In veneer manufacture the logs are routinely soaked in heated water baths in order to soften the wood prior to peeling. The temperature of the water may vary greatly between batches; however, the influence of log soaking temperature on veneer properties has had little research attention. Uncontrolled moisture is known to cause problems in wood-based materials, while thermal modification offers a method to control the interaction between wood and water. Therefore it might be beneficial to utilise thermally modified veneers in plywood manufacture. Yet, thermal modification is expected to also change other wood properties which might influence the possibility to utilise thermally modified veneers for wood-based-panels. The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of log soaking temperature (70 °C and 20 °C) and thermal modification (8h in steam conditions) on selected properties of birch veneers, which are relevant in plywood manufacture. The surface area and surface free energy was studied with inverse gas chromatography (IGC). The surface free energy was found to be slightly higher for the unmodified veneers, however, no major difference was found in the dispersive part of the surface free energy between the log soaking temperatures or between unmodified or thermally modified veneers. The wetting of the veneers was investigated with the Wilhelmy plate method utilising the multicycling technique. It was found that lower log soaking temperature produced veneers with more hydrophobic nature. Also, thermal modification increased the hydrophobicity of the veneers. The bond strength was measured with an automatic bond evaluation system (ABES) using phenol formaldehyde (PF) resin. In general, the lower log soaking temperature resulted in slightly higher bond strength (however, the result was statistically insignificant), while thermal modification slightly lowered the bond strength. Based on these initial results thermally modifying the veneers prior to plywood manufacture might be useful.

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