oriented with the growth rings and can be controlled by lathe adjustments moreover within the typical range of veneer thicknesses the veneer contains very few growth rings all of which are parallel to or at very shallow angle to the top and bottom surfaces of the sheet in our process we specify the veneer thickness tv to match the desired wood particle height h to the specifications for a particular conversion process the veneer may be processed into particles directly from a veneer lathe or from stacks of veneer sheets produced by a veneer lathe our preferred manufacturing method is to feed veneer sheet or sliced materials into a rotary bypass shear with the grain direction oriented across and preferably at a right angle to the feed direction through the machine 39 s processing head that is parallel to the shearing faces the rotary bypass shear that we designed for manufacture of precision wood feedstock particles is a shown in fig2 this prototype machine 10 is much like a paper shredder and includes parallel shafts 12 14 each of which contains a plurality of cutting disks 16 18 the disks 16 18 on each shaft 12 14 are separated by smaller diameter spacers not shown that are the same width or greater by 0 1 mm thick than the td of the cutting disks 16 18 the cutting disks 16 18 may be smooth 18 knurled not shown and or toothed 16 to improve the feeding of veneer sheets 20 through the processing head 22 each upper cutting disk 16 contains five equally spaced teeth.