Friday Offcuts – 17 May 2013
Click to Subscribe - It's FREE! Last week 3-D printing got extensive world-wide coverage. It was actually the production of the world’s first 3-D printed handgun in Texas that got everyone talking. The gun was successfully tested at a firing range south of Austin, Texas a week or so ago. Except for the nail used as a firing pin and a six-ounce piece of steel designed solely to allow the gun to be detected by metal detectors, it’s made entirely out of plastic.The plans can now be downloaded and anonymously printed by anyone who has access to 3-D printing technology. That's troubling but of more concern is the fact that in just two days following the announcement, the handguns blueprints had been downloaded more than 100,000 times. There’s no denying the fact that the technology is about to revolutionize manufacturing as you and I know it. In previous issues of Offcuts we’ve covered the race that’s on at the moment to build the world's first 3-D printed house. One of the contesting companies has already announced their plans for a plastic dwelling that could be built off-site in three weeks and assembled in a single day. 3-D buildings are going to be constructed in 2013. In a story this week we’ve attached a video detailing just what all the fuss is about with 3-D printing and the opportunities that this new manufacturing technology are going to bring. As outlined in the story, one of this region’s 3-D printing experts, Olaf Diegel, Professor of Mechatronics and head of the Mechatronics and Robotics Research Group (MR2G) at Massey University will be detailing just what it could mean to wood products companies in the near future. This is all part of the WoodEXPO 2013 Wood Processing Summits being run in both New Zealand and Australia in September this year. Finally, we have a couple of stories relating to fire-fighting this week. In one, a recent trial concluded that the hotter the fire-and the denser the vegetation feeding the flames, the less the underlying soil heated up. This goes against current theories of soil heating and could help forest manager’s plan when and where to ignite small controlled burns. In the other, Forestry Tasmania is currently trialling night vision goggle technology, a first for Australia, which may well open the door to night water bombing in the near future. Enjoy this week’s read.
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National Training awards on show with WoodEXPO 2013
The NZ National Forest and Wood Industry Training Awards, being held on September 13 in Rotorua is cleverly timed to coincide with an exciting week which starts with the inaugural WoodEXPO. Forest and wood industry companies will have the opportunity to make their businesses more effective, as well as rewarding and showcasing the best of their employees and trainees.Rotorua's Energy Event Centre will host the three day WoodEXPO 2013 including a wood processing summit, two days of exhibitions and technology workshops. This will be followed by New Zealand’s prestigious annual Forest and Wood Industry National Training Awards 2013 dinner. The WoodEXPO has been well timed with the Awards and will showcase the finalists of the Furniture design awards, and FITEC/Competenz itself will have a trade exhibition stand so that companies can find out more how FITEC/Competenz can benefit their business model. “The timing of the Forest & Wood Industry National Training Awards to run on the last day of the three-day WoodEXPO 2013 in Rotorua is ideal” says FIEA Director, Brent Apthorp. "The WoodEXPO 2013 will for the first time in Australasia be attracting in global technology providers into the city to outline the very latest innovations that can be adopted by local sawmilling, wood manufacturing and panels companies. It’s certainly shaping up to be a busy, informative and week of celebration for the New Zealand forestry and wood products industries.” Local wood products companies who will be in Rotorua to look through the exhibitions and attend the technology workshops are encouraged to stay on to attend the Awards Dinner and Ceremony. Likewise, those coming through specifically to attend the Training Awards will be able to travel through a little earlier to look through the array of new wood processing and manufacturing technologies on display as well as the Finalist submissions in the Furniture Awards. The Wood Expo has been set up specifically for sawmilling, wood manufacturing and wood panel companies. It is being run by the Forest Industry Engineering Association (FIEA) while the Forest and Wood Industry National Training Awards is an annual event held by FITEC/Competenz. These two associations have similar objectives with a key outcome being to improve local companies productivity and performance. The National Awards will include the announcement of 12 categories in wood manufacturing, forestry and furniture as well as health and safety and people development. The Awards programme is a great opportunity to highlight strong performers and motivate workers to strive to the next level. The Forest Industry Training and Education Council (FITEC) announced their merger into Competenz. The merger was effective from May 1, 2013. The outcome is expected to be enhanced training services and a stronger financial base to expand future services to the forest and wood industry. The