Timberframing with Plywood

This video is interesting.  They used a CNC Mill to mill out strips of plywood, then glued up the strips to make posts and beams.  Their mortises and tenons were all created at the various depths of the plywood to make that relatively easy.

I am sure this lumber is incredibly stable, but I’m not sure I want to spend most of my time making glue-ups.  I’d rather be cutting the joints, as that is what I enjoy the challenge of the most.

Something just seems odd. Take a tree, peel it into thin slices to make plywood, cut plywood to make thin strips for glue-up. Seems like a lot of energy spent going from tree to sheets to lumber when you can so easily go from tree right to lumber.

Reader's Comments »

  1. By Andy on August 3, 2010 at 11:46 am

    Man, I am with you on this one, there is something wrong with this. There is no doubt this thing going to be really stable and accurate, but holy smokes, the “green” part of me wants to throw up. It’s almost like on of those contests where you have to make a really complex machine do something simple.
    Thanks for the post.