Woodistry - Bamboo Plywood for Furniture and Cabinetry

The Mosa bamboo that the plywood is made from grows incredibly fast and to a height of 40 feet with a diameter exceeding 6 inches and matures in 4 years. When you harvest it a new plant comes up in its place. It is grown in hand-harvested managed forests in China that minimizes the environmental impact. The bamboo farmers maximize their yield while maintaining healthy forests.

The glue is also emissions free for many of the brands, so you don’t have to worry about nasty formaldehyde, especially if you are using it for products such as cutting boards.

The plywood is made of laminated bamboo strips made from the wall of the stalk. The wall at the base can be more than an inch thick and will taper over the length of the stalk. The strips are milled flat and then boiled in a bath of boric acid and lime solution. The bath extracts the starch that attracts termites or powder post beetles. Boric acid and lime are a natural non-toxic repellent, used to insure that the plywood is pest free and will remain that way. The strips are kiln dried, sanded smooth and then laminated edge to edge to create a single-ply panel. These panels are then laminated again to each other to create a multi-ply bamboo plywood emissions free, so you don’t have to worry about nasty formaldehyde, especially if you are using it for products such as cutting boards.

Natural and Amber PlyBoo
3 ply flat grain surface

Bamboo plywood comes in two flavors - amber and natural. The natural has a color similar to Maple, but with some yellow tones. The amber color is derived from a heat treatment process that darkens the bamboo, giving it a warm tea-stained, amber tone. The amber finishes up to a caramel color something like Cherry with an acrylic finish. Not only does it have a caramel color, if you spray it with a water based finish you also get the caramel aroma do to the sugar in the material. The bamboo is laminated to produce either an edge or flat surface grain. The edge grain appears as 1/4" strips and the flat grain appears as 3/4" strips. The surface is finish-sanded to 180 grit. The PlyBoo material that I use is individually wrapped in heavy plastic, for freshness I presume.

3 Ply Bamboo Plywood

Vertical Solid Amber PlyBoo

Bamboo plywood cuts, shapes and sands fairly well. It does tend to splinter a bit if you are not careful, and I recommend sawing it using a scoring blade for both rips and crosscuts. Gluing it together works well, but I personally have had mixed results with screws and nails. It splits pretty easily if you have a screw or nail too close to an edge. I’ve also had some problems with dowels with the glue causing the material to fail behind it, so go lightly on gluing dowels or use the pre-glued variety. The excess glue tries to migrate out the end grain from the dowel holes. The bamboo seems to take most finishes very well, and I have read that it takes stains well. I have tried black aniline dye on it and was not personally impressed by the look.

Bamboo Countertop

The vertical solid ¾ inch 4’ x 8’ Plyboo is one of my favorites to use because it resembles solid wood. It is a lamination of strips of ¼” x ¾” bamboo laid out 8 foot length-wise and 4 foot across. I generally use this variety to make things like rails and stiles for doors or any other items on which I don’t want to use an edge banding. Since it comes in 4’ x 8’ sheets it’s perfect for CNC applications. The one caveat to this is that sometimes this material has an inconsistent thickness from side to side. This may require that the sheets are flycut before milling.

The 3 or more ply versions of the plywood are best used for applications where stability is most important. The only drawback is that the edges have a plywood look to them, which may require the use of edging.

I used the vertical solid bamboo plywood for display cabinets that one of my clients uses for trade shows. The design called for 3” x4” legs which I made by gluing up four 4” strips of PlyBoo in a Plano press. The bamboo plywood also takes edge details, like champhers or round-overs, fairly well. I’ve even seen raised panels made from bamboo. You can get a bit of tear out, but usually it’s minimal.

I’ve also used the vertical solid PlyBoo for countertops, coffee table and shoe bench tops, drawer fronts, doors and drawer boxes. It can also be run through a planer if you need a special thickness – like 5/8” for drawer boxes.

Bamboo Display Cases

Amber Vertical Solid Bamboo Drawer Front
with Natural VS Drawer Box

Bamboo Jewelry Box

Bamboo Jewelry Box