How Hardwood Flooring is Made
True solid hardwood flooring can be produced in a variety of different kinds of wood. By using the term “solid”, it means just that; that the entire strip or plank is one-hundred percent of a certain type of wood. The most commonly installed hardwood flooring over the years has been red oak.
There is also walnut, maple, pine, pecan, bamboo, cherry, and sometimes even cork. While the exact manner that hardwood flooring is created over the decades and centuries has changed with technology and the progress of machinery, the process has remained quite similar in many ways.
Wood, as most of us may have learned as far back as early childhood, comes from trees. Firstly, it should be noted that it is only a myth that higher quality wood is produced from bigger large-diameter trees, and not from trees that are smaller in diameter. The suggestion that wood from smaller trees is weaker is incorrect.
Research has proven that strong high-quality wood may be produced from both big and small trees.
To make hardwood flooring, trees are chopped down and, by cutting with a saw, are divided into logs. The logs are taken to a manufacturing plant, where several different steps are followed to develop hardwood flooring’s “beginnings”. The most popular is a procedure referred to as “rotary peel”.
The logs are boiled in water. A rotary cutting machine then peels the log in a circular manner, much in the way someone may peel an orange with a knife. The outer layer of the log is detached and the machine “goes around again”, slicing off (or peeling) the next layer from the log.
Another way to understand the process is by observing that “rings” are being removed from the log.
Trees grow a new “ring of wood” approximately once a year. When a tree is chopped down, exposing its “inside”, those rings are clearly visible on either end of the log. During wood production, those rings are detached, much in the way we would remove one sheet of paper towel from a roll hanging in the kitchen.
The rotary peeling machine continues around again until the log is almost gone.
If you can imagine peeling the entire rind off the orange in one swoop, then flattening it, you would have a sheet of rind. On a much larger scale, those sheets (or rings of wood) are peeled from the tree, creating multiple sheets (or boards) referred to as “veneers”.
The remaining steps that are taken to arrive at a batch of hardwood flooring strips or planks are fairly simple to understand. Sheets of veneer are sliced with a saw into strips, as if strips of bacon that are sliced from a pork loin.
Those slices may be several inches wide. The veneer’s strips are sanded to create evenly shaped lengthy planks of hardwood. Once the strips are cut and smoothed, they may receive additional treatments such as glazing and polishing.
Just as humans exist in many different races and colors throughout the world, trees also grow in a wide variety of types and colors. Much of those attributes from the tree remain visible to the eye when that final hardwood flooring is produced, and then set on the ground for all to see.
Mira Floors and Interiors is Greater Vancouver’s premiere floor and window covering specialist for both home owners and commercial spaces. Mr. James Alisch and his team can assist in all aspects of floor installations, carpet, hardwood, laminate, vinyl and tile. For further information about your flooring options go to Mira Floors and Interiors
