Brooks Bros says several “household names” are currently trialling Lignia modified wood.
The company, which is the exclusive UK and Northern Ireland distributor for the modified radiata pine product, currently has 30m³ of Lignia in stock at its Maldon depot and a further 120m³ “on the water”, due to arrive in the UK over the next four to eight weeks.
But, said Hans Ng, Brooks Bros director, speciality woods, demand looks set to “increase significantly”. “We expect some of those big companies currently trialling the product to be using between 50-75m³ a month,” he told TTJ.
Made in New Zealand by Fibre7 using a patented impregnation technology throughout the timber to produce an extremely hard and durable product with consistent colour, Lignia is already being used by furniture manufacturer Aspace.
Brooks Bros is already working on some specialist projects involving Lignia as flooring and worktop manufactured products, where Mr Ng said the aesthetics and performance of the product made it an obvious choice.
“We are also trialling Lignia with boatbuilders and stairparts manufacturers because it is defect-free and we can produce lengths of 14ft,” said Mark Fleming, group sales and marketing director. “In fact, when it’s laminated together, you can’t see any joins.”
Flooring is also expected to be a key market. Mr Fleming said Lignia had been subjected to a Janka hardness test (to measure its suitability for flooring) and had achieved a 6.5 rating, exceeding the mark of American white oak.
The company has also been successfully producing Lignia mouldings at its state-of-the-art Danbury machine facility for several large multi-national customers.
