Growth of Waferboard in Canada

In recent years, Canadian waferboard has become a versatile competitor in a market once dominated by plywood and fiberboard. Its decorative mosaic appearance, retention of appearance when exposed unfinished outdoors, and low cost (50 to 67 percent less than paint and natural-finish grades of plywood) have gained the product wide acceptance as an exterior and interior cladding. Waferboard is manufactured from aspen roundwood and small percentages of white birch. Two-foot bolts fed transversely into a special flaker produce 3.6 or 7.2 cm (1.5 or 3 in.) long “wafers” of random width, 0.4 mm (0.020 in.) thick. The flakes are dried, blended with 2 to 3 percent powdered phenol-formaldehyde resin, then formed into three layers and pressed at 210? C (410? F); the board is hot stacked. The large size of the flakes minimizes the specific surface area of the furnish so that the percentage of resin required is kept low. Since a high proportion of the wider flakes must remain intact, rotating-drum blenders are used; powdered resin provides better distribution than liquid, and does not add moisture. The inherent dimensional stability in the plane of the board is similar to plywood. As sheathing, in thicknesses 15 percent greater than plywood, waferboard can be used for the same application on any given span and is scuff-resistant and free from noticeable face-checking. Fractional exfoliation of surface flakes will occur in unfinished board exposed to weather, but the effect is not thought to be progressive. Production has expanded rapidly since 1972, and there appears to be no limit on penetration into the Canadian sheathing market in frame-built housing and mobile homes. Growth in this area will probably result in an oversupply in the next few years, stimulating a search for wider markets. Several factors seem to assure a future market for waferboard: the dwindling supply of logs suitable for the efficient manufacture of plywood; government pressure to use more standing timber; the relatively low demand waferboard places on the supply of phenolic resin; and a simple marketing situation, with vast reserves of aspen near major urban building markets in Ontario and Quebec.

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