BooTENDS TnRoITIoNAL SuurTERs STEp TooI Box ... - Wood Tools

tsqiSynthetic StoneThe experiments were notgoing well. And if you hadheard what the Rho-Deltagroup was up to, you wouldn'thaae been surprised. They wereattempting to make structurallumber out of shredded newspapers.It sounds like a fraternityprank - the loony scheme of abunch of crackpots with too muchtime on their hands.But you might have started totake them seriously when you realizedthat Rho and Delta are theGreek letters for R and D, short forresearch and development. Ifs anappropriate name for agroup of scientists,all former professors fromMankato State University, workingto turn clever ideas into businesses.46 W'orkbench tlune 1997Mike Reibel, a RhoDelta member,saw some possibilities amidthese experiments. Instead of callingit a failed structural material, hereasoned, lefs call it a successfuldecorative product. He also suggestedadding soy flour as a binder.As a former engineering andphysics teacherwho also has farmingin his background, Mike ownsa unique perspective on developing environmentally-friendly, agriculturally-basedproducts.Further tests proved the value ofhis ideas. Food-grade soy flourhelped produce a durable panelwithout relying on a toxic bindingagent that includes formaldehyde(remember that smell from yourhigh school biology lab?). This fibreakthrough gave birth to a prod- €uct named Environ, and a new com- !pany, Phenix Biocomposites.Mix, Mosh & MoldEnviron is composed mainly ofrecycled newspapers and foodgradesoy flour. The panels areavailable in ten rich colors andthicknesses ranging from Vsrr toil. Virfuallv all the raw materials