Abstract
This study assessed the moulding, drilling, turning, sanding, and routing properties of seven plantation-grown hardwood species from southeast Australia to evaluate their potential as a resource for the manufacture of high quality furniture and furnishings. Eucalyptus grandis, Eucalyptus saligna, Corymbia maculata, Eucalyptus camaldulensis, Eucalyptus sideroxylon, Eucalyptus cladocalyx, and Eucalyptus globulus were machined using different tools, and the surface quality obtained was visually graded. A sanding sequence of 100-150 grit produced satisfactory surfaces for furniture manufacturing for most studied species. Usually, a feeding direction against the rotational direction of the tool showed best results and reduced incidence of corner breakout when routing. Overall, high-density plantationgrown Australian hardwood species performed well during machining trials with the use of appropriate parameters and cutting tools allowing overcoming some typical processing difficulties for some species. The data obtained within this study will allow optimising the machining process of plantation-grown wood in Australia and increase value from the current plantation resource.
Highlights
Most of the furniture manufactured in Australia is made from eucalypt timber species (Ozarska 1997)
This research confirmed that high-density plantation-grown Australian hardwoods can perform well during moulding, drilling, sanding, and routing processes when the appropriate tools and parameters are used, as demonstrated during the moulding and drilling trials
Turning trials showed to be difficult for Eucalyptus cladocalyx, Eucalyptus camaldulensis and Corymbia maculata from one location
Summary
Most of the furniture manufactured in Australia is made from eucalypt timber species (Ozarska 1997). The properties of wood produced from intensively managed trees associated with short-rotation harvest are quite different from wood produced in natural stands (Bendtsen 1978). Those properties are important in order to assess the ability in processing raw material into products of different shapes and dimensions, with good quality surfaces. The present project was designed to evaluate the potential of seven Australian plantation-grown eucalypts as a resource for the manufacture of high quality furniture and furnishings and to optimise the processing methods. Following planing trials (Belleville et al 2016), the machining trial focused on moulding, drilling, sanding, turning and routing properties of seven young eucalypts growing under short rotation planting conditions with a view to provide recommendations on how these species should be machined to obtain high quality machining performance
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