What products are made from wood?

Plywood

Plywood was the first ‘engineered’ wood product to be invented. Engineered wood now comes in a variety of forms and is manufactured by binding together wood particles, fibres, or sheets with strong glues.

Plywood is made from thin sheets of wood, called plies, which are stacked together at right angles to each other and then bonded under heat and pressure. It is generally used in furniture manufacture, construction, boat building, flooring, panelling and concrete formwork because it is stronger and less likely to crack, shrink, twist or warp than natural wood.

Veneer

When veneer logs arrive at the mill they are graded, cut into standard lengths, and graded again. They are then cut into slices called flitches, using special laser-guided saws. The flitches can have different patterns, depending on how they are placed in the saw.

The flitches are then heated in large vats of water to make them easier to slice and stop them rolling up into tight balls. They are ‘grooved’ with a chainsaw, to stop them ripping during handling, and then sliced into leaves that are only 0.6mm thick.

The leaves are dried, stacked, cooled, graded, trimmed and either sold as they are for further processing, or glued together for uses such as flooring and furniture.

Pulp, Paper and Particleboard

The production of these items is often carried out simultaneously by large companies which obtain supplies from their own plantations, other forests and sawmills, or from overseas.

Timber can be processed into pulp either chemically or mechanically. The wood fibres have to be separated from each other and then re-formed into ‘mats’ of various thicknesses, with additives such as bleaching agents, glues, colouring pigments, preservatives or fire retardants.

High-quality printing paper is produced by processing eucalypt, radiata pine, or imported hardwood pulp, while newsprint combines radiata and eucalypt pulp with recycled fibres. Particleboard is a reconstituted product made by coating wood particles in resin and forming them into sheets under heat and pressure.

Preserved Timber Products

Timber can be treated with preservatives to help it withstand rain, frost, sun, decay and fungal and insect attack when used in outdoor applications.

Softwoods are more prone to decay and rot than hardwoods, and they also absorb preservatives more easily. More recently the less toxic arsenic-free treatment (tanalith) has been used to preserve timber. Preserved softwood timber is popular for framing, weatherboards, decking, window frames, fences, landscaping, playground equipment, power poles and boat-building.

Other Uses for Wood

Timber can also be used for pallets, packaging, craft items, toys and instrument-making, and furniture production. Timber is also made into packing cases, wine barrels, cardboard, firewood, garden mulch, fibre adhesives, packaging and pet litter.

Unique to WA is the use of jarrah and pine to make ‘bio-char’. Bio-char is an important base product in the manufacture of silicone, and can also be used as a soil additive to increase levels or organic matter and improve structure.