MINUTES OF WELLINGTON BRANCH TRAINING AND NETWORKING EVENT
held on Wednesday, 18th October 2017 at 9:30am for a 10:00am start at Juken New Zealand Limited 26 Norfolk Road, MASTERTON
Training Event:
Welcome: Richard London – Branch Secretary
Attendance: Leon Smith (Kapiti Coast District Council), Craig Watson (Kapiti Coast District Council) Kerry Lockyer (Winstone Wall Boards), Kelly Saint (Masterton District Council), Linda Fairbrother (Masterton District Council), Lori Marevich (Masterton District Council), Jeanette Orr (Carterton District Council), Murray Usmar (MBIE), Gary Higham (MBIE), Dean Southey (Masterton District Council), Leyla Paine (Upper Hutt City Council), Richard London (Facio Ltd), Steven Williams (Carterton District Council) Lynn Dick (BOINZ)
Apologies: Steve Kallahar (Wellington City Council), Barry Harlen (Wellington City Council), Peter Burnet (Wellington City Council), Walter Hill (BOINZ), Tom Edhouse (BRANZ), Maggie Kay (Wellington City Council), Bruce Symon (Realsure Ltd), Peter Laurenson (MBIE), Michael Portenes (Realsure Ltd), George Mason (Porirua City Council), Rob Tierney (Holmes Farsight), Richard Nation (NPI), Adrian Cullen (South Wairarapa District Council), Chris Scott (Wellington City Council), Katharine Wheeler (Kapiti Coast District Council), Peter Webb (Mainland Claims), Matt Grant (MBIE), Natalie Hardy (Holmes Farsight), Mike Reedy (MBIE), James Firestone (NZFS), Jack Lyons (BRANZ), Wayne Goodfellow (Fire and Emergency NZ), Craig Ewart (Hutt City Council), Bruce Glasgow (Artisan), Brad Hislop (MBIE). Nirav Patel (Vishnu Fire Safety), Derek Kerite (Hutt City Council).
Minutes and Matters Arising: Postponed
The previous meeting minutes have been made available on the BOINZ Website.
As the training event concluded at 2:30pm the formal meeting was postponed until the next meeting November 2017.
Correspondence In/Out: Discussed informally during training event
• The BOINZ Conference is in Dunedin 13-16 May 2018.
• 50th Anniversary this year, members were encouraged to invite colleagues to join BOINZ and take advantage of the levy waiver this year.
General Business: Not discussed
Site Visit: JNL Laminated Veneer Lumber Mill - 10am to 12:30pm
Figure 1: Main entrance to Juken New Zealand
Members arrived at Juken New Zealand Limited on an overcast day ready for our fabulous tour. We were met by Vaughn Evans and Geordie Wilson who took members trough to the onsite training room for a plant safety briefing and process presentation.
Members learned about the way logs are turned into veneer lumber and how the trees are harvested. Vaughn gave an overview of the facility and quality assurance systems in place to ensure consistency of product. This interactive session gave a hands-on opportunity to hear and see how the plant runs and is maintained - the Mill has been running continually for 24hrs per day since 1991.
Figure 2: Site safety briefing and process presentation held in the onsite training room. Members learned about the Mill and the processes used to create laminated veneer lumber (LVL)
Members learned that the Mill produces a number of different wood products, including J-Frame and solid timber flooring. It is self-sufficient in terms of heat generation for steam drying and also uses heat recovery equipment to operate it’s 11 solid timber drying kilns.
General Plant Statistics:
• Plant size – The mill and processing facilities covers 10Ha (approx. 20 rugby fields)
• 3-4500 tons of logs processed, produces approximately 10,000 cubic meters of finished product (depending on the product line).
• Trees are harvested sustainably on a 30-year rotation – Ngaumu forest is 17,000Ha and all the timber is brought to the Masterton JNL mill. There is another mill in Kaitaia that produces Tri-board flooring. The two mills require 54,000Ha of forest to maintain the 30-year harvest cycle.
• Initially the mill was commissioned in 1991 with 850 staff. The plant has now grown in size, integrating newer automated machinery and now requires just 217 to run. It runs 24hr per day.
• Heat and steam for the plant is produced from an onsite 10MW boiler that is powered by offcuts and wood waste.
• Onsite treatment capabilityH1.2 to H3.2
• Products produced
o Solid timber for the Japanese market
o Solid veneer timber
o Ply sheet
o J-Frame 90/140/190/240
o Solid timber flooring.
• Produced for the local market (approx. 3%) and the rest exported to Japan 3 to 4 ships per year arrive in Wellington to take product back to Japan.
• One ship will take between 5-8000m3 of finished product.
