design and construction considerations

Wood and Materials

by Ness Tillson

WOOD
designer
 Wood Designer | Wood and Materials

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 Wood Designer | Wood and Materials

Contents
Legal Disclaimers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
What materials are best for your project?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Solid wood. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Types of solid wood and how to buy, advantages and disadvantages . . . . . . . . 5
Moisture content, play and warping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Coping with wood movement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Heavy machinery for planing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Assembling boards to make panels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Time to work it . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
When to use solid wood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Composite materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Types of composite material, advantages and disadvantages . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
When to use solid and composite materials. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Stairs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Cabinets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Traditional furniture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

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 Wood Designer | Wood and Materials

What materials are best for your project?

Whatever your wood working project you have the choice to start with raw materials
that are either solid wooden boards or a composite material manufactured from
wood.
Both types of material have their advantages and drawbacks.

Solid wood
If you are a woodwork enthusiast, of course solid wood is the nicest material to work
with. If you are making tradition furniture or stairs making most parts in solid wood is
obligatory.
Of course the main advantage of using solid wood is that its beautiful. Beautiful to
look at and satisfying to work with.
With the thousands of different types of wood and decorative veneers the beauty
and decorative aspect of solid wood is eternal.

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Types of solid wood and how to buy, advantages and disadvantages
Solid wood can be bought in several states:
Rough timber that is essentially a tree sawn into boards
Rough timber is the cheapest way to buy solid wood for
your projects. Dont forget that to get from rough timber to
planed sections there is a lot of waste.
Count on multiplying the finished volumes by 1.6 to 1.8 to
get the volume of rough timber youll have to buy.
If you buy rough timber youll need to have a jointer and a
thickness planer to get the necessary finished sections to
start your job.
As well as the necessary machinery to plane the boards
youll also have to have the tools to joint the boards
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together to make panels wide enough to build your cabinet
or stair parts.
Dont forget to add the extra time to your project. Rough
cutting, planing, jointing and flushing up the panels to
prepare the wood for your project can take a lot of time and
patience.
If you are short on time consider buying boards already
planed or laminated sheets from which you can cut your
parts.
Most professionals today use pre-machined sections and
laminated boards to gain manufacturing time.
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Planed timber that is ready to be machined

More expensive than rough timber, buying planed timber machines and time to plane timber and the rather expensive
can save a lot of time while maintaining the same effect as if option of buying laminated boards.
you had planed up the boards yourself.
The main difficulty is likely to be finding a supplier who will
Depending on your supplier you can order planed timber plane up the raw stock to your specifications.
and sometimes assembled panels.
For an amateur, buying planed timber sections is often
a very good compromise between having to invest in

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Laminated boards sold as sheets ready to be cut and machined
With todays industrial technology its possible to buy
boards that are essentially made of small solid pieces glued
together with modern glues.
These boards combine a lot of the advantages of solid wood
with the advantages of manufactured sheet material.
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Dimensionally stable and not prone to warping these
boards still maintain a solid wood aspect and structural
qualities.
The main disadvantage is the higher price that you pay for
the same volume of wood.
When time is an important factor buying laminated boards
will cost more but save you a lot of time.
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3 ply solid boards

A fairly new arrival on the wood sheet material scene are 3

ply solid wooden boards.
These boards are a cross between plywood and solid
wooden laminated boards.
Available in sheets and as dimensionally stable as plywood,
the only disadvantage is the end grain on the edge of the
boards.
Although fairly expensive, 3 ply boards can be a great
option for furniture projects where ones looking for a real
wood finish and a more robust material than composite,
MDF or veneered chip boards.

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Moisture content, play and warping
When using solid wood other than 3 ply boards, always
count that it will play. It will expand and contract according
the changes in ambient air temperature and moisture
content. Wood will contract and expand both in length and
width but width play is far more important and length play
can be ignored.
This means that joints must be designed to allow for across
grain play.
There is a lot of information on the internet about how to
deal with wood play and shrinkage, but here are just a few
tips that you have to take into consideration:
Weight of the water in the wood/
Moisture content =
Weight of the wood oven dry
In trees moisture content will range from 30% to more than
200%.
As wood dries below this moisture content it shrinks
until the moisture content reaches equilibrium with its
surrounding environment.
To minimise play, wood must be dried, either naturally (air
drying) or in a kiln to lower the moisture content to the
surrounding environment.
However, as ambient humidity and temperature changes
constantly and no matter how dry a piece of wood, finished
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projects will continue to absorb or give off moisture
with changes in humidity and in the temperature of the
surrounding air. The wood will always undergo changes in
moisture content and dimension.
Coping with wood movement
Take wood movement into account in the design of your
project.Experience taught wood workers long ago how to
deal with dimensional change due to changes in moisture
content.The answer was joinery that allowed for wood
movement.Despite todays super-strong adhesives and
moisture fighting finishes that is still the solution.
Here are some techniques.
1. Acquire your wood in advance and give it time to
acclimate to the environment in which it will be used
or worked. It may be necessary to stack and sticker
lumber to allow it to properly reach equilibrium with the
environment before it is used.
2. Plan your projects to avoid cross-grain assem-
blies.Cross-grain joints constantly pull in different direc-
tions weakening the joint over time.Design joints so the
grain runs in the same direction on both pieces.
3. Allow tops to move freely. Attach tops with Figure 8
Connectors, Z clips, shop made blocks or elongated
screw holes. All of these methods will securely attach
the top but allow it to move across its width.
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4. Use frame and panel construction. Panels may be

