Shipping marks indicate the origin and properties of the sawn timber

Metsä Fibre’s spruce and pine sawn timber is available in a selection of grades that can be easily identified by their shipping marks. The shipping marks stamped on the ends of sawn timber planks in red or green tell the recipient who the timber producer is as well as the type and grade of the sawn timber.

Quality assessment determines the timber grade

Sawn timber is classified into various quality grades based on its technical and visual properties. The technical properties include the dimensions and moisture content. The visual assessments are distortions such as possible bows, wanes or crooks. Another visual evaluation for quality control is the dry knots and their size, location, number, and composition. At Metsä Fibre, we use the Nordic Timber Commercial Grading Rules, a type of a timber grading system applicable to both domestic and export markets,  for both our pine (Pinus sylvestris) and spruce (Picea abies) sawn timber.  

The US grades (US standing for unsorted) that are the highest contain the grades US I – IV. Grade I refers to the highest quality of timber showing minimal defects with a supreme appearance and technical properties. Most of Metsä Fibre’s spruce sawn timber, which is of consistent quality, falls under the US I – IV grades. Sawfalling, or shortly SF grade represents the timber grading that falls below the highest grades and may relatively contain more imperfections where the appearance of the end product is less decisive.

The shipping marks, which were all sawmill-specific before, have been replaced with the new brand image. This has led to a new design based on the Metsä logo and a mark indicating the timber’s grade. For spruce sawn timber, the stamp logo’s base colour is green, and for pine sawn timber, it is red.