How we use plywood as a substrate on which to create beautiful surfaces

Plywood is to construction, what the internet is to information. Transformative. A bold statement, and not thought out, but it's a feeling I have. This is a blog, not a hard truth. 

Timber has what I would term a vibrant material and aesthetic personality. At a surface level, this can be observed in its colour and grain structure. Below the surface, other qualities stir. Resistance and susceptibility to moisture, oxidation, toxicity and sap content to name a few.

When selecting timber, an important consideration is from where in the trunk's cross-section a particular board has originated. If the selection process is ill-considered, we may end up with a board that presents challenging behaviour. This comes in the form of movement, shrinkage, twists and splits, to name a few. To avoid this, sawmills used a traditional process known as quarter sawing. This ensured that boards were structurally stable once converted from lumber. This process limited the width of a board and resulted in a sizable amount of material unsuitable for construction. Time moves on and our world has changed.

Today, our timber is often sourced from managed plantations and woodlands, whose age is relatively young. Lumber has a small diameter, and is often quickly grown. It follows that boards extracted have a further reduced width, and stability, due to the conditions under which they are grown.

Plywood negates the issue of structural stability with great success. Constructed with thin veneers mechanically peeled from the circumference of a trunk, then bonded with an alternate grain direction, we can produce sheet material with a surface area greater than anything one would be able to harvest from a contemporary tree. Its thickness can range from 1 millimetre upwards, depending on the number of veneers pressed and glued. 

Many positive structural qualities arise - rigidity, flexibility, flatness and thickness, with a known tolerance. Importantly, these remain consistent when the sheet is cut into shapes. It can be used effectively on large-scale building projects, forming structural members in a building that spans large distances, or for smaller furniture projects. Plywood behaves more predictably than timber, under the normal conditions of life. 

We take advantage of these qualities. Furniture constructed from ply develops the character by laminating thin sections of our patina to its face, or alternatively, setting it in. We can be confident that the result will be both beautiful and stable. Essentially, we see plywood as a substrate on which we can build upon. We are not attempting to imitate a surface of ash, or beech, as you might see in some kitchen worktops, a thin veneer covering some form of particle board. Instead, we reveal our chosen substrate's end grain, celebrating its trademark stripes of various colours and widths, allowing these to interact with our patina. Our approach is honest. We want to work with, not against material. It is our version of quarter sawing and allows the construction of surfaces that are truly unique, and functionally reliable.