Figure 3: Outside the log yard - between 3-4500 tonnes of logs may be onsite at any one time, resulting in 10,000m3 of finished product.
Figure 4: Members walk past two rugby fields worth of peeled veneer ready for moisture processing and drying.
Figure 5: Log peeler and veneer sorting machine. Veneers are then taken to the drying and moisture testing machine.
Vaughn explained that raw logs are debarked and then ‘boiled’ at 80°C for 8 hrs before being peeled. Logs are nominally cut to 3-meter lengths. The outer 150mm of the log generates sap wood veneers and the inner log denser veneers. Each type is automatically separated to allow for batching.
Figure 6: Members hear about the drying process - Veneers are dried to achieve a 6% moisture content and then tested. If veneers fall outside this range they are reprocessed to bring them into specification. Veneers are then graded and stacked.
Figure 7: Graded veneer sheets are stacked ready for loading into the LVL gluing process.
Members were able to see the huge veneer dryers in action processing dozens of sheets per minute in a German made dryer that was 80m long, 12m wide and 8m high. Heat for the dryer is produced by the onsite 10MW boiler there is also a secondary dryer for sheets that fall outside the 6% moisture specification. JNL is one of the few mills that is able to use all the log veneers. A separate machine processes cross grain veneers and splices sheets together to create full sheets.
Figure 8: Laminate veneers are spliced and bonded to enable 90-degree grain alternation in the laminates.
Members were then moved onto the next process where the laminates are automatically collated and glued to form veneer sheets. Depending on the product, up to 20 veneers maybe collated to form a finished LVL product. Each layer is spray glued and laid up in batches of 40 ready for the cold press. Workers watch the veneers coming off the glue machine to ensure they fit within the size lines prior to pressing.
Figure 9: Veneer sheets are automatically sorted to alternate the grain and laminate veneer strength, then spray glued to ensure uniform thickness of glue. Glue can be changed to suit the product being produced.
Figure 10: Freshly glued laminates are first cold pressed for up to 3 hours. Eight massive hydraulic rams compress the laminates to ensure the glue penetrates the grain for maximum bond strength.
Figure 11: Cold pressed sheet product is readied for loading into the hot press.
Figure 12: The hot press is able to cook and cure 40 sheets of product at a time.
Figure 13: Laminated Veneer Lumber still steaming as it literally comes hot off the Press! Finished sheet is then cut to the required width to form J-Frame LVL – 90mm, 140mm, 190mm, 240mm are currently produced.
Members saw the finished pressed sheets coming out of the hot press and being automatically cut to length as they exited the press. Gordie passed around an offcut which was still hot to touch and steaming. As part of the Quality Assurance programme every 5th pack of wood is tested for glue failure. Batches are held until the test results are returned. All around the plant stacks of processed timber could be seen, labelled and stockpiled and waiting for the next stage in the process.
Figure 14: Finger jointing machine enables J-Frame up to 6m long to be produced.
Figure 15: Mark explains that the glue joint is stronger than the timber, with test pieces bending and snapping the timber before the glue.
Members were then taken around to the finishing area where again huge stacks of LVL and solid timber were seen. Standard 3m length LVL J-Frame is also made into longer lengths by finger jointing the members together. The jointer is an automated machine that first dresses the timber ends, glues and then presses the lengths together. Mark came over to explain how the glue is stronger than the wood and that the 6m long test samples will often bend into an arch and snap in thirds before breaking the glue join.
Figure 16: LVL Lengths are dressed and gauged to ensure excess glue is trimmed and timber is within dimensional tolerances.
Figure 17: A finished packet of 140mm J- Frame laminated veneer lumber, stacked and filleted ready for treatment.
Once the timber is dressed the LVL framing timber is then collated and packaged up into treatment packets. These are further dried in the onsite kilns and then taken across to the timber treatment plant. Members learned that JNL brought the treatment process in house to ensure complete quality control of the timber packets being treated. Dried timber is loaded into the pressure chamber and then placed under a vacuum to remove all the air. The chamber is then flooded with the Boron preservative and pressurised. The chamber remains under pressure for the duration of the treatment cycle. To ensure preservative penetration.
Figure 18: Finished packets of laminated timber are loaded into the pressure vessel for H1.2 Boron treatment.
Figure 19: A freshly treated timber packet is taken out of the pressure vessel to diffuse and equalise for 24hrs. Samples are then taken from every 40th packet for quality assurance testing of the treatment.
Figure 20: Members hear about the onsite treatment process. Behind are packets stacked to equalise treatment penetration (darker yellow colour), in front are packets of gauged product waiting for treatment.
