Gettin’ messy with Parallam
June 22, 2015 12:00 pm Leave your thoughts
Hello people,
Here are some notes regarding two notable projects I helped out with at the Weyerhaeuser Vancouver Parallam Plant this week.
Package Patrol
As part of the Quality Assurance (QA) department, our team is responsible for ensuring the strength properties and the appearance of products so that we can stand proudly behind (and under) it. One of the ways we do this is by performing package inspections.
Armed with calipers, tape measures and “On-Hold” stickers, we secretly open up a few packages in the warehouse and draw smiley faces on the product to make sure our clients have a nice day. We also verify product appearance and dimensions, examine SFI product rating stamp legibility, along with proper wrapping and strapping. Most of the time our product is flawless, but once in a while the stars misalign and the defective packages are reluctantly forked and lifted back to the saws for reprocessing. We’d much rather us finding defects in the packages than disappointing the customer.
The picture below shows products cleared for shipping being loaded onto our on-site rail car by the Claw.
Prepping the Special Sauce
Parallam has a secret glue recipe that makes the product strong enough to be used structurally. Telling you that it’s a mix of resin and wax is already saying too much. This week, we had contractors come in to cut a hole at the bottom of a resin tank to allow for easier cleaning. Lucky for us, we didn’t have to clean the tank before they cut it. But we did have to make sure the resin was worthy of entering the special Parallam glue mix after the work was done and the tank refilled. Sure enough, the tank filled back up with a thick, cakey layer of crust floating right at the top. Baked and hardening in the summer sun, left untouched in a sealed tank, the resin crust was like…use your imagination.
Using an assortment of ladles and medieval looking equipment, we scooped out the layer of crud bit by bit and left the resin tank spotless. Just kidding, the resin went everywhere and we made a total mess.
Here’s a picture of the resin tank after we cleaned it….imagine what it looked like before!
This week we made a mess and we cleaned up mess, but most importantly, we had fun doing our jobs. I’m looking forward to getting down and dirty with all the fun stuff I have lined up for next week. Will keep y’all posted!