Manufactured Woods

Plywood and particleboard don’t have the same reputation as hardwoods and softwoods. But both plywood and particleboard are very useful. And they are much cheaper than most solid woods.

Plywood offers a number of advantages for woodworkers. It is available in wide range of thicknesses and sizes. You can get plywood with any common veneer. Plywood is easy to cut, the only thing it is not suitable for is complicated joinery. Plywood is very stable, cracking, warping and twisting are very uncommon. And yes, plywood is cheap.

Plywood as we know it is a fairly new product, it was introduced in the middle of the 19th century. Plywood is made up of thin sheets of wood veneer. So it is possible to say that plywood is really old, going back to the ancient Egypt. But the modern plywood is as mentioned, much newer, it was invented by Immanuel Nobel. Plywood is made up of wooden layers that are glued together. By making sure that adjacent layers have their grain at right angles to each other, plywood becomes very strong. By using an odd number of layers, the sheet becomes very balanced. The end result is that plywood is stronger than a single piece of wood of the same size.

Like solid woods, plywood is available in both softwood and hardwood varieties. But in the case of plywood, the terms refer only to the face and back layer. Plywood is grouped according to strength and durability. The strongest plywood is called Group 1 for softwood and Category A for hardwood plywood. Group 4 (softwood) and Category D (hardwood) are the poorest grades.

Note that some plywood panels are waterproof, suitable for outdoor weather. Interior grade plywood is able to withstand some moisture.

Plywood has one major shortcoming, the veneer sheets are clearly visible. Fortunately, you have a number of ways of concealing the multi-ply composition.

Particleboard was developed in the 1930s. It was one way of recycling sawmill waste. Particle board is made of a mix of wood particles and synthetic adhesive bonded together under heat and pressure. The cheap price and versatility of particleboard has made it very popular. A lot of sawmills main activity is the production of particleboard. But for many woodworking purposes, particleboard has one problem, it is difficult to work with. Except for multi-layer particleboard, particleboard is not suitable for painting or finishing.

Note that fiberboard, sometimes called hardboard is not the same as particleboard. Fiberboard is made up of wood particles reduced to individual fibers. Fiberboard is much easier to work with than particleboard.

Veneer Overview

The use of veneer is much older than most people think. A lot of people associate veneers with elegant rococo furniture from the time of Louis XV, in the mid of the 18th century. But veneer was used already in the ancient Egypt, 2000 BC.

Veneering can transform a simple cabinet door into a glamorous piece of furniture, sometimes even turning it into a piece of art. Veneering declined in the 19th century, when it became possible to produce good furniture with help of machines, far cheaper and faster than had been previously possible. But veneering has recovered, thanks to improved technology. Furniture that would be extremely expensive if made of exotic woods, can be made of cheaper wood and then veneered with the expensive wood, saving a lot of money.

Veneering is a little bit like woodworking in reverse. You don’t really need any power tools. But you need a couple of special tools. A veneer press is used to press the veneer sheet down on a panel. A veneer hammer can also be used to press the veneer sheet down onto the panel. A veneer saw is used for trimming and cutting veneer. It has a curved blade to ensure clean cuts.

Ironically, using good quality particleboard is often the best choice for veneering. Particleboard does not have any grain so you can arrange the veneer on the particleboard panel any way you want. If you are using a hardwood base, you need to lay the veneer parallel to the grain.

Nowadays you have more than 200 different veneers to choose from. Some types of veneers are only available in small sizes. This means that you often need to join several small pieces. This can be tricky, rightly done the result is often eye-catching and impressive. But you see at once if it has been done badly.

Veneer sheets that are going to be matched should be cut from the same log. This gives you a set of sheets that are virtually identical. If you join sheets that have different grain patterns, the end result will seldom be good. Picking suitable grain patterns for decorative matching comes with experience. But by using mirrors you can get a reasonable preview of how the end result will look like. If you want to get an idea how a diamond match will look like, you need two mirrors. Place one mirror at a right angle to the veneer sheet and set the other mirror 90 degrees to the first mirror.

Overview of woodworking router bits

The woodworking router is a simple tool, consisting of two main parts, a base plate and a motor that spins a bit. But despite the simplicity, the router is a very versatile tool. Unlike most other portable power tools, the router has no stationary counterpart that outperforms it. The first routers were developed during the First World War. It quickly became popular. It is the easiest and fastest way of shaping the edge of a workpiece.

Due to the high speed of the routers, you need good well balanced bits. The more bits you have, the more different jobs you can do with your router. For every new bit you expand the capabilities of your router.

Most router bits are carbide-tipped. Carbide is an extremely hard material and is relatively insensitive to heat. But carbide has two main weaknesses, it is brittle and fairly expensive. That’s why most bits have a carbide tip. Most of the bit is made of steel. The thickness of the carbide suggests the life span of the bit. A thin strip of carbide will disappear after a couple of sharpenings. Often the carbide used for router bits is graded into a four–level hardness scale, from the soft C1 to the hard C4. Soft carbide dulls quicker and will not last as long. But the grading is only part of the story, even the hardest carbide bit can be poorly made.

Router bits used to be made of steel, high-speed steel. But they are not as durable as carbide and carbide-tipped bits. HSS bits are cheap but seldom used today. HSS bits can be made razor-sharp but they dull quickly. Generally carbide-tipped bits will last at least ten times longer than HSS bits.

Most routers have either quarter-inch or half-inch shanks. Many routers accept both sizes. But you also have a third size, 3/8 inch. The half-inch shank size means less vibration and the bits are stronger. The price difference between ¼-inch and ½ inch bits is small. So in most cases, you want a router that accepts ½-inch bits and you stick to ½-inch bits.

You have an enormous amount of bits on the market, many of them cheap but some of them are very expensive. The ½-inch straight bit is very popular, generally the most used bit. But the 1/4-inch and 3/4 –inch straight bits are very useful as well. The3/8 inch rabbit bit is another bit you should buy early. The ¼ round-over bit is also worth considering.

Always use the bit with the shortest cutting edge that will do the job. The longer the bit, the greater the risk of it breaking.