How wood veneer is made - GIF

How wood veneer is made.

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It's not just how veneer is made. This is how perfect fence posts are made, too!
Truly, the modern way of making veneer is one of the many reasons the logging jobs will never return to Roseburg, OR for example. So much of the formerly manual work is done by computer controlled machinery, thus increasing yield per tree (ie logged board foot). I never toured the plant, however, I did note that one 5000 ft^2 plant in Roseburg produced about 100 pallets (5 loads) of veneer daily with about 8 pickups in the yard.

I did not know they could do it this quickly!

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Mate, I have toured Roseburg's home mill, although in 1982....they were sending out something in the order of 50-100 (rail)Box cars and flat cars/day!! That volume was split over plywood, particle board and solid timber. The Roseburg facility is up there in the largest of mills, producing an astounding array of varied forest products.
And those perfect fenceposts are but the 'peeler cores' from the big rotary peeling lathes, the drive centres for the lathes are about 4" across, so going any smaller than 5" is not possible; also too much deflection in a small diameter. Typically, the raw logs for rotary peeled plywood are usually softwood (we do Eucalypts here as well!), fir, spruce & pine. They pay top dollar for the butt logs of the trees, as they have the least number of branches through most of the log, save for the centres, that afford the higher grade veneer for faces. Lower grades are generally used in cores. Specialty ply like Marine, will use defect free veneers right through along with very careful layup, hence the cost. If any of you good folk get the opportunity, do a mill tour of any sort. Ply, Part Board and MDF are all VERY interesting and will blow your socks off at the sheer volume produced for such little manpower. Many mills have public tours available, you just need to ask. And in days gone by, maybe even now, anyone with a 'keen interest' could ask and receive a tour. The old days of 'green chains' and sorting belts is long gone...Cheers
Jim
30 yr expat & 3rd gen timber merchant in AUS

There’s photos of a couple different veneer cutting machines from the Beale piano factory in this old, undated collection of slides.

https://collection.maas.museum/object/324717

Neat traveling head drills, too.

Fantastic pictures! Annandale is a trendy inner western suburb in Sydney. It was one of the earliest westward expansions of the city and still has LOTS of period houses in various states, the well preserved going for $1 to 2 Million...It (and neighbouring Leichardt and Balmain) had a lot of manufacturing businesses, some on a very large scale for the time. Sadly, most were ripped down after WW2. but some remained. My first premises in the plywood business in 1990 was a corner of the Cyclops Toy and Bicycle Co....and there was lots of nooks and crannies filled with old tools and hardware left behind...a treasure hunters dream..Thanks for the view back, Cheers!
Jim in Sunny South Coast NSW

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Originally Posted by Beserkleyboy

Mate, I have toured Roseburg's home mill, although in 1982....they were sending out something in the order of 50-100 (rail)Box cars and flat cars/day!! That volume was split over plywood, particle board and solid timber. The Roseburg facility is up there in the largest of mills, producing an astounding array of varied forest products.
And those perfect fenceposts are but the 'peeler cores' from the big rotary peeling lathes, the drive centres for the lathes are about 4" across, so going any smaller than 5" is not possible; also too much deflection in a small diameter. Typically, the raw logs for rotary peeled plywood are usually softwood (we do Eucalypts here as well!), fir, spruce & pine. They pay top dollar for the butt logs of the trees, as they have the least number of branches through most of the log, save for the centres, that afford the higher grade veneer for faces. Lower grades are generally used in cores. Specialty ply like Marine, will use defect free veneers right through along with very careful layup, hence the cost. If any of you good folk get the opportunity, do a mill tour of any sort. Ply, Part Board and MDF are all VERY interesting and will blow your socks off at the sheer volume produced for such little manpower. Many mills have public tours available, you just need to ask. And in days gone by, maybe even now, anyone with a 'keen interest' could ask and receive a tour. The old days of 'green chains' and sorting belts is long gone...Cheers
Jim
30 yr expat & 3rd gen timber merchant in AUS

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Thanks Jim, I used to deliver spring water to Laminex Industries near Gympie. No tours there : very high on safety after a death some years back. It is interesting the overall size of the town like site & the bull dozers climbing up the slopes of the wood chip ready for particle board & may be for HDF & MDF. I guess Laminex finishes haven't been affected by the trend towards stone/crete kitchen bench tops as much is now in other cabinetry.

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I like the way it gets a cylinder from the bowed pole.