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Inside a Flooring Warehouse

December 3, 2010 By Rob Banks Leave a Comment
Chain

On a trip to California I took a brief video to show you what it looks like inside a warehouse of flooring products. This warehouse plays a key part in the Supply Chain. Supply Chain is defined as: "The network of retailers, distributors, transporters, storage facilities and suppliers that participate in the sale, delivery and production of a particular product". The warehouse plays a key role in the later part of the chain, too. When you buy from BuildDirect this is often the type of facility … [Read more...]

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Testing Wood Floor Formaldehyde Emission at the Factory

August 4, 2009 By Rob Banks Leave a Comment

Here is a video of one of my visits to a factory a few hours outside of Shanghai. I attempt to show and explain a formaldehyde emissions test. Honestly it was a pretty average effort, I had done little research and I know no technical terms, so tried to wing it. Hey, I gotta be me! I don't speak Chinese and I spent awhile speaking with the chemical experts in the factory and unfortunately much of the communication was lost in translation, so I ended up winging it. You won't here anything … [Read more...]

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I walk the line; the wood flooring line, that is!!

July 17, 2009 By Rob Banks Leave a Comment

As Johnny Cash once did, I walked the line. In my case however, I walked a finishing line in an engineered flooring factory near the east coast of China. It is was a typical day in this region of China; 35C (95F) and thunder showers. When I was in the factory it was raining pretty hard. I wanted to show what it was like to walk along a line finishing line. I did this in an impromptu fashion so sorry for the lack of technical terms. Anyways, it's a little behind the scenes on how engineered … [Read more...]

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How Laminate Flooring Has Evolved So Far

February 11, 2009 By Rob Banks 3 Comments

The evolution of laminate flooring has been nothing short of incredible. I can remember approx 17 years ago I had a friend in Vancouver that installed the early generation of laminate flooring.  It was ugly; it was 6mm thick and had to be glued down. Let me tell you, that friend of mine was a heavy drinker! After a day of brutal work installing that stuff, his knees were killing him, his hands wore a mess and he was desperate for a few beers! I, of course was always supportive and drank … [Read more...]

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Inside A Laminate Flooring Factory, Part 3

February 6, 2009 By Rob Banks Leave a Comment

In my last couple of posts,  I showed you some videos about how laminate floors are made. First, was the paper impregnation process which fuses the photo layer onto the HDF board.   The second one was about one of the ways that beveled laminate flooring is made In the third video, we show the other way that bevel edges are made, with a molding process.  Take a look: Finally, the fourth video shows the molded, bevel edged product being cut and stacked. … [Read more...]

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Inside A Laminate Flooring Factory, Part 2

February 3, 2009 By Rob Banks 1 Comment

As I mentioned in my last post, the manufacturing process of laminate flooring involves numerous steps.  In the first video, you  get to see the paper impregnating process. This second video shows a very cool feature on the newer generation of laminate flooring: narrow boards and bevel edging. The video I've included in this post is of me in a Chinese laminate floor factory trying to show the process they use to make a bevel edge look real. They do this in two ways: They mold the … [Read more...]

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Inside a Laminate Flooring Factory, Part 1

January 29, 2009 By Rob Banks 1 Comment

I spend a lot of time inside factories, usually in remote places in the world. In today’s post I wanted to share what it looks like inside a laminate flooring factory, and this is part 1 of a series. This factory is located in Northern China and it was freezing! I have my  suit jacket on but could have used a parka! There are numerous steps in laminate flooring manufacturing, this first video shows me walking beside a large line of equipment to show the paper impregnating process. There … [Read more...]

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