we need to see panel mills working with machinery producers, resin and additive companies, academia and experts from new fields to develop viable solutions”.
The IPPS conference is designed to foster exactly that kind of synergy and this year presented seven sessions entitled: Setting the scene; Formaldehyde; Plywood; Resin strength and quality control; Resin technology; Monitoring and testing; and Raw materials and new products.
Antro Säilä of the Finnish Forest Industries Federation gave the keynote address Opportunities and challenges for the panel industry in Finland.
He said his federation has 120 member companies in pulp and paper, panels, solid and engineered wood and prefabricated housing.
Turning to statistics about his home country, Mr Säilä said Finland covers 338,000km2, of which 10% is water in the form of 187,888 lakes. Sixty nine percent of the land is forested. The country is home to 5.2 million people, many of whom work in the 40 paper and board mills, 38 pulp mills, 170 sawmills and 20 plywood, particleboard and fibreboard mills. One in five Finns belongs to a family that owns some forest.
The panel industry represented 12% of the Finnish woodworking industry in 2006. It produced 1.4 million m3 of plywood (softwood and birch), 0.4m m3 of particleboard and 0.1m m3 of fibreboard.
“Finland has more than doubled its plywood capacity since the early 90s because of the growth in softwood plywood capacity, while in the last 60 years forest products industry production as a whole has quadrupled – sustainably,” said the speaker.
The first speaker in session 1 was Miia Tähtinen of Pöyry Forest Industry Consulting Oy, Finland, on The future of boreal coniferous fibre – need versus availability.
She said that boreal forests comprise the world’s largest terrestrial biome, covering around one billion hectares of land in Canada, Alaska, most of the Russian Federation, Sweden, Finland, Norway, Iceland and the northern part of Mongolia. Annual growth increment is about two billion m3.
About 21% of all forest resources, and half of coniferous resources, grow in Russia. Warming of the climate is adversely affecting logging in Russia, said Ms Tahtinen, and while there are over 200 million m3 of unutilised fibre resources in the annual allowable cut, they are mainly far from existing infrastructure and consist largely of less-utilised species such as larch.
In Canada, the mountain pine beetle infestation is also exacerbated by climate change and it is predicted that by the end of 2008, 50% of mature lodgepole pine forests will be dead and 80% by 2013. This beetle is also an increasing problem in Sweden, reported the speaker.
“The ‘as-usual’ path for the consumption side has been disrupted severely by growth in China and other fast-growing economies, putting pressure on all raw materials,” said Ms Tahtinen. “Population pressure and previous ‘mining’ of renewable resources such as wood has added to the pressure.
“Active research into alternative methods to balance the supply/demand picture of boreal coniferous fibre is necessary.”
Sarah Gonzáles-García, University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain, spoke about a Life cycle impact assessment of particleboard, MDF and HDF.
“Production of chemicals used in the mills (specifically UF and PF resins), and high electricity consumption, significantly influenced the environmental impacts,” concluded the speaker. “MDF seems to be the most environmentally-friendly panel, since it showed a lower contribution to all damage categories (human health, ecosystem quality and resources) than the other panels.”
Rob Elias of the BioComposites Centre took Market demand and innovation in wood based panels as his theme.
He said that, while in terms of the gross operating rate of all industries in Europe, wood and wood products were third or fourth in the league tables, in terms of manufacturing of value-added products in the EU-25 countries, wood and wood products are way down the list and that this needs to be addressed.
“We need to add more value, learn more about market needs, recognise the speed of change, expand our knowledge base and work more closely with customers and the supply chain,” said Dr Elias. “We also need to recycle more and reduce waste and energy consumption and pubic bodies are beginning to write this into their specifications.”
Speaking of Modern Methods of Construction (MMC), in which panels play an important part, Dr Elias said the drivers were energy efficiency, lower U-values, waste reduction and transport reduction (less trips to the building site).
In this regard, one area of work for BC currently is in recycling MDF back into MDF, with a pilot plant due in December/January 2008/9.
Ending his presentation with his “to do list”, Dr Elias said: “We need to increase the knowledge base (expand the network), apply MMC principles not just to new but existing housing stock, apply for R&D funding under FP7 (EU Framework 7) and be more collaborative”.
Kicking off session 2, Dr Mark Irle, Ecole Supérieure du Bois (ESB), Nantes, France, spoke on Free formaldehyde – where can I find it?
He reported that a consortium of panel manufacturers, Synervia (a technology transfer organisation) and the ESB have created a project called ‘Eco-Panneaux’ which aims to help manufacturers of particleboard and plywood to produce panels that emit less formaldehyde during manufacture and in use.
This project involves making many panels with new adhesives and testing them for formaldehyde emission according to EN 717-2, providing an opportunity to observe the evolution of formaldehyde emission over time.
It was clear that there is a strong influence of specimen moisture content on formaldehyde emission as measured by the EN standard, said the speaker.
“In our view it is the diffusion of free formaldehyde, and hydrolysis of other formaldehyde-containing compounds, that is of greater relevance to the formaldehyde observed in typical tests applied to recently manufactured panels than the hydrolysis of the resin,” concluded Dr Irle.
“We should be careful in talking about formaldehyde coming from wood itself because we are not sure that this is true – we would be handing a gift to the steel and concrete industry if we do.”
Björn Engström of Casco Adhesives, Sweden, explained his work on Real time determination of formaldehyde emission using NIR spectroscopy.
He said that the method was looking promising in full-scale trials, but he did not know when it would be ready for commercialisation.
The final presentation in the session was given by Ms Kinga Iudith David of Transilvania University, Romania, who reported on the successful conclusion of a Study of formaldehyde emission stable state for particleboards by the flask method.
Session 3, on plywood, was opened by Jouni Rainio of Hexion Specialty Chemicals, Finland. He offered New approaches to different plywood gluing methods.
He looked at roller and curtain coating, spraying, liquid extrusion and foam extrusion techniques and reported that tailor made resins are needed for each and that close cooperation between plywood mill and resin supplier is a must.
Factors influencing the properties of veneer based products was presented by Anti Rohumaa of TKK. Mr Rohumaa’s work was on log soaking. He found that soaking affects veneer lightness in terms of colour; veneer wettability in which the contact angle was found to be negatively correlated to soaking temperature; and lap-shear bond strength with PF resin, which showed a positive correlation.
Henrik Heräjärvi looked at the quality of Finnish and Russian birch in plywood production. He concluded that quality differences between Russian veneers are significant in comparison with the Finnish cultivated birch stands while the log diameters from the latter are smaller, thus producing less face quality veneers.
“What is going to happen to the 15-20 million m3 of birch timber harvested annually in northwest Russia as their domestic use covers one third of that volume, at most?” asked Mr Heräjärvi, referring to the imminent Russian export tax.
He also wondered what would happen to the Finnish mills, since 50% of their raw material has been imported from Russia in recent years.
The second day of this two-and-a-half day symposium began with session 4, opened by Steve Young of TimberTest New Zealand, who described successful trials of his company’s Bond-o-Matic internal bond testing machine. He said this offers reliable, repeatable measurements, removing human variability in test results, and expects to release this device to the market in May 2009.