plywood or solid wood with a raised panel but if
slotted loosely into a groove will be able to expand and
contract freely so if using solid wood panels, please DO
NOT glue them to the frame.

The panel must be free to float and change dimension.

A small spot of glue in the centre of the width will keep
the panel centred.
5. Apply a finish.Apply an equal number of coats to all
surfaces to equalize the loss or gain of moisture.

No finish will block moisture transfer; they just slow it

down. Penetrating oils provide the least protection.
Epoxy offers the greatest.
The tendency of wood to contract and expand, shrink and
swell cannot be stopped. You must plan for it.Design and
build with dimensional change in mind.

Heavy machinery for planing

If you are building big projects like stairs from raw timber
youll need some heavy machinery to plane and joint Joint Planer
boards.
Building from pre-manufactured materials such as lami-
nated boards, although more expensive, will allow you to
build your project with a far lower investment in machines
and space.

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Assembling boards to make panels
Dont forget that lots of parts, whether in cabinet making
or stair building, are made of panels that are wider than a
single board.
If you are starting from raw timber, gluing up boards to
make wider panels will require jointing and lots of clamps.
If you buy laminated boards you can cut panels directly and
avoid most edge jointing operations, gaining a lot of time
and saving a lot of effort.
Time to work it
Lots of todays professionals use pre-manufactured boards.
Even if equipped with the necessary machinery to plane
and joint up panels its much faster to cut parts from sheet
material.
Always remember, when choosing your materials you will
be juggling with the time verses money balance.
If you have lots of time and a tight budget and have access
to a planer, you can start with raw timber.
If you have limited time and no access to heavy machinery
start with laminated or pre-planed timber.
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When to use solid wood
Generally using solid wood is a must when your project
requires a part to be structurally resistant.
In a stair, all parts excepting risers have to support flexion
and abrasive wear so solid wood is strongly recommended.
In furniture projects, chairs, tables and frames will also take
a lot of wear and tear and solid wood will often be better
than a manufactured board.
That said some manufactured boards like laminated boards,
plywood, block board and OSB are suited for certain struc-
tural applications.
When structural constraints are not a consideration consider
using a composite or manufactured sheet material.
Of course the other main advantage of solid wood is its
decorative aspect. Its much nicer to see a stair or cabinet in
solid oak that made in plywood.
But if your stair is painted or covered in carpeting you might
find it quicker and easier to build it in structurally resistant
plywood and use MDF for the risers.
The same logic would allow you to make a cabinet with a
solid wood front frame and the shelves and interior separa-
tions in melamine.
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Composite materials
Types of composite material, advantages and
disadvantages
Composite materials come in vast range of manufactured
boards ranging from solid laminated sheets to melamine
chip boards, MDF, plywood, and many more.
Each material has its own advantages and disadvantages.
The three main advantage of manufactured boards like
melamine, MDF and plywoods are their dimensional
stability, price and the minimal work required to get a
finished product.
These materials will not shrink and expand with changes in
ambient humidity and temperature.
Composite materials that are not solid like laminated boards
should be divided into 2 types:
Structural
Structural materials include: plywood, block board, 3 ply.
These materials can replace solid wood for certain struc-
tural parts that will be painted or clad in another material
like carpeting, stair stringers, steps, table tops, heavy duty
shelving and so on.
The exception being 3 ply boards that are nearly like solid
wood and can be finished in the same way.
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These materials are usually expensive and the cost usually
will not be lower than using solid wood.
On the other hand their dimensional stability and the less
work required to machine parts will be a great advantage
over solid wood when you are building wide panels.
Non structural
Non structural manufactured sheet materials have taken an
important place in modern furniture.
This due to 3 main reasons:
Price
The great advantage of manufactured is they are cheap.
Cheap to buy and cheap to work.
Surface finish
Many manufactured boards can be bought already surface
finished. Melamine is widely used to make cabinets because
once machined and assembled the cabinet is finished.
Some boards can be delivered partly finished with precious
wood veneers.
For decorative purposes veneered manufactured boards can
save a lot of time and be a great option to make high quality
cabinets.
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Reduced machine time
Manufactured sheet material is machine ready. No need to
surface and thickness plane, no need to assemble panels
