How Lumber is Made
How Lumber Is Made
On this episode of How It's Made, we learn all about the manufacturing process that goes into making construction wood.
Wood You Believe It?
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Turning a tree into wood ready for construction may seem like it would be complex, but it’s actually a very simple process. Thank goodness, because our world would be unevolved without structures made from construction wood. Imagine a world without…
- Buildings
- Doors
- Furniture
- Shelving
- Toothpicks
- Chopsticks
- Tools
- Cooking utensils
- Sports equipment
- Fences
- Wooden instruments
7 Steps In How To make Lumber
- Start with logs cut from spruce or fir trees. Soak the logs for about 20 minutes to remove mud and soften the bark. This step allows the wood to be much easier to work with.
- The logs are put through a debarking machine. This machine has six sharp blades, shaving each piece of wood in about ten seconds. There is typically a filing room where the blades are sent for sharpening and straightening.
- Construction wood factories generally have wide and thin production lines. As the logs go through, the machine operator uses laser controls to saw the wood into 4 x 10’s. FUN FACT: An average log yields 7-8 pieces of wood!
- After the wood is formed into shape, each piece is sent through a machine that smooths the surface and edges and also removes all of the defects.
- An automatic wood-sorter drops the construction wood into bins according to their size. From there, each bin feeds a stacking machine.
- The sorted pieces of construction wood are put into a kiln at about 15% humidity.
- Finally, the wood is graded and shipped to a lumberyard or construction store.
