The students continued their workshops in the shed. Two guest from the saw mill manufacturer Wood Mizer joined the group and gave very hands-on instructions for practical issues regarding the professional use and maintenance of saw mills.

They further on received instructions of how to exactly work the notches when preparing and setting up a log house.

The last session of the day was field trip to the surrounding forest of Lovenholm where the students could follow a harvester in full operation.

The morning started off with a lecture about open air drying by Bent Jensen from Skovskolen.
TreProX training courses are built up as practical training units. The courses combine theoretical instructions with practical exercises.

Later today, the students were divided into four groups and were working in specific projects under supervision of the TreProX trainers to enhance their skills in building log houses, in planing and in working with a chainsaw mill.

TreProX workshops are designed to give practical experiences to the students. The motto is always to learn from the practitioners. Today was a field trip day to meet various experts.

The students visited this morning the forests around Eldrupgård and the Løvenholm Foundation. Ulrich Hansen from Skoveskolen gave an introdocution to silviculture and forest management methods. This forest in the immediate surrounding of the school is used for shorter forestry-related courses and as well for the training of forest and nature technicians.

In the afternoon, there was an interesting field trip around Djursland to visit small scale sawmills. First stop was the Sören Möller sawmill. This local enterprise manages 300 ha of Forest, mainly douglas fir, larch and oak. The students had the opportunity to discuss directly with the owner and follow the sawing and production and drying process. This little enterprise specialized in pre-manufactured wooden elements and as well in fire wood.

The next stop was the family owned company The Flying Carpenters. Casper, a carpenter himself, welcomed the group and gave insight in the versatile company he is building up. The family runs a carpentry workshop, offer their carpentry services for remote Danish islands via a little plane and grow the company into a sawmill at the same time. The new production hall for is still under construction, but he could present his new WoodMizer sawmill and demonstrated to the students some sawing of fir trunks. It was absolutely inspiring to listen to Kasper´s story and the innovative approach he has chosen for his company.

In the afternoon stood a lecture of Eiríkur Þorsteinsson from Trétækniráðgjöf on the agenda. He gave a comprehensive insight into the history of timber import to Iceland and the development of standard and certification systems. He presented as well the plans to establish warranty courses for certifiers in Iceland by the year 2023. The main course materials for these warranty courses have been developed within the TreProX project.

Today, the student groups arrived to Jutland from Iceland, Sweden and Denmark. We are looking forward a busy week full of teaching and training. The workshop is hosted by Skoveskolen/University of Copenhagen.

On Wednesday the 1st of June a reporter from the Swedish Radio (Sveriges radio) came to the forest and took interviews with some of the participants of the project. The interview is in Swedish but it can be listened to here:

https://sverigesradio.se/artikel/bjarki-studerar-det-smalandska-skogsbruket-driver-islands-enda-sagverk?fbclid=iwar0-0fvja2z6eaa8242tt1asjhqaha4qqyvd3jzkewvu0unmirqbfyisy60

Wednesday 1st of June

Visit to Fredrik Gustafsson forest farm

On the third day of the Swedish workshop the TreProX group met up with Dan Johansson and Fredrik Gustafsson at Fredrik‘s farm. Fredrik told the group about the farm, which is abou 1000 hectares, whereof the forest covers about 800 hectares. He sells about 2000 cubic meters of timber each year from his forest. Then the participants were split into five smaller groups and Dan explained that each group had to grade three different logs of pine that had been felled previously. The aim of the grading was to maximise the value of the timber and all the groups had information about Swedish quality evaluation and prizes of different quality categories. In addition all the groups had to evaluate the same pine log, as a part of a competition. The participants were very interested and engaged in the excercise and after they had finished the evaluation there were discussions between the groups about the logic behind their log evaluations. After a delicious lunch of local pizzas Dan explained that the group that had the highest valu in the single log evaluation competition would win a prize. The results were that two groups were very close in their estimation and to make sure that there was a single winner Dan flipped a cap. At the end of the visit to this part of Fredrik showed the group treefelling with his machine.

Jonaz Nilsson – Tools and their maintenance

After transport to the village of Lenhovda Jonaz Nilsson gave a lecture on the maintenance of tools used in treefelling and sawing. Sawing blades are made from different types of metal and typically the harder the blade the better it will keep it‘s sharpness but it is also much more expensive. He discussed the necessity of keeping tools sharp, with regards to maintaining the quality of the timber. Companies have different strategies when it comes to maintenance of saws, some choose to sharpen their sawing blades themselves while bigger companies hire contractors that come twice a day, take away dull blades and replace them with sharpened ones. He also talked about and showed visually the effect of different thickness of blades when sawing.

Visit to Kulturfönster window makers

In Lenhovde the group visited Kulturfönster window makers who still make windows by and old method of joining the posts together. The company mainly uses local wood in their production and their windows are mainly sold in southern Sweden. The company is owned by a couple and they employ about 15 young people.

Visit to Fredrik Gustafsson‘s sawmill

After the visit to Kulturfönster the participants went to Fredriks Gustafsson sawmill where he showed his saw and sawed a few logs to demonstrate how his sawmill works.

Dinner at Kosta Safaripark

After a long and fruitful day the group went to Kosta Safaripark and drove through the park to look at the wildlife. Luckily the animals cooperated and the group saw wild boar, mouflon sheep, some deer and a crown hart. After the drive through the park the group went to Kosta Wildmarkscamp for dinner. This camp is in the middle of the forest. There are three big tents and in one of them a whole wild boar was roasting over coals. The evening was a great success, delicious food in remarkable surroundings.