nomination form, eligibility and criteria, and tickets for the Awards are available on www.fitec.org.nz/awards. Information on the WoodEXPO is available on www.woodexpo2013.com. Will 3D printing change the world?Much attention has been paid to 3D printing lately, with new companies developing cheaper and more efficient consumer models that have wowed the tech community. They herald 3D Printing as a revolutionary and disruptive technology, but how will these printers truly affect our society?Beyond an initial novelty, 3D Printing could have a game-changing impact on consumer culture, copyright and patent law, and even the very concept of scarcity on which our economy is based. From at-home repairs to new businesses, from medical to ecological developments, 3D Printing has an undeniably wide range of possibilities which could profoundly change our world. The attached video will let you look at what 3D printing is and the world of possibilities the technology is opening. Take it one step further - it also has the potential to change the wood products and manufacturing business. We reported in an earlier issue of Offcuts that they're looking to produce the world’s first 3D printed house this year. We’re very lucky to have attracted one of this region’s 3-D Printing experts, Olaf Diegel, Professor of Mechatronics and head of the Mechatronics and Robotics Research Group (MR2G) at Massey University to outline advances and opportunities for wood products companies at this year’s Wood Processing Summits being run as part of the WoodEXPO 2013 series in September. Check out some of the world renowned guitars produced by Olaf at www.odd.org.nz. Mirvac to sell Green Triangle forestry land Mirvac Group is selling one of the last of its legacy funds management assets – more than 20,000 hectares of forestry land held by Australian Sustainable Forestry Investors. The Mirvac managed fund bought the land from the managed investment scheme Timbercorp in 2004. When Timbercorp collapsed, the fund emerged as its biggest single landlord, The Australian Financial Review reports. At 30 June 2012, Australian Sustainable Forestry Investors had three institutional investors, one of which was Mirvac itself, and funds under management of AU$57 million. The Mirvac forestry portfolio consists of 68 parcels of blue gum plantation and farming land – 20,657 ha all up – in the Green Triangle of Victoria and South Australia and in south-west Western Australia. The sale will be managed by Colliers International's director of rural and agribusiness, Tim Altschwager, and executive Jesse Manuel. Mr Altschwager said "since 2010 ownership in this sector has been diversifying and as an asset class, it is now considered a very attractive investment for institutional, private and offshore investors," he said. The Mirvac portfolio is for sale in whole or parts with expressions of interest to close on June 13. Source: Stock and Land Mobile technology a game changer for primary industries
Mobile technologies have also had a major impact on how businesses are run within our primary sector. For farmers, forest managers and horticultural growers, the level of innovation from mobile technologies has been, and will continue to be, a game changer. Whether it’s satellite imagery of plantation forests, GPS tracking and real-time scheduling of transport and logistics, or soil management through wireless sensor monitoring and automated systems, our primary sector businesses have a lot to benefit from improved mobile communications.At last year’s FIEA ForestTECH 2013 event, forest owners, forestry managers, harvest planners, contractors and transport operators learnt how an Irish forestry technology company, TreeMetrics is leading the charge. Significant funding has been supplied through the European Space Agency for a EU-wide research project into forestry measurement and data analytics. The company has been developing a real-time forest intelligence service, with the lofty goal of bringing live 3D forestry data to mobile devices and machinery across the globe. TreeMetrics are already using air-borne together with terrestrial LiDAR to provide accurate assessments of standing wood volumes. The company is now taking the stand inventory data and providing real-time information to harvesting machines with cut instructions. A device is being installed on board harvesting machines to transmit real-time information about the trees being felled. In trials on over 20 machines, details have been relayed back to foresters through ESA’s Inmarsat IsatM2M satellite and communications system. Mobile communications are core to this development. Mobile technology was also at the forefront of the trucking industry’s future. The use of handheld devices including smartphones and tablets is exploding, and they've already become a crucial part of life on the road for drivers and in the office for fleet managers. Industry experts at the ForestTECH 2013 event shared their insights into how transport operators can harness mobile technology to improve fleet management for financial success and to comply with numerous regulatory changes. Because the mobile technology is so new and changing so rapidly, what’s being rolled out in forestry and wood products industries is also being replicated by a number of other key industries from New Zealand’s primary sector. This is an exciting time