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A 95-year-old lumber company wants to become Oregon’s second mass timber manufacturer, by turning its plywood veneers into a low-cost alternative to cross-laminated timber (CLT).

Freres Lumber Co. is building a 4-acre expansion at its Lyons mill and has begun installing a wood press and milling machine so it can press and form mass plywood panels (MPP). The product would be a lot like the plywood the mill already produces, only much larger and – pending approval by the American Plywood Association – certified to bear structural loads.

There’s hope at the company that MPP will join CLT in high-rise construction once expected building code changes occur and a supply chain establishes itself in the Pacific Northwest.

“It’s an extremely compelling idea and it can open up a lot of different marketplaces,” Vice President Tyler Freres said.

Leadership at the company decided two years ago to pursue the venture after Freres and his brother and fellow vice president, Kyle, visited a CLT manufacturer in Austria. Tyler Freres said they noticed how much raw material was going to waste using sawn hardwood lumber to make engineered wood panels.

“So when we came back, we worked on ways to potentially use a plywood-like panel, or veneers in different orientations, to try to replicate that type of product,” he said.

Freres says there are a couple of ways MPP creates less waste than CLT. Veneers, like those Freres Lumber uses to make plywood, are peeled off a log using a lathe.  Lumber, by contrast, is made by sawing a log into smaller pieces, so there’s less loss using plywood compared to hardwood lumber. MPP also is said to be efficient because knots and other defects in lumber must be sawn around, which usually results in scrapping usable material.

MPP also lacks the need for intermediate facilities to kiln-dry lumber down to a suitable moisture content, as is the case with CLT.

At the Freres mill in Lyons, a testing facility is already rolling out prototype MPP, and a patent application is pending on the mill’s process.  The mill expansion project could be completed as early as late October, with commercial roll-out potentially ready by mid-December. The company expects to receive APA certification within nine months.

But that doesn’t mean smooth sailing from there, according to two industry experts.

“I’d be surprised if they’re able to do it in 18 months,” said Ethan Martin, senior technical specialist for Woodworks.

Freres Lumber is working to get the product certified with APA as a grade of CLT, Martin said. The APA’s certification standard – PRG-320 – is a performance-based standard, meaning it has to demonstrate it can handle a specific load. But the standards to get certified by the International Code Council, which writes the building code, are more detailed than the APA’s.

“Even if it gets PRG-320-certified, the building code still says, ‘CLT manufactured in accordance with PRG-320.’ It doesn’t say composite lumber, or plywood, manufactured in accordance with PRG-320,” said Martin, who toured the Freres expansion this month. “Years ago, the wood industry all stepped back and wrote a CLT handbook, did all the testing, and got it into the building code. I’d say Freres is about where CLT was four to five years ago.”

What seems more likely to Martin is that over the next few years, as larger code issues are worked out, Freres Lumber supplies a few “one-off” projects that receive special permission to use MPP. Aside from those one-offs, the company would be able to use its new expansion facility to produce other products.

Right now, Oregon is home to one of the U.S.’s two APA-certified CLT manufacturers. DR Johnson in Riddle for decades focused on high-end Douglas fir products until it became the first American company to branch into CLT. To produce its CLT panels – which are typically made from lower-grade lumber – DR Johnson buys lumber from elsewhere. Freres said this is one way his company will be more vertically-integrated than the CLT model.

But Timm Locke of the Oregon Forest Resources Institute said he isn’t sure it matters.

“It’s two different ways to skin a cat,” he said. “In fact, the possibility exists that if this MPP takes off, Freres may find that they need to buy veneer on the open market to support their own manufacturing. And they may find that their veneer is more appropriate for other uses.”

Locke says one drawback with MPP could be in aesthetics. CLT is popular with designers because of increased structural possibilities and a clean look. MPP manufacturers have a possible solution in using hardwood as a surface layer, already common in smaller plywood panels.

Locke said OFRI is “equally excited” about CLT and MPP. (Tyler Freres is an OFRI board member.)

If a product has the same design values as CLT and it also competes in the market to be used in placed of poured concrete, Locke thinks it will only lead to more buildings being made of wood.

“I think what the Freres brothers are doing is an innovative approach to manufacturing,” he said, “and I’m happy to see traditional wood products companies doing it.”