Comments on: Working with Plywood – 18th-century Style

By: Cosmo

Cosmo — Sun, 17 Feb 2013 13:53:56 +0000

While I attempt to use solid wood and hand tools for most everything I build, what I build for shop use is another story. I use what is the cheapest, most available and practical material for shop projects. Sooo, lots of plywood from the home center and I use one of the few power tools I have left, my 50 year old Craftsman 7 1/4″ power saw. Other than my workbench, there is not one “furniture” item in my shop that would ever show up in a woodworking magazine but they are all wonderfully useful, practical and low cost and did not take much time to build.
Thanks for your great articles,
Cosmo

By: zdillinger

zdillinger — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 14:11:05 +0000

Apologies for the double post.

By: zdillinger

zdillinger — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 15:46:18 +0000

Given that plywood isn’t a fine furniture wood, or an 18th century material (sure, it was around since the Egyptians but I’ve not seen it used in good furniture), fine furniture and 18th century techniques don’t apply, I agree.

By: zdillinger

zdillinger — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 15:44:24 +0000

18th century tools and techniques are suitable for any project utilizing 18th century materials or design. Past that, I agree with you. Plywood isn’t a fine furniture material, so fine furniture techniques don’t really apply.

By: Mitch Wilson

Mitch Wilson — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 15:18:45 +0000

Dadoes and grooves are great for trapping the edge, but you must use a router plane to flatten out the bottom of these to get proper seating of the one into the other. Sheets of plywood are not flat no matter what you think, so using a sharp router plane here is essential. And talk about bizarro grain directions, look in the bottom of your dado after you have flattened it. One more plane blade to keep sharpening, too.

By: J. Pierce

J. Pierce — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 01:30:03 +0000

Really looking forward to seeing the second half of this article, Adam. I think I’m going to have to try the plastic approach to drawer runners on the cabinet I’m working on.

I’ve been working a bit of ply occasionally, where I was being lazy. Got a good deal on some offcuts of the quality stuff from the lumberyard and use it for some panels in some shop stuff.

I work w/hand tools both for similar reasons to you, and because it’s really the only approach that’s compatible with working in the spare bedroom of my apartment. So working ply by hand was an interesting challenge. Your observations echo mine – be ready to sharpen your plane blades (perhaps that PMV11 stuff might have a use for me) if you’re working the edges, that’s for sure.

After having to sharpen up my saw a couple times, I went with an impulse-hardened Japanese style saw (the same one LV sells) it’s been holding up quite well, although I did find I had to stone a bit of the set off of it. It took a little getting used to figuring out how to cut sheet goods on the pull stroke, but I’ve made twice as many cuts with it and not had to sharpen the thing, and the deeper gullets seem to keep it from gumming up when cutting through glue-heavy sections.

Thin plane settings are a must planing the face – the rotary cut of many ply veneers makes for some interesting grain directions, at least in the pieces I’ve worked.

The key for me was finding ways to hide the edges of the ply not by capping it with something, but by trapping it in grooves and such – it allowed me to get away with “straight enough” rather than dulling all my tools getting it perfect.