Milan Sernek of the University of Lubljana, Slovenia, talked about Monitoring bond strength development during phenol formaldehyde adhesive cure. He said his team successfully used dielectric analysis with a detector embedded in the PF glue line of plywood.
Opening session 5, on resins, David Harmon, North American technical manager for Hexion Specialty Chemicals Inc, looked at Advances in ultra-low emitting UF resin for particleboard, MDF and hardwood plywood. The new resins will use existing resin plants and application systems, maintain mill productivity and minimise the cost impact.
“A variety of new resin technology choices are available to meet the needs of composite wood products customers and to also comply with the increasingly lower formaldehyde emission demands of the regulators,” concluded Mr Harmon.
J David Mullen of Hercules Inc, US, offered a formaldehyde-free adhesive system for interior wood products.
In a joint venture with Heartland Resource Technologies, Hercules has developed water-based soy adhesives utilising soy flour and a proprietary cross-linking resin. Called Soyad, these resins were validated in July 2008 in hardwood plywood, particleboard, MDF and engineered wood flooring, said the speaker.
Session 6 on ‘Monitoring and testing’ was opened by Robert Massen of Baumer Inspection, Germany.
He reported on Monitoring the quality and match to reference of [decorative] panels with a new camera-based true colour vision technology.
The colour-match and quality consistency of decor-surfaced panels is a vital element as the human eye can spot even minor differences (and apparently the female eye is statistically five times superior to the male in this regard – don’t choose the cabinet furniture, guys!). However, human inspection is notoriously variable, both in one person over time and between different people/shifts.
Mr Massen said that colour perception is in fact a combination of colour and structure. He claimed that Baumer has developed a camera-based system with a continuously self-calibrating camera and ColourBrain® technology that simulates the human vision system.
Using the B-stage test to guide the production of impregnated low pressure laminate paper was introduced by Dmitri Sumigin in place of the absent David Rigg of Australia. The B-stage test measures the solubility of resin in warm water and is a reliable measure of the degree of polymerisation in the MF resin and can be used to predict impregnated paper behaviour.
Rounding off session 6, Hauke Kleinschmidt of Electronic Wood Systems (EWS) of Hameln, Germany, described the company’s various equipment for on-the-line quality control measurements for panels, including a new calibration method for weight-per-unit-area and thickness measuring gauges as well as a new method for non-contact weight control.
Martin Ohlmeyer of vTI Institute of Wood Technology, Hamburg, Germany, looked at Evaluation of parameters influencing VOC emissions from OSB and concluded that it is possible to produce panels from various hardwoods, and coniferous wood species, with significantly lower emission levels than Scots Pine.
Steffan Jerrelid of Limab, Sweden, described his company’s non-contact measuring system for the dimensions of panels using optical triangulation by laser sensors. This was the last presentation of day two of the symposium.
An excellent gala dinner with fun quiz followed, as always at EPPS/IPPS.
Peter Meinlschmidt of the Fraunhofer Institute (WKI), Germany, had the job of waking up the delegates for the third morning of papers in session 7, Raw materials and new products.
Dr Meinlschmidt’s work was in two parts: using agricultural fibre to make lightweight particleboards; and testing particleboards in which the pore space had been filled with Expancel microspheres or expandable polystyrene.
In part 1, successful lightweight panels were made, though with some reservations. In part 2, panels made using Expancel were found to need further work, while those utilising polystyrene showed no clear correlation between mechanical properties and amount of polystyrene.
How to produce high-performance straw MDF was explained by Sören Halvarsson of mid-Sweden University. Among the factors he highlighted as affecting final board quality were density and resin loading, removal of small fibre fragments and dust from the feedstock, clean, dry and mould-free feedstock and pre-treatment of size-reduced straw to increase the moisture content and for temperature and pH regulation.
Guido Hiltner of German size-reduction machinery maker Maier explained the Multi-lateral applications of the knife ring flaker. Maier’s MRZ flaker is claimed to reduce energy consumption by nearly a third and to produce better flakes, requiring less glue.
Roger Rowell, professor emeritus of the University of Wisconsin, US, and chief wood scientist with Titan Wood in Holland, talked about Production of dimensionally stable and decay resistant wood composites based on acetylation.
“Acetylation allows us to compete with materials such as ceramics and steel in a materials world as a uniform, consistent and reproducible composite,” he said.
The final speaker was Peter Vinden from the University of Melbourne, Australia, who spoke about Microwave manufacturing of solid wood composites.
Confirming its status as an international conference, IPPS not only attracted delegates from all over the world, including Brazil, Venezuela, Chile, Peru, Iran, Korea, the US and many European countries east and west, but also had an international line-up of speakers on a wide range of interesting topics.
Not only that, but the conference is further emphasising its international credentials by going ‘on the move’. This year Finland, next year Nantes, France and subsequent years’ events will be in other, as yet unannounced, venues.
The full text of the papers presented at IPPS12 can be purchased from the BC, Bangor University, Gwynedd, LL57 2UW. www.bc.bangor.ac.uk

Banking, luxury watches, cuckoo clocks, chocolate, cheese, skiing holidays. Ask anyone what Switzerland is famous for and at least one of these products or services will be quoted – unless you ask someone in the panel manufacturing industry. Then you will very likely hear the word Steinemann.
Established in 1917 producing textile machines, the company started making wide-belt sanders for the panel industry in 1960.
In 1976, it added UV varnishing machines for the graphics industry to its product range and has continued to specialise in those two market areas ever since.
Part of the Stürm Group since 1987, Steinemann Technology AG has grown into a company with a turnover of e45m with 240 employees and a worldwide market to which it exports 98% of its
production.
In January 2003, in response to the continuing growth of the company’s business, Steinemann moved into completely new premises in St Gallen, near Lake Konstanz (or Bodensee) in the north of Switzerland.
This move was only a few metres from the company’s original home, but provided much-needed extra space to accommodate the increasing production demands in both its major markets.
Steinemann’s wide-belt sanding business has benefited from the very healthy demand from the panel industry in the last three or four years, as have most machinery suppliers, and the company has seen its typical delivery time extended from five or six months to 12 months, particularly since the Linga exhibition in May 2007.
“The sander accounts for probably less than 2% of the total project cost for a new panel mill, but its failure can shut the whole factory down,” pointed out Hansjörg Fritsche, vice president of Steinemann Technology AG.
“The customer wants consistent panel quality to his required standard and that is what we offer. But the machine is only part of that. We are a total solution provider with the machines, spare parts, abrasives, service and process support. First-class panels can only be achieved when all these parts of the process are perfectly attuned to each other. And the abrasives themselves are as important to panel quality as the machines are.”
This may explain why the company has established its own conversion plant for these abrasive belts, in Shanghai, going into commercial production early in 2008.
“We will deliver about e2m-worth of belts in this, our first year of operation, supplying to markets such as Asia, Asia-Pacific, Turkey, South Africa, the US and Russia, initially. We have installed the most modern conversion machinery from Italy and are producing a high-quality product,” said Mr Fritsche.
