High Speed Production of Flooring

A brief description of an oak flooring operation is given, followed by an explanation of the difference between a normal flooring operation and a high-speed operation. The majority of flooring plants run at 180 to 190 lineal feet per minute. A high-speed plant operates at the average lineal rate of between 15,000 and 16,000 feet per hour. The finished flooring is shipped out at a moisture content of 8 percent. The high-speed operations may “overwork” the sidematcher, but the human work is spread out so that no man works harder than he would in a standard operation. The electric flooring machines in use today are heavy enough to take the punishment involved in a high production rate. Variable-speed drives have been installed on the sidematchers for speed control. The average run for a set of 10-inch flat knives used in the bottom cylinder of a standard-speed sidematcher is about 38 hours. Experience with carbide cutters has found them unsuccessful because of the inability to joint them to keep the carbide tips from breaking loose. Prior to increasing the production rate, costs were 30 percent higher than comparable costs at multiple-unit plants.

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