Plywood is thin sheets of wood glued together. Particle board is like wood chips glued together. Fiber board is like sawdust glued together. These are typical materials in cheap furniture. Most of these will swell up when they get wet and end up in the trash. Note: there are quality plywoods used in quality woodwork.
Real Woods
Knotty woodpecker uses real woods. This means actual wood, cut straight from the tree! One reason is real wood is natural, beautiful, solid, without glue, a basic renewable resource. Another reason is hand tools: they don’t particularly like working with glued up materials. It’s possible, but some of my blades get upset, leaving me with extra sharpening time at the end of the day.
Types of Woods
If nothing else, buy local. You know what your getting, how its made, and where the money is going, who you’re supporting. Knotty woodpecker means using wood from local tree trimming, local lumber yards and local mills. The wood types, such as oak, ash, walnut, cherry, poplar, pine, maple, hickory, cedar, are locally grown in the USA, good quality woods, available in abundance, renewable. (Fortunately, USA has excellent landscape for many tree species!) Many more desired woods are not local, not sustainable, endangered. I’ve only collected small scraps of these rare woods, to be used for accents, jewelry, discovery and education of new wood types. A few square inches goes a long way.
Buy local, buy quality, buy responsibly
