Wainscoting @ JLC Live 2016

With the financial support of the Softwood Lumber Board’s “Wood Naturally” campaign, NELMA once again exhibited and showcased product at this year’s JLC Live Expo, held March 18 & 19 at the Rhode Island Convention Center in Providence.  More than 8,000 hands-JLC 2016on builders and contractors attended the 2-day expo, one of the best venues for NELMA’s outreach to the building and construction trade profession.  This is the third year of the Association’s participation in the Wood Naturally exhibit alongside the Southern Forest Products Association and the Western Red Cedar Lumber Association.

Inside the exhibit hall, NELMA provided Eastern White Pine pattern product used in two 75-minute workshops titled, “Creative Interior Wood Finish – Fine Details for an Upscale Wainscot”.  Builder, Greg Burnet transferred his wealth of experience and “tricks of the trade” Greg Burnet start of presentationto the audience during the demo using a couple of NELMA patterns, Edge & Center Bead (E&CB) and EWP 4.  “Learning the nuances of what makes wainscoting a high-end, added-value feature within a home is critical to how the finished application should look.”  According to Greg, “You simply cannot get the rich look homeowners want by using plastic or composite knock-off wainscoting products.”  The workshops featured two of NELMA’s most popular reference items, the Grade “Swatch” and the Patterns of Eastern White Pine booklet for pick-up at the exhibit display.

NELMA would like to thank the Softwood Lumber Board for their continued support of this popular regional expo.  “We must continually get inside the heads of this market critical group with the wood message,” stated Jeff Greg Burnet with Wainscoting Behind himEasterling, who represented NELMA at the event.  “Our presence as both exhibitor and construction demonstrator is the one-two punch we need to be successful”.

Our 35th Year @ LBM 2016

The 2016 version of NRLA’s Lumber and Building Material Expo was held February 10-12 for the first time in Providence at the Rhode Island Convention Center.  This year marked NELMA’s 35th year of participation in the show, one of the longest-running exhibitors with the event.LBM 2016 Logo

Billed as the largest gathering of the lumber retail industry in the northeast, NELMA utilized its See the Stamp, Trust the Quality graphics for the 10’x10’ exhibit.  The featured publication at the exhibit was the Association’s hot-off-the-press 2016-2017 Buyers Guide+Membership Directory, the most recent information available on lumber manufacturers, wholesalers, equipment suppliers, and industry services that are members of NELMA.  Retailer attendees snapped up all available copies of the Directory before the 3-day event concluded!

“This is a must venue for the Association’s presence before our region’s lumber and building material retailers”, stated Jeff Easterling, NELMA President.  “This year’s event was timely to discuss the start of our new Retailer Outreach Program and the connection with this important customer group we want to take to a higher level.”

A First for NELMA: IBS 2016

The International Builders’ Show (IBS) is THE annual place to be for the building and construction industry, where thousands are in attendance during the 3-day event.  The 2016 Show was held January 10-12 in Las Vegas and according to NAHB, “This mega-event brought together more than 110,000 builders, general contractors, remodelers,IBS Lumber Logo-web designers, flooring professionals, as well as product specifiers from around the globe.”  These attendance numbers actually put the show back at levels prior to the housing crash that began in 2007.

As they say, timing is everything and NELMA was pleased to participate as an exhibitor for the first time ever as part of the Softwood Lumber Board’s (SLB) expanding Wood, Naturally residential outreach campaign.  This marketing effort includes the promotion of “appearance” grade interior and exterior products (Eastern White Pine) and outdoor decking.  In addition to NELMA, the highly visible 20’x30’ Wood, Naturally exhibit space included Southern Forest Products Association, Western Wood Products Association, and the Western Wood Preservers’ Institute.  “If you want any kind of visibility as an exhibitor at this event, you must have IBS Graphics-Grown for Modern SpacesIBS Graphics-Sustainable Eastern White Pinea large presence to get noticed…a typical 10’x10’ space will quickly become invisible to attendees”, stated Jeff Easterling, President of NELMA. “We were pleased that the SLB added IBS as an opportunity for us to showcase Northeastern Softwoods to this important target audience.”

NELMA’s portion of the exhibit contained our Eastern White Pine “pattern box” in additional to two 7’ tall eye-catching graphics on the front/back of a display kiosk.  By mid-afternoon of the final day of the Show, NELMA’s supply of the Eastern White Pine Grade Swatch, Pattern Booklet, and Northeastern Softwoods “Map” were depleted!

In addition to providing spec tools and showing actual “touch-and-Jeff at Kiosk-webfeel” profile samples to builders and contractors, NELMA was able to multiply its exposure through meetings at the Show with trade and consumer press via appointments arranged by Kim Drew, NELMA’s PR Agent.  “IBS draws just about every building & construction trade magazine and bloggers which makes it a fantastic opportunity for us to get some face time with important editors to talk about what’s new with Northeastern Softwoods, Jeff added. “New opportunities for NELMA to place articles or showcase our members’ product were added lagniappe to our presence at the Show.”

 

The Adventures of Skip & Wane No. 4

Issue number 4 of The Adventures of Skip & Wane introduces us to our mill owner, Mr. Pickwick and his attempt to keep the mill on top of the latest market fad.  In his wisdom, plastic “lumber” to make mouldings and trim is the answer!  But is it really after all is said and done with the chemical formulations and change-over at the mill????

To view the entire series, go to the Skip & Wane homepage.

