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Sennebogen handles LP engineered wood expansion |
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 Louisiana-Pacific is well positioned for the future with the start-up of its new $140 million Laminated Strand Lumber operation in Maine that uses wood sourced from Quebec, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, as well as local wood.
As we approach the end of the first decade of the 21st Century, news
from across North America about investment in new wood processing
plants is pretty scarce. Too often the news has been about cutbacks,
lay-offs and mills closing permanently.
So it’s really encouraging news when a company invests millions of
dollars in a new plant that incorporates cutting-edge technologies to
produce an emerging wood product that promises to create innovative
design capabilities and provide economic advantages in the home
construction industry.
Louisiana-Pacific decided several years ago to invest more than $140
million into its New Limerick mill near Houlton, Maine, to allow it to
expand into the production of Laminated Strand Lumber (LSL). The
company carried through with the project despite the economic downturn.
Louisiana-Pacific is betting that when the industry recovers, the mill
will be able to produce around eight million cubic feet of L-P
SolidStart LSL product and supply it through its distribution system
across North America.
L-P promotes SolidStart LSL for a wide variety of residential
construction applications including headers and beams, wall studs, roof
beams and rafters, columns, rim boards and stair stringers -pretty much
anywhere traditional lumber is used.
The product’s big selling point is that because of its enhanced
strength and consistency, fewer pieces of SolidStart LSL are required
compared to conventional lumber. The enhanced strength lets LSL span
greater distances, and carry more load. SolidStart LSL design
properties also present a whole new set of opportunities for innovative
engineered designs and balloon framing.
L-P also promotes SolidStart LSL’s conservation qualities, pointing out
that trees that are generally not fit for sawn lumber can now be used
to manufacture a high quality construction product.
In addition, the high consistency of the product means no culling at
the job site. An added value for builders is labour savings, since time
will not be directed to laminating sawn lumber to build carrying beams
and headers.
New Limerick is the first Louisiana-Pacific mill to produce strand
lumber, and one of only a handful of mills in North America that
produce LSL.
Marc Pinette explained that as the operation’s procurement forester, he
is usually on the road meeting contractors and securing deliveries of
aspen and other hardwoods to the Louisiana-Pacific OSB mill at New
Limerick. However, with the new mill start-up and production testing,
he has been spending a lot more time at the mill.
“We started construction in late-2006, and we made our first LSL board
in March 2008. Like every mill start-up, there have been a few minor
glitches to smooth out, but basically the mill is performing up to our
expectations,” said Pinette.
LSL is a structural engineered wood product based on wood strand
technology and was developed in the 1980s. The process utilizes
debarked low-grade trees such as aspen, which are flaked into strands.
The flakes are dried, coated with resin and then oriented parallel in a
thick mat. With the aid of injected steam, mats are pressed into large
billets. The billets can then be sawn into conventional lumber
dimensions.
Pinette explained that development of the LSL operation actually began
in 2004, when L-P shipped several containers of aspen and hardwoods to
Dieffenbacher labs in Germany. Dieffenbacher is an international
company that designs and manufactures complete production systems for
the wood panel industry. Dieffenbacher created a lab model LSL plant
and tested different combinations of species, as well as formulating
the specific recipe for an adhesive and other technical details for
L-P’s operation.
The recipe for wood fibre in the L-P operation is a specific mix, 75
per cent aspen or poplar, and 25 per cent eastern hardwoods, in
particular birch and maple. Pinette explained that the fibre properties
provide a strong-and relatively light - finished product. To get the
recipe right consistently, Louisiana-Pacific sorts the wood for the
operation’s special mix in the mill yard, using a SENNEBOGEN 735 M-HD
material handler.
“A higher proportion of dense hardwoods would result in a very heavy
product that would be difficult to manhandle in conventional
construction,” he explained. “Our LSL product also has excellent nail
penetration and holding properties. If the product had a higher ratio
of dense hardwoods, there would quite possibly be issues around nails
being able to penetrate the product.”
The SENNEBOGEN 735 M-HD is a compact rubber-tired 36.5 ton (73,000
lbs.) machine purpose-built for pick & carry operations. The unit
on-site with Louisiana-Pacific is equipped with a pulpwood log grapple.
Compared to more familiar crawler-mounted log loaders, the speed and
agility of the 735 M-HD are ideally suited to this sorting application.
Its chassis, boom mount, counterbalance and hydraulics are configured
to allow the machine to travel with the load, swing its boom and
operate the grapple all at the same time. It can even lift its maximum
load through 360o of rotation without requiring outriggers to brace its
wheeled platform. With its unique rear mounting of the boom, the 735
M‑HD provides a very smooth, stable ride as it traverses the yard, with
no side-view obstructions to the operator’s line of sight, allowing
safer operation at comparatively high speeds. Like all SENNEBOGEN
material handlers, the 735 M‑HD was engineered from its inception to
last in rough work environments, featuring an extra strong structure
and robust hydraulic components.
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