Wood fights back

Press, 11 April 1984, Page 33

Wood fights back

By

PAT TAYLOR,

in Greymouth

The Standards Association of New Zealand may have been surprised recently to find that there was still a manufacturer of wooden toilet seats in the country when everything appeared to be plastic, but it is a steady business for the Greymouth joinery firm of Sotherans, Ltd. The wooden seats and their lids were being made in quantity on a recent visit. The Standards Association had decided to revoke the standard for wooden seats until it found that Sotherans was still making them, and a Wellington merchant proclaimed that they were coming back into vogue. The toilet seats — made from red birch — are sent to a Christchurch wholesaler, who sends them throughout New Zealand “and also to Australia and Malaysia,” said the manager of Sotherans, Mr Tony Pizzato.

He was talking in his office while a factory-made wooden clock — complete to wooden cogs and spring — ticked away at the side. The red beech clock has a pendulum mechanism, and the wood spring is on a ratchet. Sotherans is perhaps leading the fight-back of wood in producing door and drawer handles of all types and descriptions, bathroom furniture, including wooden triangular and circular towel rings, small wine caskets, and spice racks. The spice racks are in particularly heavy demand in Australia, said Mr Pizzato, and it is working hard to keep up with the demand to meet the orders. Asked why an Australian firm would place such large orders, he replied: “We must be cheaper.” However, the company’s weapon is a computerised (numerically controlled) overhead router, which cost

about $250,000. When installed it was the pioneer in this country. It can be programmed to cut a wide variety of products. The company is innovative. It built its own spraying and drying tunnel, with the required speeds controlled by an adapted car gear-box, and is now building a multi-sander to put the finishing touches to such items as the spice racks.