Tuesday 31st of May                         

On the second day of the workshop the group went to JGA Sawmills which is a medium sized sawmill by Swedish standards.

JGA Sawmills – Magnus Ragnarsson

The group was received at JGS sawmills by Magnus Ragnarsson who is the head of human resources at the company. He gave a short talk about the size and history of the company and went over general security rules that the group had to follow during the visit. Everyone was given an orange vest to wear during the stay. He then gave the group a tour around the sawmill, starting with raw logs and finishing with quality timber, ready for sale.

Börjes – presentation by Benkt-Åke Rungegård, owner of Börjes

Lunch was at Börjes, a shop and a restaurant run by two brothers but their father was the founder of the company. In the beginning the shop was quite small but has now expanded into many different directions. They pride themselves on low prices and good variation of goods, have about 150 people on staff, many of which are young people from around town who work in the shop during holidays and are greatful for the work opportunity and experience. They own four shops that sell horse related items to many countries, even to Iceland. The owners walked with the group through the shop, explaining various interesting things along the way to the restaurant on the top floor, where the owners invited everyone to lunch. 

Björn Källander – Drying wood

The lecture after lunch was held in an old house next door to the shop. The house used to be a church and Benkt-Åke told the group about the history of the house before the lecture, which was given by Björn Källender.

Björn went over the benefits of using hand held moisture content measurement instrument to estimate the moisture content of timber, but sadly the industry is not using that as much as it should be. There are many factors that can influence the drying of woods in kilns and one of the challenges in drying woods in kilns is how to make sure that all the timber in the kiln will dry equally. Björn discussed various damages that can occur in timber during the drying process, the reasons for the damage and what can be done to minimize the damage.

JGA Sawmills – Leif Gustavsson

After lunch the group went back to JGA sawmills and was now greeted by Leif Gustavsson, who is a specialist in kilns and wood drying and has designed the drying kilns at JGA. The group was split in two, half of the group went on a kiln tour with Leif while the other half took part in a practical excercise with Björn Källender, where the aim was to determine the moisture content in a few pieces of wood, using different methods.

The day was concluded with a barbecue by a lake where the group was invited to row boats on the lake or take a hike through the forest.

The second workshop of the Erasmus+ project TreProX was held in Sweden in the week 30th of May to the 3rd of June. In total around 30 participants took part in the workshop and the participants were very pleased with the planning and execution of the workshop. On the first day, Monday the 30th of May, the group visited Linné University where the program was started by Sigurður Ormarsson and Jonaz Nilsson, who gave a short introduction about the workshop schedule in Sweden. All participants have been given access to the LNU Moodle system where all information from Sweden will be uploaded. This will be accessible to the participants until the end of the year.

Program of the day.

Sigurður Ormarsson – Kursinformation og kort presentation af LNU.

Sigurður gave a short overview of Linné University, number of students and staff, facilities and areas of teaching and research, with special focus on the field of Forestry and Wood Technology. He mentioned The Bridge, a longtime collaboration between Södra and Ikea where about 300 million SKR come from the collaborators to the LNU. The BS and MSc programs are focused on engineering in wood building, construction and architecture.

Harald Säll, LNU – Presentation of Swedish Forest Industry

Harald works as a teacher with focus on small scale forestry or family forestry. This is one of the most popular courses of the university with about 800 students. Harald went briefly through the history of forestry in Sweden, with emphasis on regulations and laws on forest management. He explained changes in Swedish landscape where biodiversity is decreasing with the advance of forests and loss of meadows. Sweden needs to continue to increase it‘s carbon binding in order for the country to being carbon neutral. In Sweden there about 330 thousand forest owners and they own about half of all forests in the country. They must be in contact with many different official entities to fulfill all legal obligations regarding their forestry. About 1 million people have at least a portion of their income from forests, some have all their income from the forests. He pointed out that at the time when one tree is felled several hundred trees of the same species have already been planted. There is an increasing debate between forestry and nature conservation in Sweden.

Per Darrell, Swedish Nature Conservation Organisation – Naturskyddsforeningens syn på svenskt skogsbruk

Per has visited both Iceland and Denmark where he has studied mosses, which are his speciality. ,,If you do not know the name your understanding of the object will also disappear“ (Om du inte känner til namnen forsvinner også til kunskap til tingen. Carl von Linné). Per talked about natural forests vs. production forests and their respective abilities to withstand diseases and pests. The monoculture in production forests makes them vulnerable to diseases and pests, whereas the higher biodiversity of natural forests increases their resistance to damage. The change from continuing forests to final cut production forests decreases the diversity of species in the forests, many of the species disappear over time, especially when the forest is clearcut (kalavverkad). The climate change is a key factor that influences changes in forests, especially when it comes to biodiversity.

Andreas Arvidsson, Biometria

Biometria is owned by both the sawmills and the timber buyers in Sweden and belongs to the private sector. Andreas gave an overview of the history and the organization of the company but he is the district manager for Skåne (former East Denmark). The company is responsible for quality and quantity assessment of different variables in timber in forestry in Sweden. He went through the quality demands that all timber has to withstand.

After lunch Andreas and Jonaz Nilsson demonstrated how to grade different logs of timber outside the laboratorium. A private contractor, Mattias Hedin, owner of Mattias Mobilsåg, brought his transportable sawmill and sawed several of the logs to demonstrate how the visual defects on the outside of the logs affected the timber inside the log.

The final item on the agenda was a tour by Peter Lerman, LNU og Sigurður Ormarsson, around the laboratorium where the university does it research on wood drying and wood strength.