for the industry, as mobile applications are opening up a new wave of innovations and productivity gains for businesses within the primary sector. For the first time, Wellington will be hosting this year’s inaugural MobileTECH Summit 2013 in August. This new event is designed to showcase current and upcoming mobile innovations best suited to New Zealand’s principal food and fibre sectors. The focus is on technologies that can be adopted now, whether it’s on the farm, in the greenhouse or out in the forest. The underlying principal is that these very new technologies can now be applied across a range of industries and that those working on the land - and in the forest - can learn from each other. Further details can be found on the event website, www.mobiletechevents.com. Forest soils could help offset climate change Surface appearances can be so misleading: In most forests, the amount of carbon held in soils is substantially greater than the amount contained in the trees themselves. If you’re a land manager trying to assess the potential of forests to offset carbon emissions and climate change by soaking up atmospheric carbon and storing it, what’s going on beneath the surface is critical. But while scientists can precisely measure and predict the amount of above-ground carbon accumulating in a forest, the details of soil-carbon accounting have been a bit fuzzy. Two University of Michigan researchers and their colleagues helped to plug that knowledge gap by analysing changes in soil carbon that occurred when trees became established on different types of non-forested soils across the United States. In a paper published online on 1 April in the ”Soil Science Society of America Journal”, they looked at lands previously used for surface mining and other industrial processes, former agricultural lands and native grasslands where forests have encroached. U-M ecologist Luke Nave and his colleagues found that, in general, growing trees on formerly non-forested land increases soil carbon. Previous studies have been equivocal about the effects of so-called afforestation on soil carbon levels. “Collectively, these results demonstrate that planting trees or allowing them to establish naturally on non-forested lands has a significant, positive effect on the amount of carbon held in soils,” said Nave, an assistant research scientist at the U-M Biological Station and in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. “These forest soils represent a significant carbon reservoir that is helping to offset carbon emissions that lead to climate change,” said Nave, lead author of the paper. Large and rapid increases in soil carbon were observed on forested land that had previously been used for surface mining and related industrial processes. On a post-mining landscape, the amount of soil carbon generally doubled within 20 years of mining termination and continued to double every decade or so after that. The changes after cultivated farm fields were abandoned and trees became established are much subtler, though still significant. This type of tree establishment—which has been widespread in recent decades in the north eastern United States and portions of the Midwest—takes about 40 years to cause a detectable increase in soil carbon. But at the end of a century’s time, the amount of soil carbon averages 15 percent higher than when the land was under cultivation, with the biggest increases (up to 32 percent) in the upper two inches of the soil. Source: Scienceblog.com Forestry Tasmania may still be in line for more change Forestry Tasmania's chairman is not ruling out further job cuts at the state-owned company as the forest peace deal is implemented reports ABC News. As covered in last week’s issue, Managing Director Bob Gordon has stepped down and the board will soon start a world-wide search to replace him.Forestry Tasmania has had to halve its workforce over the past few years to cope with the forest industry downturn. Chairman Bob Annells is not ruling out further job losses. The Government is moving to split the company in two, merging its non-commercial arm with the Environment Department. Mr Annells says the board will meet later this month to consider how to restructure the business in line with the forest peace deal. Source: ABC News Fire fighters to trial night flightsTasmania is about to embark on national trial of aerial water bombing of fires at night. Forestry Tasmania has recently started training personnel in night vision goggle technology. It means crews will be able to monitor bushfires from the air overnight and map hotspots for firefighters to tackle at first light. Forestry Tasmania's Nigel Foss says it will provide intelligence that has not previously been available and will give crews a significant head start.Forestry Tasmania has coupled with a Hobart helicopter company to start national trials. Pilot David Irvine says Tasmania is leading the way in night vision goggle technology. "It is done overseas but it will be a first for Australia." Mr Irvine says if successful, night water bombing is likely to be adopted around the country. Source: ABC News
Wildfires can burn hot without ruining soil
When scientists torched an entire 22-acre watershed in Portugal in a recent experiment, their research yielded a counterintuitive result: Large, hot fires do not necessarily beget hot, scorched soil.
