Grassroot Innovations

The sola wood* sheet-making machine is a motorized machine that can peel four sola pith at a time to make sola wood sheets, which can then be used for making handicrafts items. Four pieces of 12 cm long sola wood are inserted into the machine at a time. A roller rotates the sola wood through a slider-crank mechanism; simultaneously, a blade moves in to slide the sola wood. The machine produces a nicely finished, even surfaced, high-quality sheet of uniform thickness for the sola craft industry and eliminates the risk of physical injury to the worker. Manually one skilled labour can slice seventeen sola piths in an hour, whereas the machine slices over four hundred sola piths in an hour.

It replaces manual labor with a motor-powered system that peels four sola wood pieces at once. The machine efficiently cuts even, high-quality sheets, eliminating the risk of injury and boosting production with a capacity of over 400 sheets per hour compared to 17 by hand.