| Skill | What it means | Level needed |
|---|
| Safety | Works to plant safety rules on a moving panel line: wears the required PPE for the station, stays clear of in-running rolls and pinch points, watches for coworkers in the line of fire, and stops the line and gets help instead of reaching into running equipment. | |
| Machine Guarding | Checks that fixed guards, interlocks and pull-cord stops are in place and working before starting a machine, and never removes or defeats a guard to clear a jam or reach a nip point. | |
| Lockout/Tagout | Applies a personal lock and tag at the correct isolation points, verifies zero energy including stored hydraulic and steam pressure, and takes part in group lockout before any jam clearing, knife change or belt work. | |
| Dust & Fire | Keeps sanding dust and dryer lint from building up, uses the collection hoods and the no-compressed-air blowdown rule as written, and knows the fire watch, extinguisher and evacuation response around dryers, sanders and dust cyclones. | |
| Resin Handling | Handles phenol-formaldehyde and urea-formaldehyde resin and caustic safely: reads the SDS, wears the correct respirator and chemical gloves, works within the ventilated mix area, and follows the spill and skin-contact response. | |
| Log Prep | Runs the block conditioning and debarking end of the line: loads blocks into the steam vat or hot pond for the scheduled soak, feeds the debarker, and bucks conditioned logs to peeler-block length without damaging the block. | |
| Veneer Peeling | Tends a rotary veneer lathe: charges blocks to the setup someone else established, watches roundup and ribbon quality, and calls out knife-gap, nosebar or chuck problems rather than adjusting the setup. | |
| Veneer Clipping | Runs or tends the clipper that cuts the peeled ribbon into full sheets and random widths, clipping out defects to the width and grade rules given, and keeps the trays and bins sorted by width. | |
| Knife & Saw Change | Changes and services the knives and saws the line runs on - lathe and clipper knives, trim and sizing saws - under lockout, handles them without damaging edges or tips, and gets them back from the file room to the right machine. | |
| Veneer Drying | Feeds and tends the veneer dryer at the zone temperatures and feed speed on the schedule, pulls wet and over-dried sheets to the redry bin, and reports zone or chain problems before they burn or blister a run. | |
| Moisture Control | Checks veneer and panel moisture against the target on the spec sheet using the in-line detector and a handheld meter, sorts to redry when it is over, and understands why moisture drives blows and blisters at the press. | |
| Veneer Grading | Sorts dried veneer to face, back and core grades by reading defects - splits, roughness, pitch pockets, bark and open knots - against sample boards, and keeps the sorts clean so layup gets what the panel construction calls for. | |
| Veneer Patching | Repairs veneer and panel faces to grade: punches and sets patches at the patcher, plugs core voids, tapes or splices narrow stock, and fills and sands panel repairs so the sheet holds its grade. | |
| Glue Mixing | Mixes resin batches to the written recipe in the glue kitchen - resin, extender, filler, caustic and water in the right order and amounts - checks viscosity and temperature, and tracks pot life so a batch is not used past its window. | |
| Glue Spreading | Runs the glue spreader at the spread rate the job calls for, keeps roll gap and glue level right so coverage is even edge to edge, and cleans the rolls and lines down before the resin sets up. | |
| Layup | Lays up panels to the construction on the card - right ply count, right species and grade in each layer, grain crossed at 90 degrees, faces out - and keeps the pack moving inside the open assembly time before the glue dries out. | |
| Hot Press | Loads, runs and unloads the hot press on the schedule set for the product - platen temperature, unit pressure and cure time - and pulls and reports blows, blisters and delamination instead of passing them down the line. | |
| Panel Sizing | Runs the trim and sizing saws that square panels to finished size, checks length, width and diagonal against the spec, and keeps blades, scoring and pressure set so edges come off clean rather than chipped. | |
| Panel Sanding | Runs the wide-belt sander to the thickness and finish the grade calls for, follows the grit sequence, changes and tracks belts, and catches sanding defects - chatter, burn, dish-out, snipe - before the panel is graded. | |
| Panel Grading | Grades finished panels against the published product standard and the customer spec, applies or routes the correct grade mark, and pulls downgrades and rejects to the right bin with the reason recorded. | |
| Bond Testing | Cuts, soaks or boils and shear-tests bond specimens on the QC schedule, estimates wood failure percentage against the reference photos, and logs the result so the press and glue line can be corrected. | |
| Measurement | Uses tapes, calipers, thickness gauges and moisture meters to check panel size, thickness, squareness and moisture against the spec, and knows when a gauge reading is out of tolerance versus out of calibration. | |
| Material Handling | Moves veneer packs and finished panel units safely with the plant's lift equipment, stacks and stickers so a load will not shift or take a set, and bands and tags units to the shipping standard. | |
| Production Reporting | Reads the line HMI, records production, downtime reason codes and quality results in the plant system each shift, and reports job status accurately enough that the next shift and maintenance can act on it. | |
| Shift Handoff | Hands the line over cleanly at shift change: what ran, what is set where, what is broken or watch-listed, and what the incoming crew needs to know before the first block goes in - on a crew that is often multilingual. | |
Oregon publishes ten employability skills, the same statewide. Tick the three that matter most for this job.