Framesaw spacer blocks are an important detail in the overall running of a sawmill. The performance of spacer blocks has a great influence on the dimensional accuracy and saleability of the timber produced.

Traditionally, framesaw spacer blocks have been made out of wood. The purpose of the spacer blocks is to position the saws precisely in relation to one another so that the timber produced will be of the correct dimension.

Because the spacer blocks are located by clamping pressure, the wooden spacer blocks compress and fall out, causing a tremendous amount of downtime. Moisture changes and the force of the clamping pressure can result in size variations, which effects the dimensions of the boards cut by the framesaw.

Certain mills can not use metal spacer blocks in case the metal falls or is accidently dropped during the changing of the spacers onto the conveyor and is carried into the chipper.

For these reasons a material is required that is dimensionally stable, economical and will not cause damage to the chipper. Many substitute materials have been investigated with little success or have proved too expensive.

Vescolene Ultrablack spacers have been used with great success. At one sawmill, this change resulted in a reduction of framesaw downtime by at least a factor of five. No damage resulted when the Ultrablack spacers were accidentally conveyed to the chipper.

The change to Vescolene Ultrablack resulted in the following benefits:

• Great improvements in sawing accuracy
• Substantial reduction in downtime
• No damage to chipper