Abstract: Wood wafers are produced by feeding logs to a rotary cutter head drum with the longitudinal axis of the logs disposed substantially parallel to the rotational axis of the drum. The drum mounts a plurality of wafer cutting head units arranged in a V-shaped pattern with the apex of the V trailing the base thereof and with the cutting blades defining the ends of the base positioned at the opposite ends of the operative length of the drum. Each wafer cutting blade having a cutting edge disposed substantially parallel to the axis of the drum and offset circumferentially and axially from an adjacent cutting blade so that the cut produced by a cutting blade overlaps the cut produced by the next adjacent preceding cutting blade.

Abstract: A veneer lathe is provided with back-up rolls modified to include serrating knives to effect cutting a log longitudinally at predetermined circumferentially spaced apart intervals to define the width of wood strands, and also to include scribing cutters to effect cutting a log circumferentially at longitudinally spaced apart intervals to define the length of wood strands, whereby when the log is rotated past the peeler knife of the lathe, the thickness of wood peeled from the log breaks apart into a multiplicity of vertical grain strands of predetermined length, width and thickness.