The Chinese operation is only supplying paper- and polyester-backed belts at present, but in early 2009 plans to start converting combination belts, which have a backing that’s a mix of paper and cotton.
Another recent development from Steinemann to optimise sanding quality is the SprintSystem sanding platen. This is a replaceable insert in the platen which can be quickly exchanged as wear takes place. It consists of a carrier of foam, felt or latex, depending on the customer’s specific sanding requirements, with a graphite surface on top, which bears on the back of the abrasive belt.
The two ranges of sander offered by Steinemann are the Nova-H and the Satos.
The Nova-H is the smaller of the two. It has a steel cast frame and can sand panels up to a maximum width of 1700mm.
This range of sanders is also produced at Steinemann’s factory in Jiading, close to Shanghai, where the abrasive conversions are done. The company makes smaller graphics machines here for regional markets as well. The factory employs 65 people.
The Nova-H tends to be popular with plywood manufacturers as well as smaller composite panel mills but machines for plywood sanding are mainly produced in St Gallen as they require some more
special attention.
In October 2008, a Russian customer took delivery of a Nova-H for its plywood plant, having already purchased a Satos eight-head unit in 2001 for its particleboard line.
The Satos, launched in 2001, is in a different league and is produced only in St Gallen. The sanders in this range are all built on mineral cast (siliceous limestone/epoxy polymer) frames. The reason for using this form of construction, according to Steinemann, is that it offers low vibration and temperature-stable machine components, is corrosion-resistant, non-conductive and has good noise transmission characteristics.
Currently the Satos is available in three sizes, with maximum panel widths of 2250mm, 2850mm, or 3300mm respectively.
“We have sold approximately 920 Satos heads to date and over 700 of those are in operation, with the rest on the way to the customer, or in the production pipeline,” said Mr Fritsche.
Steinemann has nine service centres worldwide, in North and South America, western Europe, Russia, China, Malaysia and Australia.
“These are not just offices but our staff are out and about working with customers. We started building up these service centres about 10 years ago, beginning with Malaysia,” said Mr Fritsche, who used to run the Malaysian centre before returning to Switzerland to take up his current position.
Sales manager Michael Schmid outlined the more active markets of recent times.
“The hot markets recently have been Turkey and Russia,” he said. “We have sold at least 150 Satos heads to Turkey so far and they are all big lines with 10 to 12 sanding heads.”.
This is mainly because the customers are finishing their panels with direct printing, lacquering or thinner papers and so need a particularly fine surface, explained Mr Schmid.
A factory in Gagarin, Russia, started up in September with a Satos eight-head machine for particleboard.
In early October, a Nova-H six-head sander was delivered to The Perm Plywood mill owned by the major Russian plywood group Sveza.
“We have sold a total of 16 lines to Russia, including recent orders from Pfleiderer for its Novgorod plant, Rimbunan Hijau for its plant in Siberia, and Ugraplit. All these are due for shipment soon,” said Mr Schmid when WBPI visited St Gallen on the last day of October 2008.
There have also been two recent ‘firsts’ for the Satos: the first Satos machine to be delivered to South Korea was shipped in early December to Kwangon MDF and the first to Japan will go to Okura, for particleboard, in the first quarter of 2009.
Looking to the future, the St Gallen factory employs, on average, 30 apprentices in a special area of the factory which has recently been equipped with a brand new five-axis CNC milling machine just for the apprentices, in addition to other drilling, milling and tapping machinery. The main factory is also equipped with the latest computer-controlled machines.
Senior apprentices take some responsibility for quality control in the factory and many stay on as full-time employees.
While manufacture of some of the larger basic components is contracted out, all contact rollers, and all other kinds of rollers, are manufactured inhouse in St Gallen. The contact rollers are machined with grooves, coated with Arctec chromium alloy for wear resistance and re-machined in the factory.
All components are extensively tested for balance and vibration-free operation. All machines are sub-assembled in the factory and similarly tested before despatch to the customer’s site, where they are united in the full machine.
Many companies are fearful of what lies ahead in these uncertain economic times, but Mr Schmid is sanguine about Steinemann’s market in the coming months.
“Next year [2009] was always going to be quieter after all the capacity established in the last three years and the global economic situation adds to the uncertainty, but I see no reason to expect ‘disaster’ in 2009, although there will probably be some projects delayed – there already have been some.”  n

It is never easy to build a business from nothing and make a success of it, but Hans-Peter Kleinschmidt has done just that.
Starting from scratch in rented premises designed to assist young companies such as EWS 12 years ago, he worked long hours designing and creating products to build the company which he heads as chairman today.
Boasting a growing range of quality control measurement equipment for use on the production line to give real-time feedback, EWS has itself grown and there is a plot of land waiting to accommodate the company’s planned new factory.
Electronic Wood Systems started life in Hameln near Hanover in northern Germany.
Famous as ‘Hamelin’ in the children’s story of the Pied Piper, who legend says cleared the town of rats, the town will continue to be the home of the company when it builds its new factory on an industrial estate on the outskirts in 2009.
The reserved site is 7,500m2 in area and EWS will build a production/research & development (R&D) facility as well as offices. Construction is scheduled to begin in 2009, with completion in mid-2010.
However, EWS has no intention of becoming a large unwieldy company, says Mr Kleinschmidt.
“There are advantages to being a relatively small and flexible high-tech company. We have leading-edge technology and we enjoy what we do. After all, very experienced technical people have come to EWS from larger companies for a reason – there is more possibility to influence decisions and more involvement in the
company,” he says.
Illustrating this point is the presence of Matthias Fuchs as one joint managing director and Hans-Peter’s son Hauke as the other.
Mr Fuchs arrived in April 2004 with considerable experience in the electronic measuring industry and Hauke Kleinschmidt joined EWS in 2005, also bringing relevant experience to
the company.
Recently, the board was expanded and enhanced with the recruitment of Markus Rückert, who is responsible for R&D (on which the company spends 15% of turnover annually), and Jan Pippert, commercial manager.
Mrs Elke Kleinschmidt is responsible for commercial/human resources and Monika Wilbois for marketing. Other specialist staff cover software development, engineering and technical service.
Among its range of products, the company has produced the Thick-Scan thickness gauges for some time but recently addressed a problem common to all
such instruments: In order to calibrate it, the thickness gauge frame is normally withdrawn from the production line, calibrated and then reinserted.
Now, EWS has installed an additional measuring head outside and alongside the production flow and this calibration track gives automatic continuous calibration to the measuring tracks.
Meanwhile, addressing the need for greater accuracy in measuring weight-per-unit-area on the MDF production line, the company has introduced a calibration method here, too.
For the first time, says EWS, this development takes into account the ‘beam hardening’ effect of x-ray radiation.
“An x-ray is made up of ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ beams and the soft beams are absorbed more by the thick MDF mat, thus ‘hardening’ the beam” explains Matthias Fuchs. “For instance, you may have a mat of 20kg/m3 density and an MDF board of 20kg/m3, but the thicknesses will be very different. From this kind of information we can produce a density curve which forms the basis of our calibration and this is patented,” he says. “The common method used to calibrate such gauges is to use various panel samples with known raw density values but this disregards the phenomenon of beam hardening.”
