Panels & Furniture Asia May/June 2020

May / June 2020, Issue 3 | Panels & Furniture Asia WOOD CLINIC | 59
Hello, Mr. Shen!
I am a reader of PANELS & FURNITURE ASIA. At present, I am in charge of making wood doors
and interior decoration in a small wood factory. The company purchased a second-hand louvered
door manufacturing facility not long ago and is using Red Maranti and Nyatoh wood for small
batch production of solid wood shutters. We are facing many problems in our production process,
for example:
• The slats near the transom above the louvered door become slanted, damaged or loosened
(see Figure 1)
• Some slats are bent (see Figure 2);
Mr Shim (Shen Yuxin)
• Doorpost would be cracked or damaged;
• The louvered door can be packaged only after several rounds of repairs by hand sanding,
resulting in very low productivity;
• In the finished product warehouse, the doorposts of the louvered doors that are made of Nyatoh wood are deformed and
poorly assembled due to weak glue strength.
I hope you can provide some suggestions for improvement.
Yours sincerely,
Mr Lin
How to solve several
issues with manufacturing
louvered door
(I) Analysis and recommendations to solve the common
shortcomings of solid wood louvered door after assembly:
1. Slats on the louvered door becoming slanted
The main reason why the slats on the upper transom are not
parallel after assembling the louvered door:
- Improper operation of the automatic slotting machine: with
two doorposts on the automatic slotting machine used to
shape a milling slot for slats, if one of them is not pressed
tightly, it may move during milling, resulting in some slats
being non-parallel. It is recommended to make sure that
both doorposts are tightly pressed and both milling cutters
are sharp when operating the automatic slotting machine.
- Inaccuracy of the automatic slotting machine: after a long
period of wear, the automatic slotting machine will become
less accurate. A thorough check and repair is recommended
to ensure that the automatic slotting machine remains
accurate.
2. Damaged slats
If there are broken grains or knots on the slats of the louvered
door, or the wood grains are not straight, the slats will be
damaged during assembly and pressing and need to be
replaced. It is recommended to strictly control the quality of
the slats when preparing materials to ensure they are free of
the defects mentioned above, and confirm that chamfering on
both ends of the slats are in place.
3. Loosened slats
Two reasons for why slats are often loose and ill-fitted after
assembly of the louvered door (as shown in figure 1):
- Mismatched automatic slotting specifications: if the milling
cutter with a metric diameter of 6.0mm is mixed with the
milling cutter with an imperial diameter of 1/4 inch
(1/4" - 6.35mm) in use, slats will get unconsolidated after
assembly of the louvered door. It is suggested that the
worker set the specifications of the milling slot according