Abstract:
Wood strands are oriented into parallelism with the aid of a number of adjacent, generally parallel spaces defined by relatively thin, elongated guide members having flat sides with the longitudinal axes of the guide members extending substantially parallel to a support surface below the spaces for receiving the parallel, oriented wood strands. Each pair of adjacent guide members are moved in opposite directions to turn strands which span the guide members until the strand falls into the space therebetween. In one form of the invention, certain of the guide members have yielding projections on their upper margins and the other guide members have positive projections on their upper margins, each yielding projection having a pair of inclined end edges and each positive projection having end edges generally perpendicular to the longitudinal axis of the corresponding guide member. In another form of the invention, each guide member has spaced, yielding and positive projections with a positive projection being between each pair of adjacent yielding projections, respectively. In both forms of the invention, the yielding projections serve to raise wood strands which span the distance between three or more guide members; whereas, the positive projections operate to turn the strands until they fall between the guide members.