The company’s Mass-Scan X is the solution offered to overcome these problems.
Another innovation is in blow detection. The Ultra-Scan system from EWS uses a patented system of sound resonance which is said to increase the sound penetration through the board a hundred-fold. Thus very thick boards can be measured and the system is rendered insensitive to external noise, heat and steam, says the company.
Mechanical weight scales commonly used at the end of panel production lines need to be the maximum length of panel produced, plus 50% to allow accurate weighing. This makes them cumbersome and gives them a tare weight of up to two tonnes, which means lower accuracy.
Electronic Wood System’s answer is a non-contact board scale called Conti-Scale. This only requires a 300mm space in the production line as it is an isotopic-based system employing several heads across the width of the line. When combined with a thickness gauge, it also gives density distribution information.
Moisture analysers (infra-red, microwave and resistance types), cyclone plug-up detection systems, spark detection systems and the Dense-Lab laboratory density profile systems complete the
EWS range.
In collaboration with Norwegian company Argos Control, the company also offers the Argos Grading System for
surface inspection of raw and decorative-surfaced panels.
Another, recent, example of collaboration is SicoScan. This time, the partner is Siempelkamp, the supplier of complete panel production lines and short-cycle press lines (see p32), which joined forces with EWS in a cooperation announced at the Ligna 2007 exhibition.
SicoScan is a complete system integrating the measurement technology of EWS into the machines, process control and automation technology of Siempelkamp.
Thus mat moisture content on the forming line, weight-per-unit-area behind the mat former, board thickness and any delaminations at the press outfeed, as well as board weight, are recorded by the EWS sensor technology.
The sensors then interface with the Siempelkamp line control software in the central control room and provide the information to the controllers without the need for a separate computer and screens dedicated to quality measuring equipment. The measuring signals are recorded and evaluated by Siempelkamp’s Prod-IQ system, which gathers and coordinates all production information and applies it to the production process, thus optimising control of the line.
The two companies continue to discuss further technical developments in measurement technology, and cooperation in R&D to develop these ideas, while retaining their independence and creativity as separate companies.
“The key is the blue SicoScan box Gauge-Controller made by EWS,” said Markus Rückert. “It is this which evaluates all the data from the sensors and interfaces with the ‘Siempelkamp world’ PLC via data cable. Should that link be severed, the data is still stored safely in the Gauge-Controller.
PiperWare is the software employed by EWS’s systems and is a common structure for all the various gauges. It has the flexibility to be set up for continuous, multi-opening or single-opening press lines, explains Matthias Fuchs. “We spent e300,000 just on developing this software, which makes visualisation as simple as possible for the operators.”
Electronic Wood System’s turnover has increased by almost 30% this year and the future of the company which Mr Kleinschmidt senior founded 12 years ago seems secure, especially with the collaboration with one of the biggest players in the global panel machinery business, Siempelkamp.
So Hans-Peter is planning to take more of a back seat and to hand over control of his company to his young team of experienced people, who will be responsible for the future of the business.

With 2007 sales of e260m and employees numbering 3,700 worldwide, the Leitz Group is a major manufacturer of precision tooling.
Founded in 1876 by Albert Leitz at its present location in the state of Baden-Württemberg, today the company has 34 sales and nine production companies, as well as a global network of around 200 service stations.
Its product range comprises the full assortment of machine-powered precision tools for machining solid wood, wood products and plastics.
The company says it devotes considerable resources to fundamental technological research and that it regards itself as a partner to its customers in developing safe and efficient operations.
Consultancy services as well as sales are thus part of the offering, covering areas such as tool management, software competence and storage. Training courses are also offered to customers’ staff.
After the initial sale, maintenance of the tools in efficient working order, and reprocessing of them at specialist centres worldwide, is another part of the package, with collection and delivery of the tools being handled by Leitz, says the company.
While the company supplies a wide range of tools for the cutting and shaping of wood based panels in general, an area of particular recent relevance is that of lightweight honeycomb-cored panels.
With their thin panel facings and paper-based cores, these panels offer particular challenges when machining the edges, to accept edge-banding for example.
“The industrial production of these lightweight panels requires special production tools,” confirms Dipl-Ing Richard Patsch, manager of research and development at Leitz. “They are very different in their machining characteristics, so in many cases demand specially-adapted tools.”
Of course the main characteristic of honeycomb-cored panels is that they have large cavities in the middle and this means that standard panel sizing saw blades do not tend to give a good cutting result.
Thus Leitz has developed thin-kerf panel sizing saw blades for this application. Leitz also recommends the use of tools with reduced cutting pressure to avoid collapse of the honeycomb.
“The ideal tool for a smooth cut edge is a circular saw blade with aggressive tooth geometry,” says Mr Patsch. This avoids material tear-out and delamination of
the board.
“The steep cutting edge results in a smooth rise in the cutting power – an essential prerequisite for the best cutting results,” he adds.
It is also important that the cutting pressure is always positioned against the outer layer in boards with an open honeycomb structure, says Mr Patsch, adding that it is important to use a scoring saw blade.
“When Leitz developed the new thin-kerf panel sizing saw blades with this cutting geometry, the cutting width was reduced by a third and with it the cutting forces. A range of saw blades with diameters of 250 to 450mm and appropriate scoring saw blades are available,” he says.
When first using thin-kerf saw blades for this application it is important to check the width of the machine riving knife. The standard riving knife may be too wide and may need to be changed, cautions Mr Patsch.
Edgebanding of these honeycomb panels is another specialised area.
In principle, there are two choices when edgebanding honeycomb panels, Leitz has found.
The choice depends on the structure of the surface panels and the honeycomb.
If the former are thicker than 8mm, the edgeband can be applied directly to the honeycomb panel, being glued to the edge of the surface panel. This requires sufficient gluing surface on the narrow edges of the surface panels and high edge rigidity. This process is preferred with work pieces with profiled edges or when high loads are to be accommodated, such as for table tops. Processing in this case is with conventional hoggers, jointing cutters or shank tools with cutting geometry optimised to reduce the cutting forces, according to Leitz.
The majority of the available light construction furniture boards, however, have thin facings such as 4mm HDF. Edgebanding requires the forming of rebates in the edges of the surface panels and applying an edging strip. Strips of MDF, particleboard or hard fibreboards are suitable for the edging strip.
Profiling tools, specially designed to suit the different materials, machine grooves in the face of the edging strip. These grooves must match exactly the profile in the surface panels. The cutting forces that arise from the milling tool must not cause delamination of the honeycomb core or the surface panel. The cut quality to the honeycomb is not critical, but the honeycomb chips must not constrain the application of the edging strip, says the company, adding that either tooling sets of stacked saw blades, or of tools with a staggered cut, are suitable for this operation.
Before gluing the edging strip, the faces of the surface panels are trimmed, either by hoggers or jointing cutters. If the excess to be trimmed is large, then jointing is preferable because of the high cutting forces on the thin panels. Using hoggers can cause the board to vibrate.
