Innovation

Built in 1976, the Daiken New Zealand Medium Density Fibreboard (MDF) plant at Rangiora in the South Island of New Zealand was the first of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere and only the 13th in the world. Back then MDF was a totally new product and presented many engineering challenges.

Building on decades of team work and capital investment, Daiken New Zealand continues to perfect the technology required to process an inherently variable natural fibre and turn it into a consistently high quality product.

Today Customwood is a household name, setting the standard for MDF world wide because of its consistent quality. The Rangiora operation is responsible for many world-first breakthroughs in MDF production.

More Uniform Consistency & Colour

In the early days, the MDF could be ‘speckled’ because of small lumps of resin. To produce more uniform consistency and colour our engineers experimented with a new blow line resin blending technique. Despite what the critics said, this innovation proved to be hugely successful and has been adopted by MDF plants around the world.

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Improved Strength

To increase the strength of Customwood without using more material and adding more weight, adequate internal bonding was required.

The plant responded to the challenge by pioneering “Doc’s cycle". This consisted of changes to the operation of the press so the density could be varied throughout its profile, enhancing the product for many uses. Now new panels could be created that were sufficiently strong for structural uses such as flooring.

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Ultralight Panel

In the early 2000s there was a demand from the North American market for an MDF panel that would be suitable for use as mouldings and skirting. It needed to be extremely ("ultra") light but still have the superb machining characteristics of Customwood. The production team responded by once again innovating the pressing cycle technique to be able to maximize distribution of fibres into the core of the panel and so provide excellent machinability.