The Role of Extractives and Wood Anatomy in the Wettability and Free Surface Energy of Hardwoods

Pine wood is commonly used in the production of floorings and is mainly used for solid wood planks and as a base in multi-layer flooring material. From an economic and ecological point of view, flaws such as flattening or heartwood ratio are very important when buying material for production. 40 logs of Scots pine ( Pinus sylvestris L.) have been selected from wood deposit, from typical wood delivery. The ratios of sapwood and heartwood have been quantified, as well as eccentricity and flattening, in order to determine the suitability of the selected material for processing into floorings. There are two existing methods of log processing: sawing and peripheral cutting. Sawing is the most common one and widely used, although peripheral cutting could be more effective, especially for production of base in multi-layer floorings. The total loss volume for the two methods of manipulation and processing have been calculated. First one is sawing in accordance to schematics used in the sawmill of one of the largest producers of multilayer floorings in Europe. Second one is peripheral cutting with three diameters of peeler roll. Total loss volume for sawing was 55.8 ± 10.5% and for peripheral cutting with peeler roll with biggest chosen diameter of 100 mm was 45.6 ± 9.5%. Therefore, in presented case, peripheral cutting is more efficient than sawing.