|
|
How is plywood made?
Home » Homebuilding » Plywood » How is plywood made?Making plywood is a fairly simple process leading to its cheap prices and easy accessibility.
• A log is softened with steam and then mounted on a lathe.
• A long knife peels off a thin layer of wood in a continuous veneer sheet. Once dried, a thin veneer sheet like this is very strong in one direction (along the grain) and very weak in the other (across the grain).
• Several layers of veneer (generally five or seven) are layered together with the grain direction alternating between the different layers. Glue is used between the layers.
• The stack is heated and pressed to form a rigid panel.
• Because the grain direction of the layers of veneer alternate, the panel is extremely strong in all directions.
• In oriented strand board, much less-expensive chips of wood are used instead of a continuous veneer. These chips are thin and fairly large, and during manufacture they are lined up in the different layers (oriented) so that the panel is strong in all directions. OSB is about half the cost of plywood, but less attractive.
Related Plywood Articles
- What is plywood?
- How is plywood made?
- What are the different types of plywood?
- What is the history of plywood?
- What are the advantages to using plywood?
- How is plywood used?