System for making synthetic wood products from recycled materials

Claim 1

A system for making dimensionally stable and moisture resistant synthetic wood products from recycled materials comprising: means for removing contaminants from wood fiber materials and for conveying the decontaminated wood fiber material to means for processing the decontaminated wood fiber material to yield wood fiber particles having a maximum diameter size of about one-eighth inch; means for conveying the wood fiber particles to a holding container; means for weighting plastic material and the wood fiber particles to achieve a predetermined mix ratio and to produce a plastic/wood mix; means to convey the plastic/wood mix to means for heating, kneading and further mixing the plastic/wood mix to a temperature high enough to melt the plastic material and encapsulate the wood fiber particles within the melted plastic material so that moisture absorption by the wood fiber is reduced and to form a substantially homogeneous mass; means to produce a plurality of relatively small, relatively uniformly sized potions of extruder feed from the substantially homogeneous mass; a compounding extruder adapted to receive the extruder feed and to extrude the feed through a predetermined die to form a product having a predetermined configuration; means for receiving the product from the extruder and means for periodically moving a cutting means with and at the same speed as the product for cutting the product into pieces of predetermined lengths while the product is continuously flowing from the extruder so that an upstream side of the product is not rammed into the means for cutting.

Claim 2

A system for making dimensionally stable and moisture resistant synthetic wood products from recycled materials comprising: means for removing contaminants from wood fiber materials and for conveying the decontaminated wood fiber material to means for processing the decontaminated wood fiber material to yield wood fiber particles having a maximum diameter size of about one-eighth inch; means for conveying the wood fiber particles to a holding container; means for weighting plastic material and the wood fiber particles to achieve a predetermined mix ratio and to produce a plastic/wood mix; means to convey the plastic/wood mix to means for heating, kneading and further mixing the plastic/wood mix to a temperature high enough to melt the plastic material and encapsulate the wood fiber particles within the melted plastic material so that moisture absorption by the wood fiber is reduced and to form a substantially homogeneous mass; means to produce a plurality of relatively small, relatively uniformly sized potions of extruder feed from the substantially homogeneous mass; a compounding extruder adapted to receive the extruder feed and to extrude the feed through a predetermined die to form a product having a predetermined configuration; means for receiving the product from the extruder and means for periodically moving a cutting means with and at the same speed as the product for cutting the product into pieces of predetermined lengths while the product is continuously flowing from the extruder so that an upstream side of the product is not rammed into the means for cutting.