We (Cabinetti Panels) are distributors for Latho likewood products Italy www.latho.it/en/ veneers and thin solid laminations. Cabinetti Panels launched February 2023- We have commenced our campaign and establishing our product to the Architectural market, thus arising fire cert groups. Understanding that our product is very similar to products currently on the market and wondering if they can be categorized simply as they are – veneer / and then the required substrate . please advise further and thank you in advance.
At WoodSolutions we have a number of 'generic' fire reports, ie. they can be applied to different combinations of standard wood-based materials regardless of brand names. For example, Regulatory Information Report RIR 45982.13 titled Fire Hazard Properties of Timber Veneers on Standard MDF and Particleboard Substrates in Accordance with AS5637.1:2015 covers any type of wood veneer up to 1120 kg/m3, applied to MDF or particleboard of 6mm minimum thickness - refer Table 4. Other reports deal with the fire properties of plywoods of various species, but note that only certain species of plywood are covered. Regulatory Information Reports can be downloaded from the WoodSolutions website. If your products are not covered by any of our reports it will be necessary to commission your own assessments by an authority such as Warringtonfire.
We are working on a project in Townsville and have been proposed by our contractor whether Darwin Stringybark is a suitable substitution for Spotted Gum for structural members. Sourced from Cape York and managed by indigenous groups, this substitution sounds like a win for the project with sourcing the sizes required for an awning column difficult and expensive with spotted gum. I understand that Darwin Stringybark is a more dense species and therefore has good strength characteristics. We have not used this species before, do you have any further understanding / experience working with Darwin Stringybark, how it is sourced and if fair trade prevails?
We don't have any experience of sourcing Darwin stringybark, nor of fair trading considerations, as it is not a major commercial species - at least in the southern States. We assume it will be used unseasoned since a column of any significant size would take quite a while to dry. During the drying process shrinkage is likely to be of the order of 5% (across the grain, negligible lengthwise). It's also advisable to avoid the centre when sawing the log as material close to the centre is inclined to split. If it is an engineer-designed structure the timber will need to be stress-graded in accordance with Australian Standard 2082, Timber - Hardwood - Visually stress-graded for structural purposes.
I am looking for historical properties or design data for Tasmanian Timber Engineering (TTE) hybrid products. They used to operate out of Cambridge in Tas but no longer exist. I am trying to assess an existing timber beam for a client for additional loads and all it says on the original design drawings from 20 years ago is that it's a '232 x 43 TTE Hybrid'. Hoping that someone in your connections may have some old design properties for TTE.
We don't have design data for TTE hybrid products but it's possible Greg Nolan at the University of Tasmania might be able to help. Greg is a professor at the UTAS School of Architecture & Design and you will find more about his background via this link https://discover.utas.edu.au/gregory.nolan.
