Wood and Wood Products

Chronology

Wood is an organic material, strickly the secondary xylem in the stems of trees and other woody plants). In a living tree it conducts water and nutrients to the leaves and other growing tissues, and has a support function, enabling woody plants to reach large sizes or to stand up for themselves. However, wood may also refer to other plant materials with comparable properties, and to material engineered from wood, or wood chips or fiber. ^Wiki

Wood has always been an important material throughout American history.   It was abundant and cheap, for many years free outside the big cities, mainly as a cheap fuel and as lumber for homes, buildings, and furniture.   Wood has a high strength to weight ratio, and is a good insulator against heat, water, and electricity.   It is easily shaped and planed with hand tools and easily constructed with fasteners, such as nails, bolts and screws, or bonded with adhesives.   Its appearance and can be made attractive by finishing it with paints, varnishes and lacquers, which also protect from weather rot. ^{USDA 1-2}   Consequently, it is used to construct homes, barns, furniture, gears, ships, boats, and bridges.   As wood "pulp" (small chips) that is dissolved in chemicals, it is made into paper for containers and printing.   Wood has many important secondary uses in sap sugar, dyes, fertilizers, tars and medicines.   Composites of wood, such as plywood, particleboard and fiberboard give wood many additional properties that are also useful in construction.   Forests were extremely abundant in all areas of the U.S. except for the Great Plains, but as these were cut down to provide wood and clear land for farms, significant replacement by other materials and conservation efforts had to be made to maintain forests.

There are about 100 wood species in the U.S., about 60 of which are useful commercially.   Wood is so much used in the U.S. that about 30 species must be imported today to supplement U.S. sources.   Each specie has special characteristics that make is desirable for specific uses. ^{USDA 1-2}

Wood is attacked and destroyed ("rot") by minute organisms, so it must be treated with materials called preservatives, such as coal-tar creosotes, that kill them.   This is most common with poles, piles, and railroad ties. ^{USDA 14-2}

Wood burns at a relatively low temperature, too low for melting iron from iron ore.   However, if its organic matter is burned off slowly in a confined space with limited air, its residue is almost pure carbon, which burns at a high enough to smelt iron.   This form of wood is called charcoal.   Charcoal was the primary fuel for iron smelting into the 19th century.   As charcoal became more expensive because of forest depletion, coal became more economical as an iron smelting fuel, and eventually totally replaced charcoal.

In the era of wooden ships, which were constructed of various wood species, American ships were as good as any in the world and were far cheaper than European ones because of the abundance of wood and experienced shipbuilders in America.   In fact, American shipbuilding was a major industry supplying domestic and foreign buyers for many years.   For the same reason, i.e., cheapness, most bridges and gears for machinery used in mines, and mills and most homes, home furniture, and home appliances, e.g., clocks, were made of wood.   On the other hand, the ready availability of wood made the transition to iron and steel slow in the U.S., until forests were reduced considerably, from East to West, for farmland and lumber.   As a result, wood became more expensive because of the longer hauling distances and greater transportation cost, so coal became a more competitive substitute.   Also, as the production cost and price of iron and steel decreased, they was substituted for wood in construction where heavy loads were expected, viz., bridges.

Corrugated cardboard is often held together with cornstarch, which is the starch from corn (maize).   In the production of cardboard boxes, the cornstarch is mixed with urea formaldehyde resin to make the card board water resistant.

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