“In principle the two machining procedures are different in the power requirement,” says Mr Patsch. “The cutting power requirement for jointing rises linearly with rising board thickness, whereas it declines with hogging. That means that hogging needs less power than jointing to machine board thicknesses. The Leitz ‘DT-hogging program’ offers a suitable range of hoggers for this application.”
Finishing the edge banded edges on lightweight honeycomb panels is carried out with conventional tools and standard machine set-ups. However, to ensure a smooth-radius hogging without vibration, it is important to reduce the pressure from the surface rollers.

Eppingen is not in a part of the world where one would expect to find heavy industry, let alone a world player such as the company Dieffenbacher.
Approached from the Autobahn by minor country roads meandering through agricultural scenery, one is struck by the contrast to the more conventional
industrial cities of north Germany.
The explanation is simple. Jakob Dieffenbacher started with a locksmith business in the town in 1873 and in 1910 moved into the production of hydraulic presses for the fruit, wine and edible oil industries, so that explains the rural
location.
Today the fourth generation of the Dieffenbacher family is running the business, while the fifth is working its way through university to ensure the succession.
Dieffenbacher GmbH & Co KG today is divided into three main business units: wood, forming and operations.
Business unit wood obviously concerns the panel industry.
‘Forming’ concerns the press forming of 3-D items such as car body parts and stainless steel sinks, among many other things, in metal or plastic.
‘Operations’ covers all manufacturing service and logistics for the other two business units.
The company has grown over the years from being simply a press manufacturer into a supplier of complete lines for the panel making industry and it has done this both by internal innovation and by the acquisition of other machinery specialists.
One of the earliest such acquisitions was Schenck Panel Production Systems, which joined Dieffenbacher 10 years ago, bringing with it its expertise in process technology and, importantly, forming for particleboard and MDF lines.
In 2003, Schenkmann & Piel Engineering (SPE) joined the fold, with its expertise in drying proving a valuable addition to Dieffenbacher’s range of competences.
More recently, in 2007, the company bought a minority shareholding in Italian company Instalmec. This filled some more gaps in the ‘inhouse’ product portfolio by adding Instalmec’s mechanical and pneumatic conveying systems, suction, filter and cyclone equipment, rotary valves, dosing and screening systems, separators and gluing systems and blenders.
The latest and perhaps the most significant full acquisition made by Dieffenbacher came this year (2008) with the purchase of a significant part of the former Metso Panelboard company.
This involved two former Metso
locations, at Sundsvall in Sweden and Nastola in Finland.
“This means we now have 75-80% of the panel production line supplied from our own resources,” said Günter Natus, technical director, panel division, and a former Schenck employee.
Dieffenbacher’s purchase of the Sundsvall operation led to the return of an old and highly-respected name in the panel industry – Sunds. With the creation of Sunds MDF Technologies AB, this became the new competence centre for the engineering and the supply of complete front-end systems for MDF/HDF plants within the Dieffenbacher Group.
Its portfolio features fibre dryers and ‘Z-Sifters’, a pneumatic transport system and the new ‘EVOjet’ dry resin blending system. Sunds MDF Technologies’ scope of supply also includes complete doorskin lines.
Meanwhile, Dieffenbacher Panelboard Oy of Nastola brought the engineering and supply of machinery for panel handling, raw material preparation and forming for particleboard manufacture from Metso to Dieffenbacher. The complete portfolio features the ‘Lukki’ intermediate storage system and the complete range of ‘ClassiCleaner’ (WBPI issue 5, 2008, p60), ‘ClassiScreen’ and ‘ClassiFormer’ products. The scope of supply also includes small-capacity
single-opening press lines for
particleboard manufacture.
This left energy plants as the only part of the panel factory which Dieffenbacher did not offer from its own resources.
“So we developed the know-how inhouse by employing the right people and formed a couple of strategic alliances and now we have already sold four systems designed by us,” said Mr Natus.
The biggest such project so far has been for Pfleiderer at its Russian MDF plant in Novgorod, where it has an 85MW system.
“We supply everything on these projects, from the blowline to the finished, packaged panel and also carry out full erection on site.”
In a further move to strengthen its position in energy plants, this year Dieffenbacher entered into a cooperation agreement with Teaford in the US in which it will use Teaford’s heat energy system in some North American projects. Teaford will also become the manufacturer and installer of SPE’s particleboard/OSB drum dyers in the North American market.
Another cooperation agreement is with Swiss-Combi in its EcoDry system to reduce emissions from dryers. Swiss-Combi holds the patents and Dieffenbacher the licence. The key element of this equipment is the heat exchanger, which Swiss-Combi will supply.
The system employs an air-cooled grate and can utilise a mix of fuels as required. Remote online service is also available if required, as it is for all Dieffenbacher’s panel production lines.
“The pressure on environmental
emissions in the US is intensifying and this means we expect there still to be good business even in the current difficult
market,” said Mr Natus.
Ongoing investment at the Eppingen headquarters of Dieffenbacher involves enlarging the manufacturing facilities and refurbishing part of the offices, specifically for the ‘wood’ business unit. This follows an extensive enhancement of the factory in Windsor Ontario, Canada in 2007.
It may seem that the timing of that investment was questionable, but that
factory provided welcome support when certain parts of the CPS continuous presses destined for China were manufactured there when Eppingen was at full capacity and the North American market was quiet.
Also under construction on the Eppingen site is a new warehouse building for the logistics side of the business. With increasing transport costs, this is an important part of the business and involves the efficient movement of parts between the various manufacturing locations and sub-suppliers, as well as to the final customer.
“We have a lot of our annual turnover tied up in logistics and felt that there was room to improve,” said Mr Natus.
Another company near Eppingen shares the Dieffenbacher name and that is Dieffenbacher Zaisenhausen. It is a separate company, run by the brother of Wolf-Gerd Dieffenbacher, ceo of Dieffenbacher GmbH, but the two firms cooperate on many projects as well.
Zaisenhausen specialises in short-cycle presses and finishing lines.
At the beginning of November 2008, Dieffenbacher GmbH had an order book stretching ahead for six to 12 months, but neither Mr Natus nor technical director and customer relations manager Bernd Bielfeldt was confident in predictions of the future order situation, given the global economic uncertainties.
“Our educated guess for new orders next year is that there will be no more than 15 complete new lines and probably no less than 10, worldwide, next year. That’s half of the last two years’ annual totals,” said Mr Bielfeldt.
While admitting that there had been nothing from North America or western Europe in the way of new lines in the last two years, he pointed out that Russia, China, South America and India had shown some strength and suggested there is still a huge demand to come from Russia.
Looking at per capita consumption in the different regions, North America and western Europe, unsurprisingly, come out on top though the product mix is different, with North America being stronger in structural panels.
“India’s per capita consumption is so small it is hard to calculate,” said Mr Natus. “China’s consumption is at 10-20% of western countries but is growing rapidly, mainly in MDF, while Russia is similar but mainly in particleboard.
“So, long-term, there must be huge opportunities for everybody involved, including Dieffenbacher,” he forecast.
Dieffenbacher is supplying the first continuous line ever to Siberia, for a company set up by Malaysian-headquartered group Rimbunan Hijau. The customer will produce MDF near Chabarowsk. It used to be involved solely in logging and shipping the logs to China but now Rimbunan Hijau has decided to go into MDF production. Start-up of the CPS press, which is 2.65m wide x 24m long is anticipated in late 2009, with a capacity of 150,000m3/year.
