Continuous or semi-continuous process for forming reconsolidated wood product

A process for forming an extended elongate reconsolidated wood product from a plurality of flexible open lattice work webs each of naturally interconnected wood strands, each said web being formed by partially rending natural wood so that said strands thereof are generally aligned along a common grain direction, a substantial proportion of said strands of each web being substantially discrete but incompletely separated from each other, said process comprising superposing said webs in such a fashion that the webs make an acute angle to the longitudinal direction of extent of the product and so that adjacent webs partly overlap each other in said direction and applying a bonding agent to the webs, compressing the superposed webs to consolidate the strands while maintaining them such as to substantially extend in said original grain direction and curing the bonding agent to hold the strands of said superposed webs together in juxtapositions assumed pursuant to said consolidation, said compressing step comprising passing the superposed webs longitudinally through a compression device from an inlet end to an outlet end, the compression device comprising two compression elements relatively movable towards each other from an open condition to effect said compression and consolidation, said passing step comprising relatively displacing the superposed webs through the compression device from the inlet end a distance less than one half the length of the compression device between the inlet and outlet ends when the compression elements are in their open condition and wherein the compression elements are moved towards each other to effect said compression and consolidation when the superposed webs are stationary in the longitudinal direction and said curing is effected when the superposed webs are compressed by the compression elements in portions of the superposed webs in the compression device adjacent the outlet end thereof, and said passing step, said compression and consolidation and said curing are repeated along the entire length of the superposed webs to produce said extended product.