Improving quality characteristics of farm grown eucalyptus wood to promote its utilization

Effect of various pre-seasoning, and seasoning treatments on dimensional stabilization of farm grown Eucalyptus wood were studied. The wood was taken from the farm trees grown at Post Graduate Agricultural Research Station, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad- Pakistan. It was processed and treated in the laboratory of Department of Forestry, Range Management & Wildlife. Among the pre-seasoning treatments are water soaking, boiling in water, and freezing and in another experiment the effect of chemical treatments for dimensional stabilization are studied. During the seasoning the effect of end coating, full coating, loading Seasoning stacks, and coating along with load treatments were studied. Further effect of wood specimen sizes on seasoning quality with single step seasoning and two-step seasoning with staggered sawing were studied. These experiments were conducted in three phases. Both freezing and boiling pre-seasoning treatments were considered effective. The anti-shrinkage efficiency (ASE%) along cross-section was 32% and 19% with ASE% in volumetric shrinkage 26% and 17% for freezing and boiling treatments respectively. LRF% value for total number recovery after removing all defects of the treated specimens was 79% and 78% for freezing and boiling treatments respectively. The value for other parameters i.e. anti-shrinkage along tangential, radial or longitudinal plan and number recovery factor for warp age, checks, and end split were also consistent with these results. DEG, sugar and paraffin resulted as effective and environmentally safe chemicals for dimensional stabilization. The anti-shrinkage efficiency (ASE%) along cross-section was 31%, 28% and 21 % with ASE% in volumetric shrinkage 25%, 23% and 21 % for DEG, sugar and paraffin treatments respectively. LRF% value for total number recovery after removing all defects of the treated specimens was 93%, 90% and 90% and 68% for DEG, sugar and paraffin treatments and control respectively. End coating with load treatment was considered most feasible and effective mean for control of dimensional instability and reduction of warp. There was no-significant difference in controlling shrinkage or warp in specimens with end coating or full coating treatments. The anti-shrinkage efficiency (ASE%) along cross-section was 27% and 14% with ASE% in volumetric shrinkage 38% and 33% for load or weight and coating with load treatments respectively. LRF% value far total number recovery after removing all defects of the treated specimens was 82% and 80% for load and coating with load treatments respectively. As regards the results of two-step seasoning the anti-shrinkage efficiency (ASE%) along cross-section was 87%, 83%, 96% and 94% with ASE% in volumetric shrinkage was 46%, 53%, 66%, and 77% for-sizes (8"x8), (8"x4), (4"x4") and (2"x4") respectively. LRF% value for total number recovery after removing all defects in specimens was 61%, 81%, 79%, and 80% for (8"x8"), (8"x4"), (4x4), and (2"x4") sized specimens respectively. These results indicate that although two-step seasoning did not improve the number recovery but reduced the time for seasoning. Contrarily in single step seasoning the larger sized specimens gave higher number recovery 91%, 82%, 83%, 64% and 59% for (8"x8"), (8x4), (4x4), (2x4) and control (1x2) sized specimens respectively.