Abstract: The apparatus accepts dry stripped crude fiber such as straw or sugar cane wastes, coconut husks, or elephant grass, compacts them into a relatively dense sheet, and bonds a strong surfacing material such as a heavy paper to the faces and edges. The sheet, continuously flowing from the apparatus, is cut into standard lengths and the cut ends are capped with the same surfacing material. A precompactor near the end of an entrance chute into the apparatus uniformly predensifies the incoming fiber prior to its compaction by means of a ram. The ram is carried on roller bearings especially adapted to withstand the weight and other forces associated with the continuous movement of the ram. The compacted material is continuously propelled by the ram and enters a press, where heat and pressure produce a dimensionally stable sheet bonded together partially by natural resins released from the fibers by the heat, and partially by mechanical interlinking between fibers.