Short strand orienter

An orienting system for orienting wood strands comprising at least three decks including a top deck, a bottom deck and at least one intermediate deck between said top and bottom decks to form a series of said at least three decks stacked substantially vertically one directly above the other, substantially vertically extending passages through each of said decks, each of said passages in each said deck having a width defined by a pair of spaced walls, said decks being in vertically adjacent pairs, each of said pairs composed of an upper deck which may be one of said top deck and said intermediate decks and a lower deck which may be one of said bottom deck or said intermediate decks, said passages through said bottom deck having a preselected width y measured in a first direction between and substantially perpendicular to said walls of said bottom deck, said width y being sufficiently small to ensure orientation of said strands passing therethrough to the desired mean angular deviation relative to a second direction substantially perpendicular to said first direction, said passages in an upper deck of each pair of vertically adjacent decks in said series have widths measured in said first direction correlated with passage widths of passages through its adjacent said lower deck of said pair of decks so that a passage through said upper deck of each said pair of adjacent decks is divided into two passages by passages directly therebelow formed through its adjacent said lower deck of said pair of vertically adjacent decks, the combined widths of said two passages directly therebelow being equal to the width of said passage through said upper deck so that strands falling downward though a passage in said upper deck may fall directly onto only one top edge of a common wall between its said two passages directly therebelow in said lower deck, said top deck forming an upper deck of one of said pairs of vertically adjacent decks and said bottom deck forming a lower deck of another of said pairs of vertically adjacent decks and each said intermediate deck forming an upper deck with its vertically adjacent lower deck and a lower deck with its immediately adjacent upper deck and wherein said walls of said passages in each said upper deck in each said pair of vertically adjacent decks are substantially vertically and axially aligned one with each outer walls of a pair of adjacent of said passages directly therebelow in its said lower deck immediately therebelow.