Craft · 6 pages · 12 min
Why plywood is more stable than a board
Crossed plies restrain each other, so a plywood sheet barely changes length or width.
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From the opening
A solid board changes width freely across the grain because nothing inside it opposes that swelling. In plywood each ply that wants to swell across its grain is glued to a neighbor whose grain runs the other way, and that neighbor barely moves along its own fibers. The opening covers neighbors block across-grain swell, both sheet directions are restrained, and thickness can still change.
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Inside
- Neighbors block across-grain swell
- Both sheet directions are restrained
- Thickness can still change
- Quarter sawing is a lesser fix
- Where the idea stops applying
- A distinction worth keeping
Sources
- Cross-grain restraint in plywood
- In-plane dimensional stability of plywood