Laminated wood for wood panel

Laminated wood is a big size wood block or panel made from many wood pieces that are glued and unified together. Laminated wood then is used to make various products in the woodworking industry. Panel boards, table, chair for furniture, pile, frame, door or window in the wood house most are made form laminated wood. The uses of intact solid wood boards for the width and length wood product is very rare today. Wood pieces with big size are very difficult to be obtained, if any then the price will be very expensive.
Wood gluing technologies has very advanced. It makes the laminated wood has many advantages compared with the intact wood. With proper processing, the laminated wood is stronger, more stable then the solid intact wood and has cheaper price and faster processing time.

laminated wood board 

The process of making the laminated wood includes several processes: wood drying, cutting, gluing and resurfacing

• Drying the wood pieces.

The wood from fresh trees usually is wet, so he must be dried to fulfill the m.c. requirement for the woodworking industry. To speed up the drying process, the logs should be cut into planks which have thinner size. Then the thin size planks are dried in the oven, or let it dries naturally in the open air. The drying process for timber that are going to be used to the furniture or architectural products must be controlled in order to keep the wood in the good performance. The drying that is too fast can damage the wood performance by giving some crack, splitting, honeycomb, warping or color changes to the the wood. While too long time drying can lead to the fungus or insects attacked that also will ruin the wood performance. The proper drying is the first step to make the timber with good quality.

• Cutting and gluing pieces wood to make laminated wood.

The dried wood board then are used to feed the machining process to be cut, shaped and formed in the woodworking industry. If the wood with a larger size is needed, then some pieces wood can be glued together to make the laminated wood. To get good laminated wood panel, the we need a proper laminating process. The proper gluing process involves the glue selection and the gluing process. The glue used should be strong enough to let the laminated wood to fulfill the product requirement. For the outdoor uses, then the glue must be waterproof and resist to the outdoor weather. The PU, epoxy glue or urea which are two components that give thermosetting bonding are the good choices. While for indoor furniture and architectural products that require good color, the p.v.a.c. glue or urea can be used. It does not to be water resist, but it needs light color to help the finishing looked and color. For construction products in the interior of the house or building that does not good color match, the stronger and fast drying glue can be used.

The glue is applied by coated to the wood surfaces before the wood pieces are unified and pressed to let the glue dry and making a strong bonding. Each type of glue has different specification and may need different process. To get the maximum bonding, then the proper process must be followed. How thick the glue is layered, how long is the glue drying and how much pressure is needed must be followed to obtain the good bonding.

• Resurface the laminated wood

The laminated wood always give an uneven surfaces, then to get an even and smooth surface, it need to be resurfaced. To make flat panel, the laminated wood can be planed and sanded. The laminated wood panel can also go the machining to be shaped and formed as component. Then the sanding is needed to smooth and even the wood out from the plainer or machinery. The wood (or laminated wood) pieces with proper size and smooth surface can be brought to be assembled to make the wood product.

•   Finishing for the laminated wood.

Laminated wood that keep naked (unfinished) tend to suffer the consequences from the environment changes. The humidity and temperature changes could make problem as the dimensions changes in the laminated board. Each of wood pieces may have variation of: porosity, grain direction, pores and the each pieces may act differently according to the humidity changes. It gives risk to get the dimensional changes of wood such as: uneven surface, delamination, crack, splitting, etc. To minimize this problem, then the laminated wood should be immediately coated with finishing materials. The coating that is layered on both sides wood board will close the pore and grain of the wood to make the wood more stable and less risk to the dimensional changes problem. If the unfinished wood product is needed, then wood conditioner can be used to keep the moisture wood content keep stable, thereby reducing the risk of problems resulting from the movement of the wood..