Another Dieffenbacher customer in Siberia is Partner Tomsk, which is also setting up an MDF line, due to be shipped from Eppingen in mid-2009. This one will be 2.95m wide and 38m long, with an annual capacity of 260,000m3.
“They have the resources and the money in Russia. Five to seven years ago, investment was just by western companies and it still is to some extent, but there is a lot of investment by Russians themselves now – some old-established in the wood business and some new to it,” said Mr Natus.
Dieffenbacher founded an office in Moscow on October 1, 2004 and now feels that ‘OOO Dieffenbacher’ as it is called turned out to be a good investment,
supporting that promising market.
Eighteen months ago, Dieffenbacher also founded an office in India to be present in that market. “We believe the market will grow and we want to be present with our own people,” said Mr Natus, pointing out that all Dieffenbacher’s worldwide offices are staffed by direct employees of the company – they are not agencies – and he feels that this is important.
“Our first continuous press will be shipped to India in the second quarter of 2009 and will be the first in India. It is going to Greenply Industries and will be an 8ft x 28m press with a capacity of 190,000m3/year,” he said.
Of course Dieffenbacher already has a factory and sales/service office in China to serve that large market for the company (WBPI issue 4, 2007, p55).
One opportunity for orders in an uncertain future market could be retro-fits/modernisations of existing plants.
Another is almost certainly niche products such as the insulation board line which Dieffenbacher has supplied to German panel maker Homanit, for example. The line is for Homanit’s Homatherm factory in northern Germany. This was under installation in November. Homanit has also purchased a thin HDF line for its Karlino factory in Poland. This will have a capacity of 220,000m3/year.
Some other recent projects for Dieffenbacher include the Gagarin particleboard plant near Moscow, which produced its first board in October. An LVL line, also in Russia, produced its first billet in October for MLT of St Petersburg.
Meanwhile, Kronospan Jihlava, Czech Republic, produced its first particleboard in August and, said Mr Natus, was running at nominal capacity after one week – the fastest start-up Dieffenbacher has ever had.
In Japan, the Okura particleboard line also achieved acceptance in October, while in the US, Louisiana-Pacific’s oriented strand lumber (OSL) line at Houlton, Maine, which employs a special steam-injection press, received acceptance in September.
To ensure a continuing ability to carry out its manufacturing business, Dieffenbacher employs 50 apprentices at any one time and has a dedicated training area in the Eppingen factory where apprentices learn their skills on a range of sophisticated machines. This not only ensures a continuing supply of skilled people but is also important in an area of relatively low population to encourage young people into their local industry.
The company carries out its own research and development and testing in Eppingen and can also carry out tests for customers, for instance on a new raw material for panel production, in its laboratory within the production area.
Dieffenbacher is still a 100% family-owned company and achieved a turnover of e290m in 2007 (the figure in 1980 was e36m), with 70% exported. It employs around 1,000 people worldwide.
The headquarters may be in a rural location in southern Germany, but it is clear that Dieffenbacher is an industrial concern which operates truly globally.

There are very few manufacturers worldwide of paper impregnation lines to prepare decor and Kraft papers and foils for lamination onto
panels.
Vits Systems GmbH, headquartered in Langenfeld, was founded 80 years ago, in 1928, and is a specialist in such “web processing plants”. In terms of impregnation plants supplied, Vits claims an estimated 70% market share. Its impregnators are also used in the filter paper and other sectors of the paper industry.
Vits also makes process plants for the thermal treatment of strips and foils for the metal industry and is a key supplier of rotary sheeters, dryers and finishing machines such as pre-folders or UV-coating units for the web offset printing industry.
In total, Vits has supplied around 900 impregnating lines over the years and has seen a significant increase in demand
during the boom in the laminate flooring industry in more recent years.
Development of those lines continues and the company was carrying out final testing of its latest technology at the time of WBPI’s visit in late October.
This latest impregnation line is capable of running at 100m/min. Running the impregnation process at that kind of speed is not the major problem – stacking the treated sheets fast enough, and carefully enough, at the end of the line is.
If the treated paper were to be rolled at the end of the line, then the problem is less severe, but most panel industry treaters are required to deliver cut-to-size sheets to
a stacker.
The newly-developed system employs an ‘active guidance system’ in a carefully coordinated choreography to lift the sheets as they exit the treatment line and gently but quickly lay them on the stack.
“In this way, we have increased the speed of the line from 50-70 metres per minute, depending on the paper weight, to at least 100 metres per minute,” said Thomas Niedermaier, managing director for sales at Vits Systems. “Our target is 120 metres per minute and we are confident of achieving that soon.
“Our latest line, called HIGHLINE, was launched at the Ligna exhibition in Hannover in 2007 as a high-speed line and we are now adding to this by de-bottlenecking the paper stacking system.”
The first such stacking system to be delivered was scheduled to go to panel manufacturer Kastamonu of Turkey and to be running by the year’s end (2008).
“We have seen a lot of interest from other customers as well because of the 30-40% increase in line speed,” added Mr Niedermaier.
The current economic crisis must mean that demand for new impregnation lines is going to decrease in the coming months, or maybe even years, and thus Vits is not relying solely on new sales.
“We are now concentrating on upgrading existing lines for our customers – there are at least 600 of our lines out there with potential [for improvement]. It is also important to reduce energy consumption these days, as well as more efficient handling to reduce waste,” said the managing director.
“Heat recovery systems, better insulation and optimised exhaust systems will save 30-40% in energy, plus giving a faster running speed for the line. This leads to the possibility for the customer to replace two lines with one high-speed, more efficient line, thus reducing production costs even further.”
With investment in laminate flooring now decreasing for reasons of global capacity, Vits’ management realised there was a need to diversify, using its long experience in overlaying as a starting point. Powder coating lines were the
chosen route.
“Powder coating is not new – it comes from the metal industry but metal is a conductive substrate so giving it an electric charge is easy,” pointed out Mr Niedermaier. Imparting opposite-polarity electric charges to substrate and powder so they attract each other is the basis for powder coating.
“Another point is that metal can be heated to high temperatures to make the powder coating melt and flow – wood can’t,” said the managing director.
Vits found that no company was offering a complete turnkey line and that they were all utilising components from metal coating lines which did not meet the quality requirements of the panel industry.
“This has led to a decrease in enthusiasm for, though not interest in, the technology,” explained Mr Niedermaier.
“We have thus developed equipment for two essential areas of the line: an oven with a very even heat distribution to the whole work piece, which is patent pending; and specially designed spray guns which are also patent pending.”
Vits has long experience in ovens for drying paper and says that its experience in tight control has been transferred to the powder coating line ovens.
“Also, until now, it has only been possible to coat MDF that has been produced with salt crystals in the wood to give it conductivity. This is more expensive than normal MDF and only produced by a few companies. So, working closely with a partner company producing furniture components in Austria, we have a line running successfully with normal MDF. The conductivity comes from the moisture content of the panel,” said Mr Niedermaier.
