UPM-Biofore-Magazine-3-2014-EN

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Versatile material WISA-Spruce plywood is manufactured in the UPM Pellos plywoodmill near Mikkeli, Finland and is made from environmentally certified Nordic Spruce. Spruce plywood is created by gluing together multiple wood veneers, and each layer is attached in an adjacent direction to the previous one. It is a strong and durable material that is easy to work with and surprisingly light. For example, plywood is often used for the load bearing parts of sofas and other furniture, as well as for structural and interior applications in busses and other vehicles. The versatility of WISA-Spruce also oœers bene- fits to distributors. Since it can be used for many diœerent applications, distributors don’t have to carry a wide selection of diœerent products, ensuring that stock turnover remains high. WISA-Spruce is shipped directly from the mill or via storage sites in the UK, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany. “That way customers don’t have to order the product from the other side of the world and buy several months’ worth of stock at once, which would tie up capital needlessly,” says Riku Härkönen , Product Manager of WISA-Spruce Light but strong Spruce plywood weighs on average 450 kilogrammes per cubic metre, whereas a similar competing product such as South American pine plywood weighs over 100 kilogrammes more per cubic metre. In addition to being light, spruce plywood panels are extremely straight, meaning that they are easy to use: on a construction site the panels can be moved by one worker alone. This oœers clear cost savings for the constructor. Developers and builders appreciate solutions that minimise the weight of structures. For example, the 22 millimetre thick OSB panels in roof struc- tures can be replaced with 15 millimetre spruce plywood panels, which both reduces the amount of material needed and lowers the structural weight by almost 50%. This represents a significant diœer- ence to the supporting structure load. Furthermore, builders really appreciate the durability and reli- ability of WISA-Spruce. In the right conditions, it will remain unchanged for over 100 years.

Everything From Spruce Plywood

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