How Plywood is Made in Factory | The making of plywood
How is Plywood Made?
Overview of Plywood Manufacturing
- Plywood consists of three or more thin layers of wood bonded with adhesive, oriented at right angles to reduce shrinkage and enhance toughness.
- The manufacturing process begins with smaller trees from managed plantations, marked for cutting by modern chainsaws or fellas.
Logging and Initial Processing
- After cutting, logs are transported to a loading area using vehicles called skeeters, where they are cut to size and loaded onto trucks.
- Logs arrive at the plywood mill where they undergo debarking through grinding wheels or high-pressure water jets.
Peeling Process
- Debarked logs are shaped into peeler blocks suitable for standard plywood sheets.
- Peeler blocks must be heated and soaked in hot water for 12 to 20 hours before peeling.
Drying and Sorting
- The rotary lathe machine peels continuous sheets from the blocks; these wet veneers require drying for better bonding.
- Optical scanners identify defects in the veneers during cutting, ensuring only quality sections are used.
Adhesive Application and Pressing
- Dried veneers are adhered together using specific adhesives based on the type of plywood being produced.
- A mechanical glue spreader ensures even adhesive distribution across alternate veneer layers before pressing them into panels.
Final Steps in Production
- Panels undergo cold pressing for about 20 minutes to solidify adhesives and flatten the plywood.
- Hot pressing follows, lasting approximately 3 to 7 minutes, after which quality control tests assess strength and emissions.