What is plywood?
The warmth and beauty of wood has been valued throughout the ages. In this century, conservation and construction technologies have stimulated the creation of ingenious hardwood plywood products engineered for both construction and decorative purposes, enhancing the availability and versatility of every kind of hardwood. Simply put, hardwood plywood is a panel product composed of softwood inner layersor plysjoined at right angles with adhesive to a hardwood veneer face and back. The term “hardwood plywood” indicates that the face and back veneers of the panel are 100% hardwood. Hardwood plywoods are used primarily for decorative purposes, while softwood plywoods are generally for construction or structural use. A traditional veneer core plywood panel is composed of an odd number of plys made from softwood veneers sandwiched at right angles to each other between the outside layers. The inner ply directly beneath the face is called the crossband. Alternating the direction of the grain is
Everyone has heard of plywood, and we assume it is some sort of “pressed wood” but beyond that we just really don’t know. Moreover, perhaps we “really don’ t care” until we need to use it in some building project, and then we need to understand it’s use’s and features and differences. Plywood is cheap to use, strong and flexible, and good for building furniture and cabinetry, and many other undertakings. Plywood is made of very thin layers of wood called plies or veneers glued together. The middle core is usually veneer or manufactured wood. The outer plies called face and back are usually quality wood to be better in appearance. The face is better than the back.
Plywood is a wood product manufactured out of many sheets of veneer, or plies, pressed together and glued, with their grains going in opposite directions. Plywood tends to be extremely strong, though not very attractive, and is treated in many different ways depending upon its intended application. Because of the way in which plywood is constructed, it also resists cracking, bending, warping, and shrinkage, depending upon its thickness. Plywood is also referred to as an engineered wood, although it is made from a composite of wooden materials, and various forms of it have been made for thousands of years.