from narrower boards. Just cut and machine the joints.
If you use CNC flat bed nesting just put a full panel on the
machine and take off the finished parts for assembly. You
cant get much faster that that!
To see how a workshop uses CNC flat bed nesting, check out
the Furniture Building videos in the Support Centre.
When to use solid and composite materials
Here are a few suggestions for using materials.
Stairs
Strings
Strings are structural components that need to resist lateral
flexion.
They can be made in solid wood, laminated wood, plywood
or 3 ply.
For high class stairs I prefer solid wood or veneered lami-
nated construction for curved strings.
If the stair is to be painted or covered in carpet its possible
to use plywood.
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Strings thicknesses from 35 to 80mm. Thicker strings can
be used for decorative effects but are not structurally
necessary.
Steps
Steps are structural elements that need to resist thickness
flexion and surface abrasion.
They can be made in solid, solid laminated or if painted or
covered with carpet 3 ply.
They should not be made in non structural composite
boards like MDF, chip boards and so on.
I consider 30mm a minimum step thickness when made
from solid wood or composites. For wide stairs over 1 meter
youll need either to make the steps thicker or add a carriage
support in the middle of the stair to stop the step bending.
Risers
Risers are non structural but are subject to some surface
abrasion.
In general its better to make risers from solid wood, but for
cheaper stairs composite materials like plywood and MDF
can be used.
Minimum thickness would be 15mm.
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Posts
Newel posts are structural elements that are used to link
stringers.
Newel post are structurally the most fragile part of a
wooden stair and must be made of solid wood.
A minimum section would be 70x70mm.
Cabinets
For the reasons given above modern cabinets are always
made of manufactured boards.
However you have a wide range of manufactured materials
to choose from, and the type of manufactured board best
suited to your project will depend on several factors.
Here are a few points that you should take into
consideration.
Boxes
Sides, tops, bottoms and interiors
Its common practice to make these elements in melamine.
Melamine is very surface resistant, cheap and available in a
vast range of colours and decorative panels.
This makes melamine a good finish for general cabinet
interiors.
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As the outer elements of boxes require some structural
rigidity, I consider 19mm (3/4) boards the best suited for
these elements.
Note that the outer components do not have to resist
flexion and could be made of 16mm boards, whereas
shelves may have to support a lot of weight.
Long kitchen cabinets and even more so bookcase shelves
may bend over time, so consider 19mm as minimum for
these elements.
Backs
Backs are not structural and can be made in thinner material
than the sides. If you are using melamine, 8mm is fine.
Faade components
Doors
Famed components should have a solid wood frame with an
inner panel in plywood or other composite material.
Common thicknesses are:
Frames 60 to 80 x 20 to 30mm
Panels 5 to 12mm
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Single panel doors can be decorative melamine or any other

decorative board. Again minimum thickness should be 19mm.
Note that doors can be made of MDF and machined on a CNC
router and painted to look like a framed door.

A single panel door kitchen made by the Welshpool Kitchen Company,

on our of suppliers

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 Wood Designer | Wood and Materials

Here is another kitchen made from a Polyboard project,

also by the Welshpool Kitchen Company

MDF machined with a CNC

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Drawers Traditional furniture

For drawer faades, please see the advice above on doors. Tradition furniture will of course be made from solid wood,
but if youre building cupboards consider using veneered
For sides, backs and counter fronts, use composite boards,
plywoods for panels, shelves and interior separations.
melamine, ply etc. Melamine thicknesses from 16 to 19mm
work well. Note also that furniture made from 3 ply boards can almost
look like traditional solid wood but without many of the
Plywood is stronger than melamine so for small drawers 10
issues you would get with it.
to 15mm is fine.
For bottoms, melamine or plywood from 5 to 10mm.

Larch and spruce mountain furniture

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Conclusion
Modern technology and materials provide todays amateur and
professional wood workers with practically unlimited resources
to design and create beautiful and original projects.
They make it possible to build wood working projects in a
reasonable time with a minimum number of tools and resources.
Put to the service of a craftsmans creativity, modern tools and
materials open possibilities that have never existed before.
It is up to us to use them to create beauty in our world today.
Please be sure you check out the rest of our stair and furniture
building resources in the WoodDesigner.org Support Centre.
Happy woodworking.

Ness Tillson

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