The manufacturing process of wooden matches can be roughly divided into five parts: stem manufacturing, stem processing, matchstick tip manufacturing, box manufacturing, packaging and phosphor brushing.
Woods with loose texture, straight texture, flammable material, and no peculiar smell should be used to make match stems. Commonly used tree species are Populus or Tiliaceae, pine or spruce can also be used. Pine wood needs to be steamed to remove the rosin contained in it.
After the material is selected, the log is sawed and cut into sections, the bark is peeled off, and then turned into continuous stalk pieces of uniform thickness. The stalk slices are then cut into certain size stalks.
Dip the stems with phosphoric acid or ammonium phosphate solution with a concentration of about 1%, which is called anti-burn treatment, which can prevent the embers from falling off after the match is burned. After being drained to remove surface moisture, it is sent to a stem dryer for drying to reduce the moisture content of stem stems to 6-8%. After the stems and branches are dried, they are screened by a stem selector to remove broken branches, long strips and wide pieces, and select stems that meet the specifications.
Qualified stems are sent to the automatic continuous match machine through a wind pipe or conveyor belt, which automatically performs multiple processes such as stem arranging, stem loading, waxing, spraying, drying and stem unloading to complete the match manufacturing.
Matchboxes are divided into paper boxes and wooden matchboxes. The carton uses roll paper or flat paper with a thickness of 0.4mm and a basis weight of 300g/m2 as raw materials. The paper separator cuts the original roll board paper into different widths to meet the production needs of the outer box or the inner box. After the inner and outer boxes are made separately, the boxes are set to form a whole. The wooden matchbox is made of wood sections with good material and no knots. The inner or outer box pieces with scratches are screwed out on the box-spinning machine, and then cut into box strips, glued by the box-gluer, and after being dried, package it into a box and label it.
Matches and matchboxes merge in the packaging process. The cartoning machine puts the matches into the box neatly according to the specified number, and then the phosphor brushing machine brushes the phosphor slurry on the side of the box. There is another kind of phosphorous surface that is printed on the side of the box sheet when the trademark is printed, which is called "printed phosphorous surface". The main components of phosphorus slurry are red phosphorus and binder. The traditional adhesive is leather glue, and now synthetic adhesives are also used. After drying, the packaging machine seals each 10 boxes of matches into small packets and puts them into the box, which is the finished product.