Wood Concepts

How Timber Gets From the Forest to Your Builders Merchant
2019-07-01 08:00 - 14:00 UTC | Timber Company, 8500 Lorem street, Chicago, IL, 55030, United States
Timber has played a key role in the construction industry for many years. And while it’s always been a popular material, the process of how and where it arrives from is often overlooked.
In this guide, we’ll take you through the journey of timber – how it travels from the forest and arrives in your builders merchant, ready for you to embark on your next project.
Stage One: Felling

The first stage of preparing the timber for commercial use is called ‘felling’ – the process of downing individual trees. In this case, the person cutting the tree is called the ‘feller’ – while the harvesting machine is referred to as a ‘feller buncher’.
A forestry worker will determine when and which trees should be cut down, depending on when they reach their economically ‘mature’ stages. Trees can range from 40 to 150 years old before they stop growing vigorously and are ready to be cut down. The differences in age at felling can depend on the tree species. For example, conifers grow at a much quicker rate than broad-leaved species. Environmental factors, such as soil nutrients, can also affect their growth.
Felling is normally carried out in winter, because the trees usually have less moisture content in them, compared to summer months, where they can have more than fifty percent water content.
Finally, felled trees should be replaced with saplings so that the forest has a chance to grow once again, providing a sustainable resource for future generations.
Stage Two: Storing/ Transporting
Next, the logs are stored in a clearing or in the forest until they are needed at the sawmill. This also allows some of the ‘free’ water content to evaporate, reducing the weight of the tree/log, which will result in lowering the cost of transporting and handling.
The trees are usually cut into smaller lengths on-site and then picked up by a timber lorry, which transports the timber to a processing site, such as a sawmill, paper mill, pallet, fencing or construction producer.
Stage Three: On Site
At the chosen site, the logs are debarked and bucked, or cut to the required length. Then they are cut into boards, using equipment such as circular saws and bandsaws. This is called ‘conversion’. The first stage of conversion is a process called ‘breaking down’ – which means rough sawing. The second stage is called ‘re-sawing’ and refers to more precise cutting and finishing, such as planing and further machining.
Two types of rough sawing can be used in the breaking down process – through sawn and quarter sawn.
The ends of each log is trimmed to ensure they are straight and cut into boards. Large circular saws are then used to further-process the boards, removing the curved edges. Each processed piece of wood now looks like a board.
Stage Four: Seasoning
Seasoning of natural wood is the process of removing excess water/moisture content. When a tree is felled, it still contains a large proportion of water/moisture – usually between forty to fifty per cent water content.
Water is held inside a tree in two ways:
Free Water: Water that is held in the vessels and cells in order to distribute nutrients inside the tree.
Cell water: Also known as ‘bound’ water, is an essential part of the tree’s cell walls.
During the seasoning process, a tree loses its free water and a high proportion of its cell water and as a result, is less likely to warp or deform.
Wood that has not been seasoned and still has a high water content is called ‘green wood’ and can be more difficult to work with because it has a tendency to change shape.
Stage Five: Preparing for Market
After turning trees into timber through saw milling, covered in stage three – also referred to as primary processing, the market value of timber can be further increased through manufacturing sawn timber products – called secondary processing. This involves the wood being made (either by man or machine) into a more refined product, such as a door, window or furniture, made to the specific size and dimensions
At this stage any preferred treatments to timber such as fire or rot resistance is added. Treated timber in sawn form is used either directly in construction or to prepare construction components, such as timber frame panels. Planed joinery components, on the other hand, are usually treated after assembly.
Finally, once all modifications are made, the timber is ready to be shipped to market.

WOODSHOW 2016
2018-12-24 09:00 - 15:00 | IL, United States
Florian Group will attend the Woodshow – Middle East leading platform for wood and woodworking machinery, to be held April, 4 to 6 2016 at the the Dubai World Trade Centre. The halls will be open 10 a.m to 6.00 p.m.
Since its inception in 2006, the Dubai Woodshow has grown the most important fair in the Middle East dedicated to the wood industry. It will be an important opportunity to meet manufacturers, dealers, suppliers, machinery companies and end users in the timber industry chain.

Multi storey car park made of beech
2018-09-30 10:00 - 17:00 | Timber Company, 8500 Lorem street, Chicago, IL, 55030, United States
The University of Munich develops the first multi-storey car park construction system using timber

After spruce and pine, beech is the third most common type of tree in Germany with large sustainable reserves. Its strength values far exceed those of softwoods and thanks to industrial processing to create a premium laminated veneer lumber, the use of beechwood makes economic sense. Whilst beech laminated veneer lumber (BauBuche) has already been used in larger structures, e.g., in hall and commercial constructions, construction systems for car parks have now been examined at the Technical University of Munich.
The exceptional strength of the beech laminated veneer lumber enables the use of a timber product for the supporting elements in a multi-storey car park structure for the very first time. This opens up new possibilities both from an ecological and aesthetic perspective: on the one hand, an environmentally friendly material is used which, as an active carbon store, contributes to climate protection. On the other hand, the high-quality finish of BauBuche makes it ideal for use in visible areas and also helps to upgrade the look of the car park. In terms of costs, the timber multi-storey car park is comparable to conventional structures made of steel or solid constructions.
In the model developed by the Technical University of Munich, the basic multi-storey car park construction comprises BauBuche GL70 columns and beams with a ceiling made of reinforced concrete prefabricated components. Thanks to the impressive load-bearing capacity of the timber product, the parking spaces and lanes can be spanned without support which means that the spaces can be demarcated irrespective of the construction. The creation of parking spaces for people with disabilities and adaptation of the spaces to accommodate changed vehicle sizes pose no problem.

Access for cars is provided by ramps made of BauBuche beams and concrete prefabricated parts. There is a roof on the top parking level to provide structural protection from the elements. All in all, assuming proper and weatherproof installation, the BauBuche supporting elements have an estimated useful life of more than 50 years. This represents durability comparable to a solid building.
The modular design means that parking levels of any length can be positioned next to each other, while a maximum height corresponding to the limit for a high-rise building is conceivable. The resource efficiency of the design increases with the high level of prefabrication: production of the BauBuche elements at the plant not only ensures the higher quality of the supporting elements, but also serves to reduce the construction time. Moreover, in the case of the detail work, it facilitates enhanced quality control. The concrete ceiling which separates the individual parking levels serves as protection against moisture during the installation phase and, subsequently, as a vertical fire barrier.
Once the car park has reached the end of its technical service life, the individual materials (timber, concrete, steel) can be easily disassembled and recycled or used thermally.

Anne Niemann is the head of the research project “Development of a construction system for multi-storey car parks made from beech laminated veneer lumber” at the Technical University of Munich. Technical details and further information on this project can be found, e.g., in the specialist article “Parkhäuser aus Holz – Bausystem aus Buchenfurnierschichtholz” (Multi-storey car parks made from wood – construction system using beech laminated veneer lumber) which has been recently published by Ms Niemann in the DBZ (German construction magazine). You can read the entire article.

Hardwood lumber
2017-10-20 | Timber Company, 8500 Lorem street, Chicago, IL, 55030, United States
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Building Solutions
2017-08-26 | Timber Company, 8500 Lorem street, Chicago, IL, 55030, United States
