Special Producers of filling machines and the fillers

BETTER THAN THE HUMAN EYE

FILLING MACHINES RENDER HUMAN EFFORT LARGELY SUPERFLUOUS

Markus Weissenbrunner and Johannes Schachinger (Wintersteiger AG -A)

"The automation of the filling process has numerous advantages"

As a machinery and plant engineering group, the Austrian Wintersteiger AG acquired a global leading position in providing innovative solutions for customers in technically demanding niche markets. It does this in four divisions: Seedmech, Sports, Metals and Woodtech (et al.parquet, furniture and panels).

In addition to being the world market leader in the Sports and Seedmech divisions, the company is also the global number one in Woodtech, the division that interests us most. Under the umbrella term 'World of Woodtech', five product areas for the wood industry are included: precision thin cutting and surface refinement of wood, saw blades developed and produced in-house, mobile and stationary sawmill technology, automation solutions, as well as sawing solutions for a range of materials, including lightweight materials.

For small and large, all over the world

Among the numerous woodworking machines are state-of-the-art filling machines for the parquet world, for both small and very large applications. More specifically, these are TRC machines (short for Timber Repair & Cosmetics), for semi and fully automatic repair of wood surfaces. We have an exchange of views with Markus Weissenbrunner and Johannes Schachinger, respectively Head of Strategic Product Development Woodtech and Area Sales Manager Benelux Woodtech.

"After pre-cleaning the knotholes and cracks comes the filling work, and that's where you find our filling machines, which are primarily aimed at the furniture and panel and parquet manufacturer, not the installer," explains Markus Weissenbrunner. "We offer two types of technology in this respect: filling process with thermoplastic and organic filling material. With thermoplastic filling, thermoplastic polymers in a molten state are injected by high pressure into the wood defect with a maximum of precision and in the calculated quantity. These are immediately cooled down by a cooling plate in the same process step, which makes processing possible. For organic filling, we work with a mineral and water-based one-component filler developed especially for machine use. It is suitable for all common processing methods and surface coatings in parquet production. The time for further processing depends on the damaged area and thus on the applied volume of filler. This application is also often used by parquet manufacturers who only use natural raw materials in their floors.

"I would add that we also have a 3rd technology: The Woodpatch for repairing defects in wood with real-wood-patches. But that is not intended for the flooring industry, rather the panel industry," adds Johannes Schachinger, who in the same breath points out that quite a few large flooring manufacturers are customers of Wintersteiger: "In the Netherlands you have, for example, Veno. Elsewhere in Europe there are big names like Hamberger, Admonter, Bauwerk/Boen, Meisterwerke, Scheucher,... Outside Europe, Canadian Preverco is a good reference."

TRC Easy and TRC Automatic

Earlier in the discussion, the speakers indicated that Wintersteiger focuses on both smaller and larger customers. How does one go about doing that in practice?

Markus Weissenbrunner: "We have a very broad and also modular product portfolio of TRC machines or systems. TRC Easy includes entry-level manual machines that are chosen by customers to ensure consistently high quality wood repairs. The automatic machines and systems are divided into various products, which are compared with each other for their capacity, the filling material technology used and the dimensions of parts. Because we go to great lengths to diversify the machines and build them modularly, we can serve

anyone, from very small to very large capacities. The great advantage, of course, is that we can adapt our machines/ systems to individual requirements and thus optimally integrate them into the customer's process."

Johannes Schachinger: "Another interesting thing is that you use the filling material optimally. You never use too much or too little and thus save money. A great advantage is the possibility to even fill out floor boards or top layers before gluing them to the boards. You fill the imperfections beforehand and not afterwards!"

Markus Weissenbrunner would like to conclude with a closer look at the scanner developed by Wintersteiger itself. He explains how this scanner, which was named 'Faulty Spot Eye', detects damaged spots, along with the detection of the exact extent and structure of the damage: "Faulty Spot Eye is an essential component of any fully automated TRC system. It has the necessary visibility and guarantees highly accurate detection of all types of defects. It works quickly and accurately in 2D and 3D mode and evaluates images in milliseconds. The repair units then approach the detected damaged areas and fill them in at high speed. Only the damaged area with the required amount of filling material is addressed."

