[Greenbuilding] Plybooboo

[Alan Abrams]

   <One just needs to somehow short circuit the industrial mindset that
thinks a factory is the best way to process organic materials.>

Very interesting comment.  Just to suggest a counterpoint, the thread about
the practical difficulty of using pallet stock as flooring reminded me of
the machines I saw on a tour of a window manufacturing plant.  One process
involved belt feeding random length and width planks into the maw of a beast
that measured each piece, determined the most efficient use for that piece
(according to the day's work orders), and milled it into a stile or rail or
muntin or jamb--and sorted it at the other end.  A single human operator
scanned the input belt for knots or other defects--the gal I saw doing this
looked as frenetic as Lucy in the chocolate bar factory.

But maybe this approach is the way to produce flooring from scrap--chain saw
the planks along the battens (fuggetabout denailing!!!) and throw the planks
into the hopper...crush the rest, extract the nails with a magnet, and use
the remainder for OSB or other engineered product.  Or use it for fuel for
kiln drying...but this is just to say that perhaps there's also reason for
industrial processes.  It's been my point that if greenbuilding is to have a
significant effect on the environment, it's got to happen on a massive
scale.  Too many of us who live in dense urban environments cannot take
advantage of Rob's draft horses...

(just to put this into perspective, we recently used some FSC prefinished
maple T&G flooring--seemed like the average plank was no longer than you'd
get out of a small pallet--it looked just fine in the end)

Alan Abrams AIBD