STRUCTURAL FLAKEBOARD RESEARCH 

 AND DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM 



More intensive use of forest residue has long been the goal of forest managers. 

 An estimated 9 billion cubic feet of residue is left in the woods annually. Of this 

 amount, an estimated 6 billion cubic feet could be converted to particleboard, flake- 

 board, pulp, fuel, and other uses. Increased use of residues would greatly extend the 

 timber supply and generally improve forest management. 



Converting forest residues to structural-grade flakeboard has been under consider- 

 ation for many years. However, several problems remained unsolved. The flaking 

 machines available were designed for use at mills and were too cumbersome and too easily 

 knocked out of tolerance to be used at logging sites. Residues other than cull logs were 

 too bulky to haul to the mills economically. Trucks would overflow with small, crooked 

 stems, limbs, and chunks when loaded to only a small fraction of weight capacity. 



A concept that had shown promise in the laboratory was the breaking of residues into 

 small pieces called "f ingerlings , " then flaking the fingerlings with a small laboratory 

 flaking machine, and finally manufacturing the flakes into flakeboard. Theoretically, 

 reside could be converted to fingerlings on the logging site and transported to the mill 

 much more economically than the raw residues. Whether the fingerling concept would 

 work on a commercial scale remained to be tested. 



Early in 1973, the Forest Service began a research and development program to con- 

 vert residues into structural flakeboard. Three Experiment Stations, four Divisions 

 of the Washington Office, and the Forest Products Laboratory were involved (fig. 1). 



FOREST SERVICE R&D PROGRAM — 

 STRUCTURAL FLAKEBOARD FROM FOREST RESIDUES 





FLAKEBOARD 



n 



PERFORMANCE 

 REQUIREMENTS 

 5/73 



R&D 





INITIATION 





3/7 3 





RES 1 DUE 



u 



RESOURCE 





ASSESSMENT 

 & HARVEST 







TECHNOLOGY 





5/76 



FLAKEBOARD 

 DEVELOPMENT 

 i PERFORMANCE 

 8/75 



ECONOMIC & 

 TECHNICAL 

 FEASIBILITY 

 ANALYS I S 

 11/76 



TECHNOLOGY 

 TRANSFER 

 11/77 



I 



STRUCTURAL 

 FLAKEBOARDS 

 ON MARKET 

 11/77 



Figure 1. — Forest Service program to develop structural flakeboard from forest residue. 



1 



