From Forests to Timber Merchants – How Wood Works
Everyone knows how wood starts its life – as a tree, probably planted in the middle of a forest or woodland. Everyone who has ever visited a timber merchants knows what the wood looks like when it's ready to be sold, too – quite, quite different. But have you ever stopped to wonder what happens to the wood between its life as a tree and its sale in a timber merchants? Well, wonder no more – because this handy guide is here to answer all your questions.
• The first step, of course, is the felling of the tree itself. Modern-day loggers work quite differently to the lumberjacks of old; they're much more likely to use a driven harvester called a ‘feller-buncher' than they are an axe or even, these days, a chainsaw. This work is more skilled than you might imagine, and remains a part of a booming industry in many parts of the world today. The wood in this initial form is a far cry from that seen in the stocks of any timber merchants you may have visited.
• Once the tree has been felled, there are other automotive driven tools used for the next parts of the process – a skidder for dragging the trees into the right place, a forwarder for carrying them to the loading area, and a log loader for lifting them onto a truck so that they can be prepared for sale to a timber merchants.
• Once the trees are back at the camp or factory, they're put through either a slasher to turn them into logs or a chipper to reduce them to wood chips – wood chips that timber merchants often reconstitute into other forms of wood or MDF for sale to some customers.
• Those that are slashed into logs are then carried to yet another device for planing. The planing process is used to flatten, reduce the thickness of, and smooth out the rough logs into flat, even planks of wood. The remains are often used as chipping or wood pulp afterwards, which again is sometimes also sold to a timber merchants.
• The next step is to treat the planks so that they can be sold at a timber merchants. All sorts of different processes are used for the treatment of wood; everything from chemical treatments to natural wood preservation processes. Some of these result in the wood only being able to be used with specialised fittings, but most of them are relatively common and natural processes – any good timber merchants should be able to explain these processes to their customers on request.
• Finally, the wood is ready to be distributed to the various timber merchants supplied by the factory in question. They may well have other processes that they carry out themselves – packaging, cutting to size, further treatments, staining or carving to render the wood fit for the purpose they intend to sell it for.
• The first step, of course, is the felling of the tree itself. Modern-day loggers work quite differently to the lumberjacks of old; they're much more likely to use a driven harvester called a ‘feller-buncher' than they are an axe or even, these days, a chainsaw. This work is more skilled than you might imagine, and remains a part of a booming industry in many parts of the world today. The wood in this initial form is a far cry from that seen in the stocks of any timber merchants you may have visited.
• Once the tree has been felled, there are other automotive driven tools used for the next parts of the process – a skidder for dragging the trees into the right place, a forwarder for carrying them to the loading area, and a log loader for lifting them onto a truck so that they can be prepared for sale to a timber merchants.
• Once the trees are back at the camp or factory, they're put through either a slasher to turn them into logs or a chipper to reduce them to wood chips – wood chips that timber merchants often reconstitute into other forms of wood or MDF for sale to some customers.
• Those that are slashed into logs are then carried to yet another device for planing. The planing process is used to flatten, reduce the thickness of, and smooth out the rough logs into flat, even planks of wood. The remains are often used as chipping or wood pulp afterwards, which again is sometimes also sold to a timber merchants.
• The next step is to treat the planks so that they can be sold at a timber merchants. All sorts of different processes are used for the treatment of wood; everything from chemical treatments to natural wood preservation processes. Some of these result in the wood only being able to be used with specialised fittings, but most of them are relatively common and natural processes – any good timber merchants should be able to explain these processes to their customers on request.
• Finally, the wood is ready to be distributed to the various timber merchants supplied by the factory in question. They may well have other processes that they carry out themselves – packaging, cutting to size, further treatments, staining or carving to render the wood fit for the purpose they intend to sell it for.
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