Revolutionary use for local Mountain Ash
Mountain Ash trees harvested from forest around Noojee and Erica have found a revolutionary new use: they are being turned into engineered wood products massive hardwood timber columns and beams that are up to 12 metres long.
These engineered products are being manufactured in Heyfield by Australian Sustainable Hardwoods (ASH), which almost went bust a few years ago.
Engineered wood – where traditional planks of wood are glued together under high pressure to create a product as strong as steel – is expected to play an increasing role in building construction.
Landmark engineered wood buildings in Melbourne have used European native forest softwood, but ASH now manufactures the large engineered Victorian Ash hardwood columns and beams in a single production process using the largest computer controlled German Hundegger machinery.
The products, a form of glue-laminated timber dubbed MASSLAM, are up to 12 metres long. The process gives ASH ‘more bang for its Ash buck’.
The company has just completed a number of large MASSLAM projects, including one at the University of Tasmania in Burnie. Ten other projects are confirmed, with others in the pipeline. The timber packages alone are worth between $100,000 and $4 million each.
ASH took the plunge into the new technology to build on its existing strengths; it had already done columns and beams in small end sections, such as at Margaret Court Arena.
“We were able to learn how to make a line that can produce these mass timber products in one pass”, said ASH managing director Vince Hurley. In Europe, they made mass timber products in two passes, then joined them together to make a bigger single product, said Vince. ASH’s biggest beams and columns are 1300mm by 450mm.
All the MASSLAM products go to site complete with all connections and decorative detail, ready to be installed. “You don’t have to do anything on site, other than put the meccano set together,” he said.
MASSLAM’s columns and beams match perfectly with another engineered wood product, cross-laminated timber (CLT) - panels made with planks criss-crossed at right angles and glued under pressure. CLT is generally used in ceilings and floors, and sometimes walls. ASH’s emphasis is on appearance grade. “It is seen structural, not hidden in the wall, it’s on show. Buildings with a classic column and beam structure are magnificent, with glass letting in huge light,” said Vince.
The Hundegger line cost $12 million. To replace the two factories and equipment bought over the past 13-14 years would cost close to $28 million.
Vince said using hardwood over softwood to make mass timber CLT and Glulam had incredible advantages. MASSLAM had a 4045 per cent strength advantage over European softwood, he said.
ASH’s total employment is now 170. “We went from 245 down to 140, then built back to 170 through reshaping the whole business. That’s not bad, considering what it could have been,” said Vince.
ASH processes up to 90,000 cubic metres of wood annually, most supplied from VicForests. However, the company, needing more timber, imports American oak and buys local plantation hardwood logs from Hancock Victorian Plantations and the Gippsland Agriforestry Network – shining gum and Mountain Ash from the Strzelecki Ranges. ASH has devised a technique to process plantation hardwoods and is exhausting all that are available.
“However, the underpinning of our business are the regrowth logs from VicForests. We are making radiata pine MASSLAM, but we don’t want to. Victorian Ash is one of the strongest timbers in the world for its weight,” said Vince. “It’s easy to manufacture with and glue with. It beats imported spruce (softwood) mass timber hands down in strength, deflection, fire – you name it. And it’s visible, looks much better than spruce – we don’t have knots. Visually it looks magnificent.”