An association promotes its hardwoods

NE OF the organizations rvithin the hardwood industrv that has been doing an active job promoting its products is the Appalachian Hardwood Manufacturers, Inc., that is based in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Two of their promotions this year have been focused on (l) selling fur' niture manufacturers on new uses for knotty poplar and oak as furniture face wood materials and (2) involv' ing young furniture designers thru design competitions with hardwoods and inducing them to use hardwoods in their designs.

holes. o'These character markings," he stated, 'oare beautiful additions to a desigrer's application. No substitute material can match the grandeur of nature's own stroke."

Furniture commissioned by Appalachian Hardwood Manutacturers. utilizing knotty poplar and oak, is being shown to manufacturers and desiglers to demonstrate these species' beauty and versatility, according to Howard Bennett, exec vp. of AHMI.

He states, "With the increase in demand over the past year, lumber suppliers have had a difficult time meet-

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These two promotions ore oimed ol monufocturers, o big hordwood morkel, ond lhe young people studying furniture design . . . both oim for greoter hordwood useoge . . one effort wos prompted by hordwood supply problems.

yield lumber that contains more sound knots than we've ever turned out before."

YARIABIE-length tyr ing table is the design of Oavid Downing, a sophomore in Georgia Tech's School of Industrial Design. Executed in Appalachian Oak, the center pedestal rises to form a triple panel work table.

o'Furniture utilizing lumber that contains sound knots has been sold for years in pine and maple," Bennett states. "We feel that the stronger oak and poplar can also be used in this manner." To prove their point, the Appalachian lumbermen have built three pieces of furniture showing the beauty and character of these grades of lumber.

The design competition AHMI sponsored for students at Georgia Tech is the culmination of a yearJong program sponsored by the group which was programmed to acquaint the students with Appalachian hardwoods and their application in modern furniture manufacturing techniques.

In promoting knotty poplar and oak, Andrew Gennett, AHMI president, notes that, "These plentiful and beautiful species of hardwoods are perfect for the casual and early American styles so popular today.'Ihe character marks found in these grades of poplar and oak also make them just right for country French and English designs as well as Mediterranean and Spanish period adaptations that have been setting sales records for the past several seasons."

Gennett went on to explain that fuller utilization of the yield in hardwood has produced abundant inventories of oak and poplar containing sound knots, bird pecks and worm ing orders. With a predicted sales increase over the next two years, we lumbermen must find new methods of increasing production and yield." Bennett noted that they had already embarked on a program that will make more lumber available to manufacturers. f)escribing the program, Bennett explained that Appalachian oak and yellow poplar, the two most plentiful species to come out of the mountains, were being more fully utilized. "We are using more of the tree," he sayg "Now, the saw mill cuts the entire tree from the trunk to the very top. And, in some cases smaller trees and the top third or more mature trees

Included in the programs was a trip to a lumber stand in the Appalachian mountains, a tour of a working saw mill and a look at a furniture manufacturing facility.

According to Bennet! "Our association represents lumbermen who harvest and manufacture lumber that is used to a large degree by the furniture industry. We are trying to show these young designers that natural materials are, in the long run, the finest materials they can employ in their creations. We also wanted to point out that our forests are producing more and more lumber every year without jeopardizing the future supply of hardwoods. We are harvesting less than half the new growth of timber every year."