Stock piles of treated timber are not released into the market until all the strength and preservative tests return with a pass result. Packets found to be out of specification are rejected until a batch either side is found to comply. JNL warehouses stock over 5000m3 of timber ready for shipment.
One train load is able to deliver 400m3 at a time from the mill. The damage to railway lines from the Kaikoura earthquake, meant that until recently product had to be trucked to Tauranga or Napier at 45m3 per load – adding over 100 truck journeys per ship berthing.
Figure 21: Members were able to examine bond strength sample sets – here the glue is intact and members could see how the wood veneer has split first.
Back in the Training room members were then introduced to the quality assurance team. Samples and testing are continual. JNL test at a higher rate than currently specified in the various testing standards and do so to ensure their product is suitable for exporting to Japan. Every 5th packet of timber is tested for glue failure (instead of 20th), every 40th treatment charge is tested for penetration (instead of 200th).
The site visit concluded with a reminder that the glue used in the LVL is waterproof, and that traditional penetrometer moisture meter tests will be incorrect. A true reading of the moisture content can only be obtained in each veneer layer. Scion have produced a conversion table (below) with a test procedure for measuring moisture in LVL (this is also available on the JNL website.
Figure 22: Moisture testing procedure for Laminate Veneer Lumber
Further information can be found at http://www.JNL.co.nz
Guest Presentation: David Kernohan - The Hunn Report,15 years on… 1pm Gladstone Vineyard
Members reconvened at the Gladstone Vineyard for a light lunch and guest presentation by David Kernohan.
David is a current Deputy Environment Commissioner for the Environment Court of New Zealand, is also a director of Architecture Diagnostics, a former Director of Wellington Waterfront Limited, a former Dean of the School of Architecture – Wellington and in 2015 he was awarded membership of the New Zealand Order of Merit (MNZM). He is also an author of five books on architecture including Wairarapa Buildings published in 2003. And in his own words ‘for his sins’ is the co-author of the Hunn Report on the weather-tightness of buildings that precipitated the Building Act 2004.
Figure 23: Members eat lunch by the fire, while listening to David recounts the origins of the 1991 Building Act and Building Code, changes that brought in the 2004 Building Act and reviews changes recommended in the Hunn report 15 years on.
The presentation took the form of a recap of the history of the Building Act and Building Code, with observations and intent discussed throughout. Members were able to ask questions and explore aspects of the Act’s development as well as hear how the Hunn report recommendations shaped the 2004 Building Act. David also went into detail around his observations of the Weathertight Homes Resolution Service (WHRS) and his involvement with MBIE at the time it was setup.
He observed that the product certification provisions have not been fully taken up and that independent testing bodies are still required to further this compliance pathway. Members were regaled by anecdotes of project managers causing chaos and the effects of a lack of site supervision, where labour specialisation meant plasterboard was being installed before the roof.
His work in the sector observes that we are still building leaky buildings and that the systemic failure remains. He observed there is still a lack of education, whether it is relevant qualifications in the inspectorate, trades, apprenticeship programmes or building specialists.
As a contentious point he suggested the regulator needed more building scientists rather than policy analysists. This was debated amongst the members as something of a concern if policy was missing the expertise in the subject matter to which policy was being developed. David proposed that the sector needed more building specialists to look at materials, certification and systems.
David spoke of gap in training and a sector void taken up by project managers and quantity surveyors, rather than people that knew what they were doing. He lamented that the inspectorate was an underrated profession when considering the use of graduates and career development opportunities for them and those already in it. Members were able to convey the effort the Institute has gone to in recent years to bring greater professionalism into the sector through its education and training programmes.
Figure 24: Wellington Branch members outside the shop and tasting rooms.
After the presentation members were able to wander the grounds and purchase some of the fine wines available from the Vineyard shop before heading back to the region.
Figure 25: Dressed vines just starting to spread for the 2018 harvest.
Figure 26: Every Vineyard should have a dog... - This is Gladstone’s Maggie May, she guards the wine selection!
Figure 27: Main juicing plant with stacked barrels ready for conditioning and filling.
A copy of the original Hunn report can be downloaded here.
Further information can be found at http://www.gladstonevineyard.co.nz/
Special Thanks to:
• Vaughn Evans – JNL Sales Account Manager, Juken New Zealand Ltd
• Geordie Wilson – JNL - Sales & Marketing Manager, Juken New Zealand Ltd
• David Kernohan – Deputy Environment Commissioner, Co- Author of the Hunn Report
• Our Gladstone Vineyard host - Christine Kernohan (and Maggie May the vineyard dog for keeping an eye on us)
2:30pm - Close of Event
Richard London
Wellington Branch Secretary
Richard.London@facio.co.nz
