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Forest Products Loborotory Develops Promising Poper-Covered Wood

Paper-covered, lor,-grade wood shor,vs promise of tlging a good siding material, according to tests made at the Iiorest Products Laboratory, Madison, Wis., the U. S. Department t-,f Agriculture recently announced.

Reiearch at this Forest Service laboratory shorvs that lorv-grade lumber covered with resin-impregnated paper can be uied not only for siding, but for boards for house trim, cabinet partitions, shelving, paneling, and signboards. Similarly, over-laid planks have been successfully r-rsed a_9 bleachers in the University of Wisconsin's Camp Randall Stadium at Nladison. The overlaid planks have come through two football seasons and exposttre to winter snows, spring rains, and summer heat in as good condition as highgrade planks used as a control i.n this experiment.

' The paper cover tlakes possible the use of cheaper lum- ber. It masks such lumber defects as knots, pitch pockets, and splits. In tests the paper glued to pine reduced the lateral srvelling 25 to 40%. When glued on oak, one layer of paper overlay reduced swelling 20/o; a double layer reduced sn'elling 35/o. The use of resin-impregnated paper makes the painting of coarse and defective lumber easy.

On the other hand, paper-covered wood cannot be resawed or planed. Thus its commercial use will be limited to finishedproducts. Furthermore since defects are covered, a user may hit weak spots in the lumber rvhen driving nails.

This use of low-grade wood is but one of many projects carried out at the Forest Products Laboratory to find ways of using cull trees and low-grade species. At present lowgrade species are growing faster than they are being used. By finding new uses which make these trees worth the cost of gettinrthem out of the woods, foresters are making room for'the growing of still better trees.