TRC Preclean

When asked about recent developments, Mr Weissenbrunner immediately refers to TRC Preclean, which automates the precleaning of wooden cracks and faults.

"This modular machine is particularly interesting in terms of reducing labour costs. Until recently, unprocessed floor sections had to be pre-cleaned manually before defects were repaired. This is no longer the case because TRC Preclean works with the aid of a scanner developed in-house that scans defects. It then evaluates the data and processes these areas so that the end result looks natural."

Photo – Wintersteiger

Focused on damage & surface treatment!

TRC WOOD COSMETICS The TRC concept stands for „wood cosmetics“ in unprecedented quality, with enormous potential for economization. Pre-cleaning, repair, and design of wooden surfaces can be fully automated with the TRC Preclean, TRC 1500, and TRC Manufactory trio of solutions. Whether semi-automatic or fully automatic, WINTERSTEIGER has in terms of „defects repair & timber cosmetics“ the appropriate solution!

For more information: www.wintersteiger.com/trcWINTERSTEIGER AG A-4910 Ried, Dimmelstraße 9 Tel.: +43 7752 919-0, woodtech@wintersteiger.at

Wooden floorboards are seldom perfect, if ever, so you have two choices. You either just accept those shortcomings or you eliminate them. If you opt for the latter, filling machines offer an option. Parquet makers use these machines very often on their production lines to eliminate gnarls or cracks in wood.

Such machines are fairly popular, as is evident from the testimony of Wintersteiger. Filling machines are very often deployed on full production lines covering the entire process from the bare plank to packing the elements and preparing them for shipment.

The trend here is to render manual work as superfluous as possible. It all starts with an examination of the raw planks. These are scanned with increasingly refined sensors and cameras and the software then calculates where special wood filler is needed and how much. This scanning certainly works more precisely than a human eye because it also exposes literally invisible shortcomings in the wood. The ‘gaps’ are filled using diverse methods, but manufacturers strive mainly for the highest possible production capacity with a minimum of operators plus a high degree of ecological awareness.

Ecological awareness

The exact details of the filling process would make a long story, but in short you can say that the machine injects wood filler paste into the flawed areas in the spots determined in advance. The injecting is done under pressure whereby the software has calculated precisely and in advance how much pressure and how much filler paste are needed. The latter yields vast benefits as compared to a manual operation. This process avoids any surplus, since you know in advance exactly how much product is necessary. That’s precisely one of the conditions for ecological awareness in enterprise.

CSP Engineering

CSP Engineering developed PAR-Filler ®, a unique filling machine, specifically built for the parquet industry, which optimizes your production process in many ways. The PAR-Filler® Series currently consists of three models. PAR-Filler Mono, equipped with 1 applicator, is well suited for small to medium-sized productions. PAR-Filler Duo, with its 2 applicators in line, is very suitable for medium production capacities. PAR-Filler Duplex, the most powerful, has two filling lines, which work independently and can fill wooden floorboards of the same or different product qualities and/ or colors. Beside these 3 models we have developed the technology to fill wide to very wide panels. Don’t hesitate to contact us for your specific solution. A single operator can control and monitor the PAR-Filler ® and receives targeted training and all necessary tools from CSP. The supply and removal of planks and floors are crucial in the entire production process. That is why we increasingly offer automation with our filling machines that provides this for a smooth running of the whole process. Cosmetiwood® is a wood filler developed for the PAR-Filler®, but now used for so many more purposes. It has fantastic properties, is available in 9 standard colors and is ready to use. - Color can be changed quickly in the machine and the loss of filler is minimal. - Easy to use and apply manually - Professional wood filler that behaves like wood - It’s a water-based wood filler with a drying time of 24-48h - Perfect adhesion to the wood, no shrinking - Beautiful absorption of colors & oils - Excellent sanding properties

Contact us for your ideal formula! +32(0)14 37 77 52 / info@csp-engineering.com