It's well known that wildfires can leave surface soil burned and barren, which increases the risk of erosion and hinders a landscape's ability to recover. But the scientists' fiery test found that the hotter the fire-and the denser the vegetation feeding the flames-the less the underlying soil heated up, an inverse effect which runs contrary to previous studies and conventional wisdom.Rather, the soil temperature was most affected by the fire's speed, the direction of heat travel and the landscape's initial moisture content. These new findings could help forest managers plan when and where to ignite small controlled burns to reduce dry vegetation and restore the ecosystem in at-risk areas, said Cathelijne Stoof, the soil and water scientist who led this study as part of her PhD research at Wageningen University in the Netherlands. A report about the experiment by Stoof, who is now at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, and her colleagues has been accepted for publication by Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union. To study the real-world effects of landscape and fire dynamics on soil temperature, the research team mapped the watershed and installed instruments before setting the test area ablaze. During the burn the scientists monitored the fire and the resulting soil temperatures. As expected, the fire was most intense in the heavily vegetated areas, but the topsoil in these regions remained "surprisingly cool" during the duration of the fire, Stoof explained. "Vegetation is fuel, so the areas with more vegetation had more intense fire," Stoof said. "But the heavily vegetated regions also were also more moist, which protected the soil." The areas with the hottest soil temperatures were in direct sunlight and had sparse, dry vegetation. "Because it's already dried out, it doesn't have the moisture shield that more densely vegetated areas have to preserve the soil," Stoof said. Fire researcher Guillermo Rein of the Imperial College, London, called the results from Stoof and her colleagues "thought-provoking." They "go against the currently prevalent theory of soil heating," he said. "This paper ought to quickly mobilize the fire science community so that this soil heating theory can be reconfirmed, refuted or reformulated." For more information on this story, check out this month's R&D Works Newsletter
2013 FIEA Scholarship awarded
This year’s Forest Industry Engineering Association (FIEA) $2,500 FIEA Scholarship has been awarded to Ben Slui, a third year Bachelor of Forestry Science student, studying at the University of Canterbury, Christchurch.The Scholarship is the second awarded to students as part of a five year scholarship programme set up in 2012. It also builds on recent contributions of over $50,000 made by FIEA through its Educational Fund to upgrade saw sharpening and levelling equipment at the Waiariki Institute of Technology in Rotorua. “In addition to having excellent grades so far, Ben has had practical experience working in a sawmill in Napier and more recently, in the forestry and logistics areas with Pan Pac Forest Products undertaking a diverse range of work and projects including forest inventory, log quality control, wood harvesting and LiDAR applications for predicting forest standing volumes” says FIEA Director, Brent Apthorp. “We’re delighted to award Ben (photo attached) this year’s FIEA Scholarship to support his studies” says Brent Apthorp. “The students applying this year for the FIEA Scholarship were outstanding, both academically and in their work experience. Like last year’s Scholarship applications, the New Zealand industry’s certainly well placed with the calibre of students currently studying at the School of Forestry”. Gunns liquidator warns investors about takeover offerThe liquidator of the collapsed Tasmanian timber company Gunns has warned plantation scheme investors against accepting a takeover offer from Macquarie Group. Macquarie Group has approached investors with a plan to transfer control of hundreds of thousands of hectares of timber plantations to the firm WA Blue Gum reports ABC News.Under the restructure, investors would continue to own the trees and pay pruning and management fees to WA Blue Gum until harvest. But Gunns' liquidator PPB Advisory wants to sell the trees over the next four months and distribute the proceeds among investors. It has written to investors warning them Macquarie's plan could cost more than AU$23 million in fees and expose them to legal and tax risks. PPB says its own plan would cost investors AU$3.5 million. Investors will vote on the proposal at the end of the month. Source: ABC News AU$76M Dongwha Timbers new mill openedPremier of New South Wales, Australia, has welcomed the opening of an AU$76 million softwood plant in Bombala, ABC News reported on 13 May. The Dongwha