“We build the machinery and install the lines, while our partner company is responsible for the development and implementation of the coating technology.”
Mr Niedermaier suggested that there are two great advantages to powder coating.
Firstly, it is emission-free with no solvents, unlike wet lacquering which either has solvents or is water-based, leading to drying problems. He also said that powder is no more expensive than wet lacquer.
Secondly, the powder is a polyester epoxy resin and Vits claims that this gives a high-quality surface.
“It is very scratch resistant, impact resistant, warm to the touch [unlike melamine] and it offers new design possibilities such as metallic glitter finishes and coating of heavily-moulded surfaces, while surfaces and edges receive exactly the same coating,” said Mr Niedermaier. “You can also use the same coating for the MDF panels as for the metal frames – in office furniture for example.”
The powder coating lines are marketed under the name POWTEC. Components to be coated are suspended in the line, which is either 160cm or 80cm high.
Meanwhile, powder suppliers have also seen the potential and have increased their research and development to reduce curing temperatures.
Vits has not deserted its traditional impregnation line markets, as evidenced by the new high-speed line being launched now. Mr Niedermaier also believes that melamine (short-cycle) lamination has a strong future as the only way to achieve structured decorative panels such as realistic wood grain or stone effects.
However, the company is realistic in its assessment of the short-term market and has realised the need to diversify. It also believes it has identified a promising new niche in the market for its powder coating lines.

I wish I could write this column without referring to the global
economic crisis, but I suppose it would be a bit like printing this magazine without reference to wood based panels. The financial crisis is there in all its unfolding horror and will have to be faced.
Although the early signs of serious problems in the US economy were already very apparent, I think it is fair to say that the panel industry in the rest of the world started 2008 in fine form.

As at the end of October 2008, Siempelkamp Maschinen-und Anlagenbau GmbH & Co KG had sold 16 panel manufacturing plants during the year, giving it what Ralf Griesche, marketing and communications manager with the company, called “A brilliant year so far”.
This seems a fitting way to mark 125 years of Siempelkamp, which was and remains essentially a family-owned business.
A major new development for the company preceded 2008, when it acquired part of the Metso Panelboard company. This transaction took place on October 1, 2007, so its full effects were not really apparent until this year.
With this purchase, Siempelkamp assumed responsibility for the Metso Contipress (formerly the Küsters press) continuous press and all maintenance for existing Contipresses. The company will also take on the maintenance of the Bison and Mende-type presses supplied in the past by Metso and its predecessors.
Importantly, it also acquired the energy system of Metso Panelboard, which has become Siempelkamp Energy Systems, or SES.
“We have already tripled the business Metso had before in energy systems,” said Heinz Classen, managing director of Siempelkamp Maschinen-und Anlagenbau, confirming the generally buoyant sales of the company in recent years. “There has been a boom for the last four years and we have an order book well into 2009, including 10 orders for our thin board lines since they were introduced in 2006, so we have had good success [in the market].”
However, with the current uncertainty in the global economy, Mr Classen admitted he was not sure how the future will shape up. Nobody is of course.
On the positive side, Mr Classen pointed out that world steel prices seem to have peaked. “This added 20% to our costs in the last three years although we have cut manufacturing costs during that time as well,” he said.
Siempelkamp attributes part of its recent success to the latest evolution of its famous ContiRoll continuous press, as well as its special thin board lines employing that press as part of the whole
technology package.
“Generation 8 of the ContiRoll is not just an upgraded press but a revision of our whole production line for panels; we have made improvements from the complete area of the mat former to the press to the stacking area for finished boards at the end of the line,” said Michael Vogel, manager of ContiRoll press design for the wood processing section of the company.
This rethinking of the whole line is also key to Siempelkamp’s recent concentration on, and successful sales of, thin board lines for MDF, mentioned by Mr Classen.
“Thin MDF with a thickness of 1.5 to four millimetres is increasingly replacing wet fibreboards and thin plywood and the market is demanding that machinery suppliers come up with concepts which ensure safe and economic production of these panels,” said Mr Griesche.
Obviously, the only way to produce such thin panels economically is at very high speed and so this has been a major area of concentration for Siempelkamp in developing Generation 8.
The company now guarantees line speeds of 105m/min although it says its plants are capable of speeds up to 120m/min.
“We have optimised the fibre flow and the falling height of the fibre in the
forming bunker to achieve an even cross-wise distribution and to eliminate clumps of fibre and consequent damage to the steel belt of the continuous press,” explained Mr Vogel.
“The StarFormer spreading head also has very fine gap settings to prevent any lumps getting through into the mat and to ensure an even lengthwise distribution of the fibre. We have achieved a forming accuracy of +/-2% for 3mm boards. There is then a downstream levelling unit to level the mat surface.”
Obviously the crucial phase is now the pressing of this carefully prepared mat and Siempelkamp has modified and enhanced its pre-press to cope with the higher line speeds.
For thin boards only, the company then offers its new compactor, which is installed after the pre-press and before the ContiRoll hot press.
“This has two wire mesh belts which evacuate most of the air from the mat. As the mat is compacted to nominal thickness, any lumps which might still be in the mat are squeezed out,” said Mr Vogel.
“A precise head-cut following a mat dump, if any, enables the ContiRoll to continue at full speed of 2,000mm/sec. An accurate head cut is ensured by a special diagonal saw installed between the pre-press and the compactor for thin board production.”
If the panel maker wishes to make thicker MDF, he can simply open the compactor and allow the mat to pass through straight from the pre-press to the ContiRoll.
Now we come to the Generation 8 ContiRoll itself. For thin board production and shorter presses only, an option offered is to have directly-heated infeed drums, the shells of which are heated with thermal oil. Heat transfer from the stainless steel belts into the mat thus starts as soon as the mat enters the ContiRoll.
Not a new feature, having been available for nine years now, but an important one for thin board production as well, is the flexible press infeed. While the lower hot platen has a fixed geometry, the upper one is flexible and can be adjusted up or down by the hydraulic cylinders to any radius to enhance further de-aeration of the mat and start an optimal pressing process as early as possible. It also enables the achievement of high surface densities, thus eliminating sanding of the finished board, says Siempelkamp.
The press cylinders themselves are the same as those used in the previous generation. However, their number is increased and their position optimised for thin board production, it says.
Another special feature for thin boards in Generation 8 is the presence of pressure distribution plates in the lower half of the press to give greater stiffness and more equal pressure distribution, explained Mr Vogel.
Returning to those pressure cylinders, each cylinder row in the calibration zone is fitted with a position encoder, interacting with the automatic feedback from the board thickness sensors at the press discharge end.
Pressure and distance can also be precisely adjusted, row by row, for the right, inside right, inside left and left cylinders to give even thickness distribution.
“Because of the speed of these thin board lines, we offer a triple diagonal saw after the press, or the customer can opt for a clipper adapted from the carton industry for panels up to 3mm thick,” said Mr Vogel.
The ContiRoll press essentially comes in three sizes. Size 1 has a frame height of 3.7m, while size 2 has a frame height of 5.1m to cope with the higher pressing forces involved when pressing wider boards up to 12ft. Size 2 is also used for very long presses.
