Engineered Wood Products (I-Joist, LVL, OSB, Plywood)
Boards-Gypsum, Wall wafer, OSB, Green
End Grain Marking

Federal regulation mandates pallet manufacturers to mark an International Plant Protection Convention (IPPC) certificate logo on pallets. The IPPC logo certifies that the wood used on its pallets was heat‐treated as required by the American Lumber Standard Committee (ALSC).  Therefore, wood material must be marked with the IPPC logo and a two letter ISO code for the country that treated the wood. The marking must also include the unique number assigned by the national plant protection organization to the company responsible for ensuring the wood material was properly treated, and either the abbreviation HT (heat treatment) or MB (methyl bromide).  Read more about this application in this Wood Pallet Marking White Paper (click here).

Matthews’ ink‐jet printer can be easily integrated into existing production lines. As the pallets are being manufactured, and fed through a conveying system, Matthews’ printheads mount directly on the side of the conveyor line and automatically mark both sides of the pallet.  Changing from one message to another is quick and easy via the printer’s controller. Important production information, including manufacturing date, lot number, pallet count, and even private label logos can be effortlessly incorporated into the marking. Offline coding and messy, costly rubber stamps and labor costs are completely eliminated. Matthews offers superior ink formulations with excellent UV stability for outdoor storage, with the ability to work well on all types of wood, including green wood.  Watch a video (click here) on one of our inkjet printing technologies (low-resolution printing) in action.

Engineered Wood Products (I-Joist, LVL, OSB, Plywood)
Engineered wood products are used in the building industry to provide framework, sheathing, and floor supports for buildings. Engineered wood products are marked in order to print building code details, structural ratings, stress grade test results, species identification and association trademarks. There are two differences between engineered wood products and natural wood products. An engineered wood product is simply a piece of wood that has been cut, dried, altered, glued and cured to become a structural building component. Natural wood products, such as stacked and dimensional lumber, are cut wood in its natural form.

Matthews provides marking solutions for a multitude of engineered wood products, such as panel board, I-joists, flanges and wood moldings. Manufacturers use ink-jet printers to print company logos, as well as size, quality and species information. The DOD5100 is a rugged industrial ink-jet printer that provides outstanding print flexibility, high resolution printing of text and print speeds of up to 788 fpm.

For those manufacturers who need their company logo to stand out in the crowd, our IP9000 High-Resolution Printing System offers high-resolution printing of text, logos and bar codes. The system prints up to five lines of information and can be integrated with other operating systems.

Matthews offers a wide range of coding and marking products that are ideal for the engineered wood products segment. Ink-jet and contact technologies are capable of marking engineered wood products. Ink-jet offers one benefit over contact and indenting-- it is capable of printing real-time information onto the product. Real-time printing information is beneficial to manufacturers that want to apply a date and time code to a product. The main advantage that offset technology holds over ink-jet, is a lower cost per mark.

Boards-Gypsum, Wall wafer, OSB, Green
Water-resistant inks and our Jet-A-Mark Drop-On-Demand Printers are the perfect combination for complying with UL regulations for marking fire-resistance classifications and other product information. Fast print speeds of up to 788 fpm and excellent logo printing capabilities make these ink-jet printers a popular choice for coding many different types of boards.

Recently, many customers began requesting small character ink-jet printing for these products. To meet this need, we offer the IP9100 Small Character Printer, for one-line printing speeds of up to 300 fpm. For multiple lines of print (or faster printing speeds), Matthews Continuous Ink-Jet Printers can print character sizes that range from 1/32" to 3/4", at speeds of up to 1400 fpm.

End Grain Marking
The need for flexible printing systems is a must when printing company logos, sorting codes or grading information on the end grain of timber. Jet-A-Mark Drop-On-Demand Ink-Jet Printers and High Resolution InkJet fill this need. With a rugged valve printhead, these systems can code a variety of character sizes from a single printhead and produce excellent logos.