Making planks of wood is a process that begins with felling a tree and involves transforming the trunk into usable lumber sections, primarily at a sawmill.
The Process of Making Wood Planks
The transformation of a standing tree into a plank of wood involves several key steps, starting from the forest floor and moving to a specialized facility called a sawmill.
Starting from the Tree
The initial stages take place where the tree is located:
- Cutting Down the Tree: The process begins with felling a mature tree.
- Cutting the Trunk into Logs: Once the tree is down, the main trunk is cut into lengths that are manageable for transportation and processing. These sections are known as logs.
Moving to the Sawmill
Transport is necessary to move the raw material to the processing facility:
- Transporting Logs: The logs are then transported from the forest or logging site to a sawmill.
Processing at the Sawmill
The core transformation happens at the sawmill:
- Splitting into Flitches: At the sawmill, the logs are split into flitches. As defined in the reference, a flitch is a large plank or section of wood that is unfinished.
- Method of Splitting: The specific way a log is split into flitches can vary. How it is split will depend on the type of tree and what it will be used for. Different sawing patterns (like plain-sawn, quarter-sawn, or rift-sawn) produce different grain patterns and plank properties, although the reference specifically mentions splitting into flitches as the primary step.
These flitches are the initial, often large, sections from which finished planks are typically further processed, by cutting them down to specific dimensions and potentially drying or surfacing them.
