Structuring wood with Felder structuring machine

With the use of reclaimed wood many have discovered the beauty of weathered wood. That image of wood with its exposed structure and imperfections created by rain and wind has come to be desired by more and more people. The trend is strong and reclaimed wood isn't always an option, or you don't want such extreme rusticity. So as well as sanding and sizing, a new operation has emerged to prepare the wood in white - structuring. Machine manufacturers have reacted immediately to this new trend and are offering machines that effectively reproduce this effect. The wood structuring machine manages to "age" wood in seconds, without effort, dust or special protective equipment. Such a machine is Structure 60.02 from Felder.

In addition to the fact that working with a machine is quick, simple and efficient, the advantages of using a machine for wood structuring are:

• ease of processing
• reproducible result
• productivity
• possibility of insertion in technological lines
• obtaining different structures depending on the brushes used or machine parameters

If it's these advantages, or at least some of them, that you're after, a wood structuring machine would help you enormously, and one of the options is Felder's Structura 60.02. The structuring machine is for furniture manufacturers who want to redefine wood surfaces or who want to recondition old wood.

By using the brushes, some of the surface wood is removed and a new, interesting structure with pronounced grooves emerges. Why isn't all the wood removed? Because the brushes remove the early, softer, looser wood first. As you know, the trees add woody material each year, which in cross-section appears ring-shaped. The consistency of the added woody material is not the same and depends on the time of year. In spring, the deposited material is looser, softer. In summer and early fall, the growth is much slower, the material is dense and hard. When the brushes begin to work, the early wood is removed, and the later wood remains and forms the relief striation pattern.

Structure 60.02 has 2 successive machining stations so it can ensure perfect machining in a single pass.

These posts are actually 2 shafts on which the brushes are mounted. The first brush, a 200 mm diameter steel brush, is the one that does the coarse structuring, removing the soft wood. The second brush, made of fabric (Tynex, grain size 60), is the finishing brush, which removes the remaining loose fiber from the coarse structuring.

Thus, in a single pass, both the surface profiling and the preparation of the wood in white are done. From here, the wood can go straight to staining and varnishing. Each machining station is equipped with its own suction nozzle that collects dust and debris resulting from the machining process. At the end, the resulting wood is clean, and so is the working environment.

The wood to be processed can be of different thicknesses and it is important that the machine is as versatile as possible in order to be able to process as many different sizes and profiles as possible. With the Structura 60.02 this is possible and wood can be machined with width between 30 and 1300 mm and thickness from 3 to 200 mm. It can be used to machine an old piece of plywood as well as to structure a beam or refurbish an old one (you can see in the video at the end of the article). The brush lift for thicker pieces is electrically powered and is done at the push of a button.

The machine's conveyor belt is rubberized, honeycomb type, without butt joints. The lack of splicing makes it very resistant over time, thus reducing maintenance costs. The travel speed is variable, between 2.5 and 10 m/min, and can be adapted according to the wood species. In the case of softer species, such as resinous, processing can be carried out at higher speeds because the wood is more easily removed. In hard species such as oak or frasin, the speed must be reduced. The harder wood resists so the brushes take longer to remove it.

The Structura 60.02 wood structuring machine has an ergonomic designThe parts are picked up at a height of 900 mm from the ground. This allows easy linking with other machines in the production flow.

Other advantages of the car:

• long lifetime and guaranteed stability during processing solid chassis and quality construction components
• the hood covering the brush groups is closed and solid - saves time by allowing the temporary storage of parts machined on it
• quick and easy change of structuring brushes

Structure 60.02 is not very large so it can fit very well on a factory production line as well as in a larger woodworking shop. With a machine like this, weathered wood, burnt wood, reclaimed wood can be brought back to life. You can see all these transformations in the movie below.

I hope you find this information useful!