Siempelkamp holds several world records according to Mr Vogel. For example, the first press of size 2 at Duratex, botucatu has a 50m ContiRoll for MDF, installed about seven years ago, and this was followed by even longer presses: Huber of Oklahoma has a 60m OSB press and Tolko Slave Lake a 70m unit, again for OSB production.
Now there is a new record, with Duratex again. This press was undergoing installation in November and is 77m long and nine feet wide. It is scheduled to begin producing 2,400m3 a day of MDF in the middle of 2009. However, 77m is just the effective pressing length. Total length is 90m and the overall line length is 174m. Total weight of the press is 2,200 tonnes and, if you really like statistics, the total pressing force is 53,000 tonnes.
A stronger roller rod chain has been developed to cope with these long presses and has more than twice the breaking load of a size 1 press.
At the other end of the scale, Siempelkamp has supplied the first of its new ‘size 0’ four-feet wide ContiRolls to Lishui of China. This press is 33.8m long and is due to start up in January or February of 2009, to produce something over 100,000m3 of MDF annually.
The markets for continuous press lines have moved quite dramatically in a geographical sense in the last 15 years or so.
Western Europe and North America have been less active in installing new capacity, while China of course has made spectacular advances in the last eight to 10 years.
A recent strong market for Siempelkamp has been Turkey, with five complete lines sold in a short period of time. The company has been in the Turkish panel market for nearly 50 years, initially with single- and multi-daylight presses, and supplied the first ContiRoll for MDF in 1994, to Çamsan. Since then, it has sold a total of 19 such plants to Turkey.
Three of the recent contracts are up and running, while a fourth is under construction on site. Number five is in manufacture at Krefeld.
Turanlar, whose factory is about one hour’s drive from Samsun on the Black Sea coast, bought a thin MDF plant to make board of 1.5 to 4mm at 2,000mm/sec. Capacity is 650m3/day at 3mm thickness and the first panel was produced in August 2008.
Meanwhile, Yildiz Entegre is currently installing a multi-opening-press doorskin line supplied by Siempelkamp complete with dies, which is due to start production early in 2009.
Kastamonu’s factory in Kastamonu City has a 7ftx55.3m ContiRoll to produce standard thicknesses of MDF and HDF. It started production in March 2008 and has a capacity of 900m3/day, 18mm thickness basis.
Yildiz Sunta, another major panel maker in Turkey, has ordered a particleboard line which is currently under manufacture in Krefeld. First board from this 7ftx42.1m press is expected in April 2009 and capacity is nominally 2,000m3/day, 18mm basis.
Starwood, also of Turkey, produced its first thin MDF on June 27, 2008 on its 7ftx28.8m ContiRoll press.
Apart from Turkey, Siempelkamp has also seen increasing sales to Russia in the last couple of years as Russian-owned
companies – as opposed to western European panel makers building lines in Russia – have set up production there.
Customers for ContiRoll lines include Ugraplit particleboard, Ivatsevichdrev particleboard in White Russia and Apscheronsk MDF.
The Siempelkamp group is not solely involved in the wood based panels market, but has products in the foundry and nuclear industry and other energy markets. It has recently invested heavily in these production facilities too and this balance of markets should hopefully reduce the exposure of the company to market fluctuations in the panel industry as the group enters its 126th year.

If there were any lingering doubts about the division of the panel world into two principal regions, the results of the 2008 survey must dispel them. The original EU15 countries and North America have settled into the slow lane while the ‘Rest of the world’ is accelerating in the fast lane.

John Ahlström, ceo of the Coveright Group, has stepped down from his operational responsibilities. In his place Josef H Kagon (Dr rer nat) has joined Coveright as the new ceo. Mr Ahlström is currently continuing in Coveright’s employment to ensure a smooth transition.
Mr Ahlström, 60, has during his 16 years at Coveright developed the business from being largely a local European player into an international business. Coveright is today one of the largest suppliers of surfacing material for the wood based panels industry with operations worldwide.
Dr Kagon has a distinguished career holding senior management positions with world-renowned corporations such as Dow, Ciba-Geigy and Avery Dennison.

Manufacturers of claddings, panel products and insulation products may have to review their reaction to fire test data if moves to strengthen the Construction Products Directive (CPD) go ahead.
Industry sources suggest that the European Commission intends to make the CPD a Regulation – a draft Construction Products Regulation document is believed to be under review, with a potential enforcement date of 2011.
“If this goes through, CE marking would become mandatory in all member states, including the UK, where only compliance wit the CPD is called for at the moment,” warned Dawn Simpkins, Chartered Engineer within Chiltern International Fire.
*Based in the UK Chiltern International Fire is accredited by the UK Accreditation Service (UKAS) to carry out reaction to fire testing to current European Standards and its sister company BM TRADA Certification is a Notified Body for CE marking.

Siempelkamp has secured two contracts in Eastern Europe. ZAO PDK Apsheronsk in South Russia and ART-PROGRESS in the Ukraine have each ordered complete MDF plants and short cycle presses.
Operating with Siempelkamp equipment the scope of supply for the MDF plant for Apsheronsk includes a forming and press line incorporating an 8ft x 55.3m ContiRoll press.
The assembly of the plant is scheduled to begin this month (October) and the first board is forecast for April 2010.
The plant is said to guarantee a significant market share for Apsheronsk, not only in the region of Krasnodar but also in the entire Russian MDF market.
In the Ukraine, ART-PROGRESS in Kiev has ordered a forming and press line including a 9ft x 35.4m ContiRoll press, which is extendable to 40.4m. This line will be part of the first MDF plant in the Ukraine.
Construction in Korosten is projected to start in June 2009 with the first board forecast for February 2010. A daily capacity of 750m2 is anticipated in order to reach a yearly capacity of 250,000m2.

Ainsworth is to temporarily curtail production at its Bemidji OSB in Minnesota.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) is seeking safety assurances from more than 100 importers of timber panel products such as particleboard, MDF and plywood, reports The Australian.
Independent testing by Australian timber industry associations has found formaldehyde levels in some imported timber panels to be significantly higher than Australian limits.
The ACCC cannot force importers and retailers to comply with voluntary Australian standards for formaldehyde.
However, it has asked timber panel importers to establish appropriate product testing and to ensure their products meet Australian standards or equivalent international standards for formaldehyde emissions.

Louisiana-Pacific Corporation (LP) plans to extend the curtailment of its new OSB facility in Thomasville, Alabama and wants to change a deal it made with Clarke County and Alabama officials that prevents it from laying off the mill's 138 employees.
In planning for the OSB mill, LP agreed to employ 130 people in exchange for a US$17m incentive package.
The US$250m facility, which has an annual capacity of 750 million ft2 was still in a start-up phase in May when an explosion seriously injured four workers and caused US$4m worth of damage.
LP told county officials the mill would not resume operations on October 20 as scheduled, but would keep it closed for at least another six months pending an improvement in market conditions.
The Thomasville facility is the largest OSB plant wholly owned by LP and represents 13.6% of the company’s total OSB capacity of 5.5 billion ft2.