Timbers plant, which opened on May 10, will produce pine treated products, and according to Premier Barry O'Farrell will provide a significant boost to the region's employment and economy.Dongwha Holdings, a South Korean company that previously traded in Australia as TASCO, had formed a joint venture with Wilmott Forests to build the mill. But Wilmott, a Managed Investment Scheme with pine plantations in the Bombala region, went into receivership before the partnership could progress, according to an earlier report by ABC South East NSW on 9 May. The project to expand the site of the old Bombala sawmill and construct a new mill and timber processing plant subsequently received assistance from the Korean Australian governments. Dongwha has also secured a 20-year timber supply agreement from Forests NSW Forestry industry backs call for logging in national parksThe forestry industry has accused the state government of failing to meet its commitments to timber supply and backed the recommendation of a parliamentary inquiry that national parks be opened up for logging reports the Sydney Morning Herald.The draft report of a parliamentary committee says the state government should consider the move to ensure the viability of the industry. It recommends consideration of 'tenure swap', whereby sections of national parks would be opened for logging and state forests, which are already subject to logging in NSW, would be reserved in return. The committee also recommends a moratorium on the declaration of new national parks while an independent review is held into the management of public lands in NSW. NSW Forest Products Association Executive Director Russell Ainley said successive state governments had failed to meet guarantees about log supply. He said in 1998 the government legislated to guarantee 269,000 cubic metres of large saw logs would be made available each year, but since 2003 only 160,000 cubic metres had been delivered annually. Mr Ainley said a tenure swap might be "one way" to achieve the targets. Conservation groups issued a statement condemning the inquiry's recommendations and calling on Mr O'Farrell to reject them. Environment Minister Robyn Parker said the government did not support commercial logging in national parks and had "no plans" to introduce it. Source: Sydney Morning Herald North America’s tallest timber building
Timber is set to to add to the skyline in British Columbia (BC), Canada once again with construction due to commence on North America’s tallest timber building, the Wood Innovation and Design Centre (WIDC). The WIDC has partnered with architect Michael Green and his firm MGA to develop the 27.5-metre building, which will contribute to the urban revitalisation of downtown Princeton.From the outside, the six-storey centre will look more like seven storeys due to the ground floor being doubled in height to allow for the installation of large solar gain windows that will create an open feeling to the space. The architecture industry is continuing to undergo a wood revolution as designers source more cost-effective and sustainable alternatives to concrete and steel. According to Green’s report, “concrete production represents roughly five per cent of world carbon dioxide emissions, the dominant greenhouse gas. In essence the production and transportation of concrete represents more than five times the carbon footprint of the airline industry as a whole.” In 2009, the Wood First Bill was introduced in BC. That act required wood to be the primary building material in all new publicly funded buildings, in a manner consistent with the British Columbia Building Code. Other than the concrete foundation, 100 per cent of the WIDC building’s primary structure will be made of wood and Green has stated that using wood instead of concrete will reduce the building’s carbon footprint in a way that is the equivalent of removing 500 cars from the road. The $25 million building is due to be completed within 16 months and aims to showcase – and encourage industry conversation around – the possibilities of wood in building and architecture while also boosting BC’s lumber industry. The WIDC building will be built of load-bearing engineered wood products sourced and produced locally, including glue laminated columns, beams, cross-laminated timber and laminated veneer timber. Source" Designbuildsource Jobs
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...and one to end the week on...brain exercises
If you can read this OUT LOUD, you have a strong mind. And better than that: Alzheimer’s is a long, long way down the road before it ever gets anywhere near you. And on that note, have a great weekend. Cheers. Brand PartnersOur Partners & Sponsors Friday Offcuts is made possible through the generous support of the following companies.
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