Bright Wood's Oregon operations are focused on secondary lumber remanufacturing. The plants rip, cut, fingerjoint, mould, laminate, etc., lumber to add value to it.

Ripping: The rip sawyer evaluates both sides of each inbound lumber board. He or she looks for characteristics like knots, pitch pockets, blue stain, etc. The rip sawyer uses a laser or shadow line to visually map out the best rips on each board. Large, clear pieces of wood are more valuable than smaller ones with visible characteristics. Due to the variety and scope of Bright Wood's product line, every piece of wood exiting the rip saw will be incorporated into a quality product.

Cutting: Bright Wood founder, Ken Stovall, once said that a cutter handles more money in a day than a bank teller. So it is no surprise that cutters are some of the most highly trained and respected people at Bright Wood. Their job is to crosscut the ripped boards. It sounds simple enough, but they must balance the need to make the most valuable cuts with customer demand for certain lengths. Bright Wood has developed several unique tools to help cutters quickly make the right decision.

(Bright Wood's optimizing plant uses a different approach to crosscutting. Markers use crayons to mark the beginning and end of each board's characteristics while dictating every characteristic's name into a microphone. The board then travels away from the marker to a computer-controlled saw whose program calculates the best cut based on value and the order file. This system was nominated for a Computerworld Smithsonian award in the "Environment, Energy, and Agriculture" category in both 1996 and 1997 because it optimizes wood usage while increasing safety).

Fingerjointing: Bright Wood purchased its first fingerjoint machine in 1985. Today the company has 23 fingerjoint machines; three of them built in-house to suit the company's speed and quality requirements. Fingerjointing is the process of cutting fingers into each end of small blocks and gluing the blocks together end-to-end to form one long piece of wood. Fingerjointed material is preferred to solid in many applications because it is less expensive and it can be structurally stronger. The other big advantage of fingerjointing is it creates a sellable product out of small wood pieces that would have been burned as waste 25 years ago.

Moulding: Watching a familiar base or crown moulding being made on a Bright Wood moulder is one of the most interesting stops for a first-time visitor. In goes a square or rectangular shaped piece of pine, fir, or MDF and out of the moulder comes a distinctly shaped piece of trim. The shape of each moulding is called its profile and each moulding plant has its own grinding room to ensure shaping precision. Very few Bright Wood moulders are stand-alone machines. Instead moulders are linked to other machinery by transfer belts so sophisticated products like window sash can be moulded into a shape, cut on the ends to fit together in a window, and moulded again with a finish profile in a matter of minutes.

Laminating: The lamination process is basically gluing two or more pieces of wood together. The most obvious reason is to build a wider and larger component using small pieces. Like fingerjoint, laminated product is less likely to warp and it can be stronger than solid. Lamination is also used to apply a clear veneer or other surface to a fingerjointed and/or laminated base. The result is a veneered product with the appearance and weight of solid clear wood without the price tag.

And much more. Hopefully now you have a better picture of Bright Wood and secondary wood remanufacturing. This is just a sampling of some of the steps Bright Wood people use in manufacturing quality millwork products.

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