The Metriguard Messenger

A Metriguard newsletter bringing you information about products, events, services and other information useful to the forest products industry via e-mail. You can download previous issues here.

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Metriguard Inc
2465 NE Hopkins Court
PO Box 399 Pullman WA 99163 

PHONE - 509-332-7526 -- FAX 509-332-0485 
Emergency after-hours pager 509-332-0554

sales@metriguard.com

**Latest revisions to this web site -- 29 Sep 2008

 

Corporate Information

Metriguard, Inc is a privately held corporation of the State of Washington founded in 1973.

Metriguard's program of continuous improvement has resulted in many new and improved products for nondestructive testing and quality control of structural wood products.  Our qualified service people provide timely and competent help when needed.

Our goal is to assist our customers in developing value-added profits through more accurate sorting processes and to serve the research community through development of new wood testing equipment.

 

 

Metriguard is the wood products industry leader in the design and manufacture of machine stress rating (MSR) equipment. MSR involves electro-mechanical testing of every piece of lumber, visual evaluation to determine piece grade, and daily quality control tests to verify the strength and stiffness properties of the final product. MSR offers producers improved profits by increasing grade recovery while reducing material waste. For component manufacturers and structural engineers, MSR offers the ability to construct stronger and more rigid roof and floor systems. MSR lumber makes such designs possible, because structural properties are characterized with more precision. For buyers of structural lumber products, this means more efficient use of the natural resource and increased confidence that the product will perform as required. Machine Evaluated Lumber (MEL) and E-rated (lamination grades) can also be produced with Metriguard equipment.

Many of Metriguard's products were developed from customer-identified needs and problems. Our innovations have enhanced traditional forest products testing equipment, and new equipment introduced by the company has become the industry standard. This specialized equipment is designed for testing and grading lumber according to the following physical properties:

Modulus of Elasticity --- The High Capacity Lumber Tester (HCLT) measures bending E, an indication of bending stiffness, by bending lumber first downward and then upward in two, four-foot bending test spans and measure the force required at each span to achieve a constant deflection. This measurement is used to calculate board stiffness and predict strength.

Ultrasonic Veneer Testing --- The Model 2600FX Ultrasonic Veneer Tester determines physical properties of dry veneer sheets by repetitively measuring ultrasonic stress wave propagation time as veneer under test moves through the machine at production line speeds.

Bending --- The Model 312 Bending Proof Tester measures edgewise bending modulus of elasticity (E) and provides a proof test for bending modulus of rupture (MOR). Lumber size capacity includes both North American dimension lumber sizes and metric sizes.

Tension --- MSR lumber is characterized by high design values of tension parallel-to-grain (F t). Tension testing machines can verify the (F t) values in a quality control program. The 400 Series off-line testers are available for research or for quality control testing of tension values. In-line testers can quickly and efficiently test every piece of material in the production line.

New for 2008

Panel Testing Equipment --- Metriguard's new Model 820 Panel Performance Tester and Model 830 Panel Bending Tester provide the panel manufacture with evaluation tools for determining compliance with special product standards. This enables the panel manufacturer to test on site with very quick turn-around while adjusting production parameters and recipes for panel products. In addition, Metriguard's Continuous Panel Tester, the Panelyzer, provides the user with a method for quickly evaluating production quantities of panels for bending E properties.