March 25, 1917 



Hardwood Record — Veneer & Panel Section 



25 



Warehousing Veneers 



Proper Protection of Thin Stuff in Storage Essential — ^System in 



Flooring Business 



HILE A CONSIDERABLE PERCENTAGE of the 

 veneers manufactured are shipped direct from 

 the mill to the user, a very large quantity fails 

 to move in that way. And the higher the 

 class of the product the slower the movement usually is. 

 This is explained by the fact that greater care is used 

 in the selection of fancy veneers, and the consumer takes 

 his time in looking over the stock of the manufacturer. 

 This also accounts for the prominence of the jobber in 

 the handling of fine face veneers, as his work enables the 

 user to inspect every piece of material he buys, instead 

 of purchasing a flitch on the strength of the sample. 



There are ups and downs in the veneer trade, of 

 course, and sometimes production runs ahead, some- 

 times behind consumption. Most manufacturers of 

 sawed and sliced stock equalize the peaks and valleys of 

 the sales curve by putting into storage the excess of 

 one period's production, so as to take care of the increase 

 in the demand at another. 



All of these things emphasize one thing above all 

 others; namely, that proper storage of veneers is an im- 

 portant feature of the situation. Inasmuch as the prod- 

 uct must be held in the warehouse at one or more points 

 along the way, its condition will necessarily depend 

 largely upon the facilities provided for storing. If the 

 facilities are good, the material will remain in good shape; 

 if they are poor, then it is subject to damage, and either 

 the final user will have trouble in restoring it to the 

 proper condition, or the handler will suffer a loss of value. 

 One class of manufacturers who have learned how im- 

 portant storage facilities are is the flooring trade. The 

 maker of fine flooring realizes better than anybody else 

 can tell him that the success of his business depends 

 almost entirely upon the condition in which his prod- 

 uct reaches the job, and he doesn't take any chances. 

 He pays just as much attention to the design and equip- 

 ment of his warehouse as he does to the manufacture of 

 the flooring itself, and he sees that such features as tem- 

 perature and hum.idity are properly taken care of there. 

 Then he is able to sell flooring with the assurance that 

 it has left his warehouse 1 00 per cent right, so that the 

 chances of its making good in the work are at least 

 normal. 



Even under these conditions it is not always an easy 

 matter to make every flooring job a success. If the 

 contractor is not so painstaking as the manufacturer, the 

 material is likely to be exposed to the weather, with the 

 result that after it has been in place for a while it will 

 pull apart. That is why some of the leading flooring 

 manufacturers have their own warehouses in the more 

 important markets, so that they can watch and safeguard 



the movement of the material until it is delivered at the 

 building where it is to be laid. 



Of course, it can be suggested, the flooring manufac- 

 turer must be careful, because his product is cut to size, 

 and variations in dimensions due to too much or too 

 little moisture will immediately make a difference; 

 whereas veneers are usually sold random sizes, and it is 

 up to the user to deal with the drying question in his own 

 way after he gets the stock. 



That is true; but the day of "caveat emptor " is said 

 to have passed by. The user nowadays is given all the 

 protection and co-operation the seller can afford him, 

 not because the seller is naturally unselfish and sacrific- 

 ing, but because he wants the buyer to come back for 

 more. This is behind the efforts of the flooring man to 

 see that his material is right, not only at the factory but 

 on the job; and it would seem that the least the veneer 

 man could do w^ould be to have facilities for storing his 

 veneers that would give them a good start in life, and 

 would put them into the hands of the user in reason- 

 ably good condition. 



Some consumers of veneers have their own driers. 

 Most of them have not. The small manufacturer, who 

 is laying his own veneers, and who buys in less than car- 

 load lots, wouldn't know what to do with a drier if he 

 had one, because his consumption is not great enough 

 to warrant this expense. He buys veneers that are sup- 

 posed to be dry, and if they are not dry, then he pays 

 the penalty for his confidence. The veneer man may 

 have dried the stock after it was manufactured, and 

 may show that his system is to do that thing; but can 

 he show a clean bill of health after the drying process is 

 lished? 

 When the veneers, following the drying, go into stock, 

 are they sufficiently protected? Are they kept in a room 

 which is heated to a certain temperature, and main- 

 tained at that temperature? Is the humidity adjusted, 

 so that the material will take up no more moisture, and 

 lose none? In short, are precautions taken to preserve 

 the condition of dryness and consequent suitability, se- 

 cured as a feature of the manufacturing process? Or is 

 everything left to chance? 



The writer has been in veneer warehouses where pro- 

 tection from the outside atmosphere amounted to little 

 or nothing. The buildings have been enclosed, so that 

 no rain can get in, it is true; but they are open to such 

 an extent that the air in the warehouse is substantially 

 that of the exterior. The same condition as to tempera- 

 ture, moisture content, etc., prevail inside as out, 

 simply because no special effort has been made to make 

 them otherwise. 