Skip & Wane No.4 - small size

The 2016 Sustainable Versatility Design Competition Announced

The 2016 Sustainable Versatility Design Competition was recently announced to over 80 accredited U.S. architecture and design schools.  In addition to emailing information regarding the upcoming competition to over2016 Poster 200 contacts, colorful posters were mailed to department heads for display within each school that provides all the details necessary for students to register and upload their designs.

2016 marks NELMA’s 5th year of offering this unique architecture and design student challenge; a no-fee competition that engages students in a design dialogue about sustainability, design culture and tradition through the use of wood products as a contemporary construction and design material, focusing on Eastern White Pine. Each year’s program offers a contemporary design challenge.

The 2016 Design Challenge:

“Choose an iconic building in your community or school and “re-imagine” how that structure would showcase Eastern White Pine. A museum? A dining hall? A drab federal building perhaps? Even a football stadium! Get creative and show us how Eastern White Pine products could be used to make a great space even greater (and greener)!”

Awards:

• First Place: $1,000, unique wood trophy, write-up in the White Pine Series of Architectural Monographs, and mention in competition press releases to the industry and trades.

• Second Place: $500, write-up in the White Pine Series of Architectural Monographs, and mention in competition press releases to the industry and trades.

The deadline for students to register their intent to participate is February 15, 2016, with final submissions due March 15, 2016, all via the competition’s online portal, www.sustainableversatility.org. This website also provides information regarding past winner’s projects in addition to valuable resources regarding wood products manufactured from Eastern White Pine.

The Rich Quitadamo Sustainable Versatility Design Award will be announced and presented via Skpye to the winning student entry at the 2016 NELMA Annual Convention.

Breaking Norway!

Norway Spruce lumber that is!   Beginning October 20, the final phase of NELMA’s project to test Norway Spruce to obtain strength values got underway. To summarize from the beginning, about 3 years ago NELMA’s dimension lumber manufacturing membership first discussed the aspect of Norway Spruce and the increasing sense that the species could be norway forest maine - weban added timber resource for the industry. Norway Spruce is not native to the U.S., but as the name suggests, a very common European species of commercial timber. However, no strength testing had ever been conducted on lumber from logs grown in the U.S, so the species remains off-limits for use as construction lumber by the softwood manufacturers.

The initial research drawn from the U.S. Forest Service’s Forest Inventory Analysis (FIA) estimated around 2.1 billion board feet of standing sawtimber volume scattered within 13 states, all located in the Northeastern and Great Lakes region. The state of New York contains a little over 50% of this estimated volume, with the vast majority of all states’ volume the result of plantings by the Civilian Conservation Corp (CCC) during the 1930’s Great Depression. Reclaiming abandoned agriculture farmland back to forestland was the goal of this CCC program at the time. Those stands range from 5 acres to more than 100 acres and have reached maturity after 70-80 years of growth. Commercial planting of the species continued in the decades following the CCC days largely for pulp fiber; a decision based on its robust growth characteristics in the short northern climate.  Planting the species continues today in various areas of the northeast.

NY Forest-webWhy Norway Spruce and not our native Eastern Spruces by the CCC? Several thoughts exist on that question ranging from the shortage of available nursery stock seedlings at the time due to the demand of CCC re-planting (more than 3 billion seedlings of various species were planted across the country by the CCC), to a suggestion that a plot of acreage had been planted in the northeast in the 1900-1910s by immigrant settlers from Europe that showed the potential increased growth patterns of the species by the 1930s. NELMA is conducting further research regarding this question as part of the Association’s full documentation and anticipated video of the overall project from start to finish.

More than 475 man-hours (60 man-days) of NELMA staff time has been spent so far since the official sampling and testing plan was approved by ALSC and the U.S. Forest Products Laboratory last March. This time includes traveling to previously-identified plantation sites and marking each log with a unique origin color for separation at the participating sawmills, marking each test board with the same origin color when sawn, dried, and planedMaine Logs-web at the mill, along with intricate grading and coding of each random sample piece for identification by log origin when tested. The final test samples will number around 1,200, divided into 3 widths (2×4, 2×6, and 2×8), and 2 grades (Select Structural and No. 2) as prescribed by the official testing standard, ASTM D1990.  The lumber samples will come from the states of Wisconsin, New York, Vermont, and Maine for geographical coverage of the growing region.

Back to last week, the University of Maine’s Advanced Structures and Composites Center in Orono is the site for conducting the lumber tests to include bending, tension, shear, and compression.  Dr. Stephen Shaler, Director of the School of Forest Resources, and Russell Edgar, Sr. Lab. Operations, have embraced the project’s significance to the lumber industry and are leading the project to its analytic conclusion, targeted for January 31, 2016.  NELMA’s industry members were invited to “watch” a bit of the testing procedures on October 22, with 10 participants attending to see how much force it takes to completely break or pull apart lumber.  Check out the video below to see how much a Norway Spruce board will deflect on its edge before it breaks……wait for the snap!

UMaine testing image-web“Getting to this point has been a complex and arduous task for NELMA as a small inspection agency tackling the first testing project that has been conducted on a “new” U.S. species in more than 75 years, but the end result should be well worth the effort on behalf of our members”, according to Jeff Easterling, NELMA President. “We need to thank numerous state agencies and member mills that have been instrumental in making this project possible. This includes the New York Department of Environmental Conservation, the Empire State Forest Products Association, the Pennsylvania Bureau of Forestry, the Vermont Department of Forests, Parks & Recreation, the Maine Forest Service, and the Massachusetts Department of Conservation.  Significant participation by our members includes Milan Lumber, Pleasant River Lumber, and Irving Forest Products.  Participating mills in the Great Lakes region of NSLB include Biewer Lumber and Pukall Lumber.

Look for additional updates to follow as the project moves towards completion.