An Antigonish hardwood flooring manufacturer is profiting from another Nova Scotia company’s demise.

River’s Bend Wood Products Inc. now sends its flooring to Quebec for finishing. But the company is spending $1.3 million to expand its existing facility and add deeply discounted finishing equipment it bought from a former furniture manufacturer.

"We’ll be the only company in Atlantic Canada that actually pre-finishes a hardwood," said Paul van de Wiel of River’s Bend.

The finishing equipment River’s Bend is buying is coming from Shaw Wood, the former Cornwallis Park furniture maker the Shaw Group shut down in 2006, throwing 200 people out of work. At the time, Shaw Wood said it was unable to secure a new contract with wood furniture retailer Ikea, its only customer.

"The receiver was looking to move it and they took our offer on it," said van de Wiel, who is a partner in the business with his brother John.

The equipment is about 10 years old, he said. "We’d expect to get another 10 years out of it."

The folks at River’s Bend "always figured" it would cost about $2 million to buy the finishing equipment, van de Wiel said.

"There’s going to be some set-up stuff with it, too, because it’s used, but we’ll be (spending) under $200,000," he said of the gear coming from Shaw Wood.

The 36-metre-long finishing line will use eight roll-coaters to apply an acrylic finish to flooring. It will employ ultraviolet light to dry the finish almost instantaneously.

"We’re thinking this is going to open up more markets for us," van de Wiel said.

The company, which now sells in Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Manitoba, is looking to Germany, France and Russia for new customers.

The Caribbean could also be a potential source of sales, he said. "They don’t use a lot of wood. But they’ve got some products now that they can cure them so the termites don’t bother them."

River’s Bend, which had just over $1.8 million in sales last year, is planning to add 7,500 square feet to its 10,000-square-foot facility by late fall. The company has pegged the cost of the expansion at $450,000.

"We’ll be starting (construction) as soon as we get the building permit, which hopefully will be by the end of this week."

Right now it produces about 2,000 feet of flooring a day. With the new finishing line, the company’s hoping to save about $50,000 a year on freight and another $100,000 annually on finishing costs.

"Then we’ll be able to employ the employees here that are finishing it instead of sending it out there (to Preverco Hardwood Flooring, just outside Quebec City). So we’ll be adding more employees on."

The company, founded in 1994, now employs 11 people. The plan is to boost that to about 17.

River’s Bend already has $1.3 million in financing approved, which includes the potential purchase of equipment to make fireplace logs out of compressed waste wood.

"We heard there were warehouses full of them, and so we’ve got to check into that before we actually do it," van de Wiel said.