Particleboard was developed in Germany in the late 1940s and introduced to Australia in 1957 when Coreboard Ltd. (later purchased by Softwood Holdings Ltd.) established a plant at Mt. Gambier.
The Coreboard plant created a much-needed market for early thinnings from the rapidly expanding radiata pine plantations as well as for sawn waste.
Before mechanisation, the 6-foot timber billets were hand cut, stacked in the plantation in heaps and extracted to the roadside before loading and transport.
At the factory, the bark was then removed, and the logs converted into thin flakes which were dried, mixed with urea-formaldehyde resin and then continuously extruded and pressed through a heated die.
A second plant was built in 1960 at Oberon in NSW by Pyneboard Pty. Ltd., a subsidiary of Colonial Sugar Refining Company (CSR).
The Oberon plant used an improved process which formed the board onto an endless steel wire mesh, cut it into lengths and then pressed it between heated platens.
Australian Paper Manufacturers (APM), based in Gippsland and operator of the major pulp mill at Maryvale, also owned a substantial pine plantation estate and acquired a 50% share in the Oberon plant in 1964.
The acquisition led to another Pyneboard factory, jointly owned by CSR and APM, being established at Rosedale with production commencing in 1964. But because of its small size, the factory became unprofitable and was closed at the end of 1978.
The Rosedale factory was subsequently used as a leather tanning works and then to manufacture industrial cable.
https://www.austehc.unimelb.edu.au/tia/244.html
Note – Pyneboard is a tradename and is sometimes incorrectly referred to as Pineboard.
Victoria’s Forests & Bushfire Heritage 