Edinburgh Napier University provided one of the high points of Timber Expo – the chance to see the first UK-manufactured cross-laminated timber (CLT) made from British-grown timber.
Three samples of CLT – Douglas fir, Sitka spruce and hemlock – were on display, having been manufactured by Napier the week before the exhibition. Samples in larch, Scots pine and Lawson cypress are forthcoming.
The university’s Forest Products Research Institute (FPRI) is halfway through an 18-month programme, funded by the Scottish government, Scottish Enterprise and the Forestry Commission, to identify the optimum form of panel that can be manufactured from domestically-grown timber.
The route to market for home-grown and produced CLT is likely to call for a partnership approach, said Peter Wilson, director of the Wood Studio, one of four specialist centres within the FPRI.
“We’re here [at Timber Expo] selling knowledge, not products,” he said, adding that the FPRI’s Wood Products Innovation Gateway initiative focused on helping Scottish SMEs develop a range of new added-value wood-based products, processes and construction systems from Scottish-grown timber.
