Multi-Scale Evaluation of the Effect of Phenol Formaldehyde Resin Impregnation on the Dimensional Stability and Mechanical Properties of Pinus Massoniana Lamb.
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The article is well written, but the novelty of this manuscript is low. The idea is not new. I wonder if the use of another type of wood is enough for a novelty? The authors even cite many of the previous works.
Author Response
Thanks reviewer for giving us positive and careful suggestions. We have carefully taken the comments into consideration in preparing our revision. Indeed, phenol formaldehyde (PF) resin has been widely used for wood impregnation in the past decades. Most work has been widely focused on the macro-scale properties of PF modified wood. However, only limited attempts have been made to characterize the PF resin modified Masson pine wood properties on both cell-wall- and macro-level. This will allow better understanding of the modification mechanism of wood and provide a way to improve the industrial application of Masson pine plantation. In future, we will do more work on other type of wood, such as hardwood, to enrich the fundamental theory for wood chemical modification.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
lot of smaller suggestions done by me, but general quality of the paper is high!
Like mentioned in the review-pdf: make more clear the differences (in mechanisms, methods and values) between traditional mechanical testing and nano-indentation technique!
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Thank you so much for spending much time to give us lots of good comments on our manuscript and giving us the opportunity to revise our manuscript. We have carefully taken the comments into consideration in preparing our revision. Detailed Comments and Response (1) Line 014: the sentence of “…has high environmental and social impacts” has been deleted because it is not mentioned in this study. (2) Line 020: “cell wall” has been change into “cell walls”. (3) Line 022: adopted (4) Line 035: “…better adaptability to the environment,” has been changed into “…good adaptability to the environment”. (5) Line 042, 044: adopted (6) Line 050: adopted (7) Line 057, 059: adopted (8) Line 061: adopted (9) Line 063-064: adopted (10) Line 071: adopted (11) Line 076: adopted (12) Line 080: adopted (13) Line 083: “…after removing excess resin” has been changed into “…after removing the exceeding resin” (14) Line 087: adopted (15) Line 107: adopted (16) Line 121-122: adopted (17) Line 133-135: adopted (18) Line 137: “2.7 Mechanical Properties Testing” has been changed into “2.7 Mechanical Property Testing” (19) Line 142: adopted (20) Line 145: adopted. It is a mistake here. The valid data for calculation. (21) Line 151-152: adopted (22) Line 154: SPM is the abbreviation of “scanning probe microscopy”. We have added this information in the test method of nano-indentation in this revision. (23) Line 156: The hardness in this study referred to Janka hardness. The test method is same as ISO 3350. We have changed the calculation method and the values have been converted. (24) Line 166: Kept the original. The two values were the density and WPG at the PF concentration of 30%, respectively. (25) Line 181: adopted (26) Line 183: adopted (27) Line 186-187: adopted (28) Line 189: adopted (29) Line 195: adopted (30) Line 204-208: adopted (31) Line 211-212: adopted (32) Line 216: adopted (33) Line 220: adopted (34) Line 227: adopted (35) Line 231: adopted (36) Line 235: adopted (37) Line 238: adopted (38) Line 245: adopted (39) Line 247: adopted (40) Line 249: adopted (41) Line 261-263: adopted (42) Line 268-269: adopted (43) Line 271: adopted (44) Line 274: “GPa” has been changed into “kN•mm-2” (45) Line 275: The indents were focused on the cell walls. We think this description is clear enough for reading. (46) Line 277: We have made the word of hardness more clearly in this revision. (47) Line 288: In this section, the sentence of “In addition the increased mechanics of wood cell walls induced by the chemical modification also played an important role to achieve the desired modification effect.” was used to discribe the relations between nanoindentaion and macro-mechanics. (48) Line 288: We have changed the calculation method and the values have been converted in both text and figures. (49) Line 289: adopted (50) Line 293-295: adopted (51) Line 299-300: adopted (52) Line 361: adopted
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
