Laminated Fir Lumber

By Chas" W. Bubkner, Mgr., Door, Panel and Industrial Lumber Dept. of Morrill & Sturgeon Lumber Co., Portland, Oregon.

As our industrial activities progress our cities become more congested, our buildings go higher and our wooden buildings are being replaced by fire-proof structures of different kinds. This results in the lowering of the percentage of common or lower grades of lumber to be used for each building and increases the percentage of clear or upper grades of lumber, as finishing lumber must be clear and show as few defects as possible.

When we take these facts into consideration, in face of the increasing demand for conservation of our forest resources, it behooves us to begin to give some earnest thought to finding some plan that will give us the much desired effect of our beautiful clear finishing lumber and at the same time not waste such a large percentage of our low grade lumber' Our first thought has been to use the lower grades and cover the defects with paint by having our artists imitate nature's handiwork with a brush, but the best of artists fail when their work is to be compared with the work of nature. We then consider and experiment in sawing our clear lumber thinner, but we find a great deal of the clear product going into the refuse burner in the form of sawdust. Also a large amount of waste is caused by checks, splits and other causes, as it is always hard to handle thin lumber without a large percentage of it splitting. When we do have it ready for use it is not entirely satisfactory as it gives a cheap, flimsy effect, whereas the result desired is a sturdy, massive effect.

Our lumber industry is not the first industry to have such problems to overcome. The silversmiths had to overcome these same conditions many generations ago when they could not secure enough gold, silver and other precious metals to supply the demand for jewelry, etc. This naturally forced prices up. They could not make rings, watches, and other articles which would be satisfactory out of,lead, iron, steel, copper or other base metals, an| more than we can make casing, base, doors and wide hnish lumber out of knotty, stained,- low grade timber. The silversmiths overcame this difficulty by taking one or more thin sheets of the precious metal and a sheet of base metal and laminated them together so that the thin sheets of precious metals gave the artistic effect desired. At the same time the base metal gave the strength and massiveness required without detraiting from thJbeauty or usefulness of the article so made. This is what we ari learning to do today in the lumber industry. We are taking the best of our timber and instead of sawing it into l-inch and thicker boards to be used as casing, d6ors and other finish lumber, we are putting the timbei into one of our modern rotary lathes and are peeling it into thin veneer one-eighth inch thick, and some of if even thinner. In this- way _we get many times the surface footage of clear lumber. I{owever, this is thin and flimsy and Jasily split, but by selecting the best of these thin veneers and uiing them as face stock and laminating them over several piecei of lower gra-de o-r- common veneerwe secure many -times as much marketable clear lumber as we would if wi sawed the same.log into ordinary boards. Also, by means of the rotary cut we bring out much more of the beauty of the grain-than it is possible to produce by sawing. In addition to this, on account of the alternate pieces 1f the veneer being laid crosswise, laminated lumber is very much stronger than sawn lumber and will not split or'waro.

The Fir Veneer plants on the Pacific Coast, with their rrammoth clear Fir logs, are particularly well situated to take advantage of this method of making beautiful finishlng

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