3530 Chapter 28 



In the proposed operation, 3300 Mbf of rough, green, random-width and 

 length No. 2 Common 4/4 red oak lumber is purchased annually at a delivered 

 price of $210/Mbf. Each Mbf of lumber yields about 1,000 square feet of 

 parquet flooring 5/16-inch thick and 9ys inches square (fig. 28-16). About 31 

 percent of the lumber weight is converted to parquet squares (fig. 28-17 bottom), 

 which sell — unfinished — for $0.65/square foot. 



28-16 $3.2 MILLION— MANUFACTURE OF PARALLEL- 

 LAMINATED VENEER FOR FURNITURE FRAME STOCK'« 



The increasing cost of hardwood lumber makes alternative materials attractive 

 to furniture manufacturers. One such material which appears to lower the cost of 

 producing furniture parts is hardwood laminated- veneer-lumber (LVL). LVL 

 panels could be produced in a facility similar to a softwood plywood plant. 

 Alternative panel configurations would be targeted for specific furniture applica- 

 tions, based on the extent to which the surfaces and edges of particular furniture 

 parts are exposed (visible) in the furniture. See figure 22-16 for illustration of 

 furniture frame stock and section 22-5 for additional data on properties of LVL 

 frame stock. In addition to cost savings to the furniture manufacturer, LVL 

 offers increased structural reliability because of its more uniform properties. A 

 mix of red oak panels for exposed and unexposed applications appears to offer an 

 LVL manufacturer the best opportunity to maximize the value added to the mix 

 of high and low quality log input. The LVL plant should be located in an area 

 capable of supplying about 4.2 million board feet of veneer-quality and 9.7 

 million board feet of sawlog-quality red oak and yellow-poplar logs per year. 

 Key statistics for the proposed enterprise are as follows: 



Capital investment $3, 162,000 



Operating cost, annual $6,570,600 



Sales, annual $7,200,000 



Net profit, annual (before income tax) $629,400 



Return on sales 9 percent 



Return on investment 20 percent 



Employees 69 



Energy requirement 



Electrical 100 kWh/Mbf 



Wood residue for process steam 6.8 x 10^ Btu/Mbf 



These data are based on single-shift operation, 325 days per year, with daily 

 output of 29 Mbf of LVL selling at an average price of $800/Mbf fob mill; daily 

 log consumption of red oak and yellow-poplar to yield this amount of product 

 should be about 45 Mbf, International !/4-inch log scale. 



'^Abstracted from Hoover et al. (198 la). 



