Of course, ever-faster line speeds for sanding lines depend not just on the speed of the sander itself, but also on the speed of transportation of the panels to and from that sander.

In late April 2009, EMG achieved the startup of such a line at Nelson Pine’s new Zealand MDF factory, enabling the mill’s new Steinemann Satos wide-belt sanding line to run at what was then a world record speed of 150m/min.

Fast-forward – literally – two years, to April 2011, and EMG started up its second sanding line at the same customer’s factory only this time, the supplier says that the line has achieved a speed of 200m/min, smashing EMG’s own previous record and, it claims, creating another world record for such a line.

The MDF line handles a maximum board size of 2500 x 5600mm in a range of thicknesses from 2.5 to 32mm and the sander is a Steinemann Satos eight-head unit.

Apart from the speed of this line, another special characteristic, says Marco Conzadori of EMG, is that there is zero gap between the boards being sanded – they are fed into the sander in a continuous stream, due to a special patented loading device developed by his company.

The line took four months to commission at the Nelson Pine factory and Mr Conzadori says that the engineering achievement was a result of his father, Guido Conzadori and managing director of Nelson Pine, Murray Sturgeon, working together in cooperation to achieve the desired end result.

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