From the harvesting of logs to manufacturing and delivering, TOP Wood takes great interest in every process to obtain the fine panels to our customers. With more than 10 QC working in the field, selecting, measuring and controlling, we keep the inferior sheets off our load and make sure every sheets we deliver is as promised.
The first step of making plywood is peeling veneers and that includes core veneer and face and back veneer. Most frequently used logs to peel core veneer is Chinese poplar and eucalyptus, they’re peeled in certain sizes/thicknesses, dried and graded for different uses. Finally, the veneers are stacked up by means of depression stacking machines become the core. While imported hardwoods like Russian birch, maple, oak, okoume etc are peeled into thin veneers for face and back. Here goes the first process of grading and quality control.
In this process, the adhesives are very important. To achieve good attaching ability, the ratio of glue and flours is crucial and tricky, even the most experienced workers with years practicing need to test over and over again to make sure their process in the chain doesn’t ruin the whole process. This phase starts with the gluing of the surface of some veneers. Then what is called the “mattress” is formed. The latter is obtained by crosswise superimposition of the odd veneers (without glue) with the even ones (with glue).
Cold pressing is the pre-press before hot press to pre-shape the core and let time work on it’s magic to bond the core veneers. Once the defects will show on the surface, like gaps, overlaps, garbage etc. They will Repair it manually to ensure clean the garbage for hot press.
Hot pressing in plywood producing is like where the dough turns into bread in cooking. It has irreversible results, thus the previous repairs after cold press is important. Also as it’s irreversible, the essence of time, temperature and pressure requires huge amount of care and attention. But it’s all worth it because the loss would huge if any factor isn’t controlled properly.
After the core is hot pressed, the veneer core is not ready for direct laminating face and back veneers. China plywood usually laminates thin hardwood veneer of 0.2mm to 0.3mm, even 0.4mm is rare, so the the platform has to be extremely flat, consistent, and with no open defects. This is the process to make sure of that, use putty to fill the gaps, fell off knots, missing woods etc. Then both faces of the panel are sanded and gauged in order to eliminate superficial defects and get the required thickness.
Plywood is applied for furniture, home improvements, cabinets and DIY jobs etc, so besides strength it also requires nice attractive appearance. Rare hardwoods like maple, birch, merranti are precious and expensive. We peel them in thin veneers, perfectly kept the authenticity yet and make it looks beautiful and generous . Then laminate it on the calibrated and sanded veneer core, cold press them and hot press them.
At this stage the panel is squared up in the required sizes by means of high speed circular saws in order to obtain a perfect orthogonal item. So the edges need to be cut straight and smooth, and mildly adjust the surface defects if there is and polish the board in good finish. For fancy plywood, it would be treated with more care and attention.
After the plywood is done, inspecting is important. We made a promise to our customers and we intend to fulfill it 100%. So after first QC, there’s second QC to check every sheets is inspected for it’s appearance and core to ensure the sheets with defects away from our customers. it’s really important to do our best to keep the defective sheets off the pack and delivery the perfect products to our customers.
Good products deserve good packing like the wraps of chocolate always looks shinny. And in this business, good packing means safe packing more than pretty packing. MDF or plywood sheets on bottom to top to protect surface sheets, plastics wraps to keep vapor and rain outside, thick cartons against rough handling and steel straps in all different direction to keep the pallet in one piece. Print the shipping marks for each pallets with counting numbers for tracking back in the future. The work is not done yet, our work is only done when the cargo are delivered to our customers hands intact and the final users use them happily, then our promise is properly fulfilled. All in all, every process is important and every person contributes irreplaceable value to the final products. We’re serious about our products and our people are trust worthy.
