Laminated Veneer Lumber (LVL)The LVL Development What is Laminated Veneer Lumber? Production Plant Suppliers Environmental Safeguards

Nelson Pine Industries LVL development consists of a veneer plant where logs are lathe peeled, and an LVL plant where veneers are laminated by hot pressing into a substitute solid wood form.

"After exhaustive market research we identified Laminated Veneer Lumber as an ideal conversion for lower grade Radiata Pine logs into a engineered wood product," Mr Sturgeon said. "There is a growing demand for a quality product of this type in Japan and Australasia, Asia and North America, for use in the building industry and in furniture making."

The new processing facility creates over 40 new permanent jobs. It requires an input of 200,000m3 of Radiata Pine logs annually, in addition to existing MDF resource requirements. This means that Nelson Pine Industries Ltd, at full capacity, will be processing approximately one million cubic metres of the region's forecast sustainable harvest of 2.5 million cubic metres per year, into MDF and LVL.

First Export Shipment
The first plastic wrapped packs of veneer were loaded onto the 'Orient Noble' at Port Nelson in November 2001. Initially veneer was exported to overseas processing facilities, to be laminated into plywood or LVL. From March 2002 NPIL has carried out the complete processing to LVL on site.

 

 

 

What is LVL?
Laminated Veneer Lumber is a product recently developed to substitute solid wood in an engineered form. The process converts low grade saw logs into veneer in a lathe peeling operation. The veneers are dried to a low moisture content and graded for structural properties and appearance.

Selected veneers are layed up, glued and bound together in a hot press to form a continuous billet or master panel. Lengths of LVL are cut from this in dimensions to suit customer requirements. Structural Laminated Veneer Lumber is used extensively in the building industry in the form of I joists for floors and ceilings and in other applications where sawn kiln dried lumber has been traditionally used. The product is also used in the production of furniture.

Production
The process begins with debarking, log length cutting and conditioning, prior to lathe peeling. The logs travel from the debarker, via the length cutting saws to the hot water vats by conveyor and gantry crane.

When they have reached the required core temperature the gantry crane loads a conveying system to the lathe infeed. This system of log transportation was selected for efficiency and safety.

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Nelson Pine Industries Ltd - Manufacturers of
GoldenEdge MDF and NelsonPine LVL
PO Box 3049, Richmond, Nelson, New Zealand
Phone: (+64)3-543-8800, 0800-800-438
Fax: (+64)3-543-8890