In recent times an emphasis has been placed on producers of structural grade timber to ensure their products are meeting the stress grade claimed and that compliance is capable of being verified.
Calibre Equipment Ltd was established in 2005 to meet the increasing demand for quality assurance (QA) test machines to verify structural timber. Amendments to New Zealand timber grading standards began in 2005 and were finalised and cited into the building code in April 2007. The amended standards require structural timber properties to be verified by random sampling and testing on a QA machine.
Currently, 30 of Calibre’s STFE5 QA machines are installed throughout New Zealand and Australia, one of which is used by an accredited timber testing laboratory. Most installations have been in New Zealand to date but, according to the company, demand from Australia is growing strongly.
New Zealand verification standards and legislation have now been in place for couple of years and Australia has recently made moves to enhance its structural timber verification systems. A draft best practice guideline for the verification of timber properties was produced by A3P in January 2008 but has yet to be formally published as a standard. Although the standard has yet to be released, much of the industry has begun implementing verification programs and need a four-point bending testing machine to do this.
“Calibre Equipment’s STFE5 timber tester has been tried and tested in the New Zealand industry which makes it a logical choice for Australian mills,” said Hayden Frew, general manager.
Calibre Equipment also provides an annual calibration service of QA machines and has a client base of about 40 sawmills throughout New Zealand.
In 2006 Calibre started research and development work on its Ecoustic Board Grader, a timber grading machine that uses a combination of density and acoustic wave velocity to determine the stiffness (MOE) of timber.The first machine was installed into a mill just out of Christchurch, New Zealand, at the end of 2007 with further installations having been completed throughout New Zealand in 2008.
“Our first installation in Australia occurred last month,” said Frew.
“One of the grader’s benefits is that it can be used in the green mill which means the stiffness of a board can be determined for suitability at an early stage of processing. Therefore further processing costs such as kiln drying, gauging and treatment can be targeted to timber with a high probability of making the grade and low stiffness boards rejected early,” he said.
“Reduction of downgrade behind the machine stress grader in the dry mill provides huge cost savings making for a very fast payback on investment.
“New Zealand standards have allowed this innovative technology to be used as the sole means of grading machine stress graded timber and a draft standard is being considered by the Australian Standards Committee for the same to be allowed in Australia,” he said.
“For now in Australia a traditional mechanical grader is still required to be able to produce MGP grades but an Ecoustic Grader can be installed in the green mill as a pre-sort to minimise downgrade of the final product in the dry mill which will hugely increase production efficiency and provide cost savings,” Frew said.
Calibre Equipment Ltd is an engineering and technology solutions company specialising in timber grading and testing equipment. Calibre’s team is committed to providing a high level of personalised service to ensure customers obtain maximum benefit from their equipment. The Calibre team has specialised knowledge in structural timber grading, timber testing and verification and are industry experts in this field.
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Calibre Equipment Ltd, PO Box 2783, Wellington, New Zealand. Ph: +64 4 3800032. Fax: +64 4 3800074. Email: [email protected] Web: www.calibre-equipment.com
