Characterization of selected wood properties in commercially produced southern pine finger-jointed dimension lumber

Finger-jointed wood products have been used for decades and were originally developed to help maximize the amount of product recovered from a log. Finger-joints have been widely used in both structural and non-structural applications. Because of the nature of the assembly process of finger-jointed products, there is the possibility that those products would have high variation in the wood properties of specific gravity (SG) and growth rate. An extensive literature review did not reveal any previous studies where the variation of SG and growth rate in finger-jointed wood products was assessed. In this study, the variation in SG and growth rate (rings per inch [RPI]) was assessed in 450 southern pine finger-jointed boards. The wood samples came from 11 different mills in the southeastern United States. The results show that there was considerable variation in SG and growth rate within the finger-jointed boards. On average, the SG of the two pieces of wood making up the finger-jointed board differed by 0.062. The maximum difference reported in this study was 0.315. The growth rate also showed large differences, with an average difference of 2.49 RPI. The maximum difference reported in this study was 13.19 RPI. These large differences in SG and growth rate may have adverse effects on the overall strength of the products.

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