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 is then used to make various products in the woodworking industry. Panel boards, tables, chairs for furniture, piles, frames, doors, or windows in the wood house are most made from laminated wood. The use of intact solid wood boards for the large width and length of wood boards is very rare today. Wood pieces of large size are very difficult to obtain; if any, then the price will be very expensive.
Wood gluing technologies have very advanced. It makes the laminated wood have many advantages compared with the intact wood. With proper processing, the laminated wood is stronger and more stable than the solid, intact wood and has a 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 is usually wet, so it must be dried to fulfill the MC requirement for the woodworking industry. To speed up the drying process, the logs should be cut into planks that are thinner. Then the thin-sized planks are dried in the oven, or let it dry naturally in the open air. The drying process for timber that is going to be used for furniture or architectural products must be controlled in order to keep the wood in good performance. The drying that is too fast can damage the wood performance, such as cracks, splitting, honeycomb, warping, or color changes. While too long time drying can lead to the fungus or insects attaching, that also will ruin the wood's performance. The proper drying is the first step to make the timber of good quality.

• Cutting and gluing pieces of wood to make laminated wood.

The dried wood boards are then 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 of wood can be glued together to make the laminated wood. To get good laminated wood panels, 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 fulfill the product requirement. For 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 good choices. While for indoor furniture and architectural products that require good color, P.V.A.C. glue or urea can be used. It does not have to be water-resistant, but it needs a light color to give the board a better look. For construction products in the interior of the house or building that do not have a good color look, stronger and faster-drying glue can be used.

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

• Resurface the laminated wood

The laminated wood always gives an uneven surface, and then to get an even and smooth surface, it needs to be resurfaced. To make flat panels, the laminated wood can be planed and sanded. The laminated wood panel can also go through machining to be shaped and formed as a 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 keeps naked (unfinished) tends to suffer the consequences of environmental changes. The humidity and temperature changes could make problems as the dimensions change in the laminated board. Each of the wood pieces may have variations in porosity, grain direction, and pores, and the 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 of the wood board will close the pores and grains of the wood to make the wood more stable and less risky to the dimensional change problem. If the unfinished wood product is needed, then wood conditioner can be used to keep the moisture content stable, thereby reducing the risk of problems resulting from the movement of the wood.