| European
Spruce
Why European
Spruce?
European Spruce (picea abies) has one of the
highest stiffness-to-weight ratios of all the spruces. This
stiffness contributes to the generally outstanding high-end
performance from this wood. The species has outstanding
damping characteristics. It has a good balance between
stiffness, mass, and internal friction. European spruce's
excellent properties remain undisputed.
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Up to 25% lower cull
rate.
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Problem free
sales
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Highest quality image in
your market
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Pleasing
appearance
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Small Knot
Size
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Finer Grain
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Less Twisting
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Less Warping
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Yards Better
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Kiln Dried with
Dehumidification Kilns yards longer and lacks moisture
pockets that can cause mold and premature
deterioration.
Species Mix European Spruces
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Norway Spruce
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White Spruce
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Scots Pine – More stable
in humid environment. Preferred species in Japan for its
stability. A lot better than the domestic. Comes from
bigger logs. Typically more stable than Spruce.
Structurally, when MSR testing the highest yields are
coming from Scots Pine. Stamp AS-SCP is Austrian Spruce -
Scots Pine.
European Spruce Studs are straight with no
cull resulting in virtually no callbacks.
Supply sources for European Spruce:
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Use advanced kilns
designed to provide technical drying to the required
moisture content while having the capacity to dry large
quantities of lumber.
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Employ mechanical
strength grading of the used sawn timber for Glulam as
well as solid wood panels done by 4 color scanners and
mechanical strength tests. The result is a correlation of
90-94% in appearance and strength compared with 40-50 % in
manual grading.
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SPR - The European Spruces have superior Structural
Performance:
There have been some concerns over dealers
hearing that the European Spruces don’t span as well as
domestic S-P-F. These claims are uneducated, misunderstood,
or come from competitors fearful of losing customers to some
of the highest lumber quality available.
If
you look closely at the Design Values published by the CWC (Canadian
Wood Council) for S-P-F you will see that they combine the values of
No.1 & No.2. By combining the two you can use a method called
rounding (round up or average). If you use rounding, you eliminate the
term BASE (bottom) from the published values. The undisputed facts are
that the European Spruces don’t have large enough knot sizes that are
near maximum for the grade so the test data has to be recalculated as
though they do. The average reduction assigned for all European Spruce
is 14.63%. If the procedures are the same the following table reveals a
comparison: 
It’s important to understand that Design
Values established by the different agencies are about
methods used to calculate them. You can see by the previous
examples that the science employed by the U.S WCLIB (West
Coast Lumber Inspection Bureau) is very conservative and the
fact is that BASE (bottom) Design Values are about minimum
structural performance if lumber contains the maximum
characteristics effecting their strength. European producers
are not removing the upper grades from their No.2 and better
grade, which accounts for the premium appearance. If the
same techniques for rounding where employed by the WCLIB as
the CWC, not suggesting BASE or bottom, the SPR published
values would be much higher than S-P-F. Or if the CWC used
the same methods as the WCLIB then arguably they would have
to publish the BASE or bottom value contained in their
shipments and given the broad range of species (see below)
you can be certain that they would be much lower.
Norway Spruce (picea abies) has one of the
highest stiffness-to-weight ratios of all the spruces and
its excellent properties remain undisputed. Pleasing
appearance, small knot sizes, fine grain, less twist and
less warp are some of the tangible benefits. Europeans have been building quality wood
homes to last for centuries and Spruce is used more than any
other species. Design professionals and builders who
understand the difference between BASE and rounded values
know the high value that is added to every structure built
from European Spruce.
Further information is available by
contacting the West Coast Lumber
Inspection Bureau
at
(503)
639-0651 or visiting their
website: www.wclib.org
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