I recently built a pair of Pensil 10.2 speakers. Since there was zero MDF available anywhere and all the plywood I looked at was for sheathing, I found some 1/2" Bamboo Plywood at Lowes that looked great and was $20 for a 2'X4' sheet. I bought one sheet and took it to my shop to test it. Extremely rigid. A 4' X 12" piece had about half the deflection of 1/2 plugged and sanded plywood and about a 1/4 of the deflection of 3/4" MDF. So I built the speaker and sonically they are fantastic.
Today is a beautiful day here in New England and I figured I'd sand them and round over the edges for paint.
Not so fast Cowboy! This Bamboo plywood hates to be sanded. When you do,. tiny fibers jump out of the surface and are impossible to sand away. They are so small I figured they would lay down with the primer or I'd have to burn them off.
Next was the router to round over the edges.
This is not my first rodeo working with wood. I owned a fine cabinet shop for years. Built much of the furniture in my house. Built a number of wooden boats and cedar strip canoes over the years. If I might brag, I'm a pretty good woodworker.
So I set my router up to round over the edges. Remember those fibers? They wrap around the router bit and tear the bamboo veneer off!!!
And the routed edge itself is very rough. No amount of sanding really brings it smooth.
What a mess! Now I have two options.....Rebuild with quality (expensive) baltic birch or veneer these cabinets. I'm leaning towards surface planning a bunch of walnut or mahogany I have to 1/4" and covering them with it. Or carpet them......
Regardless, be careful if you find some of this Bamboo Plywood and think you will be able to finish it like a good Baltic Birch or some other substrate.
Today is a beautiful day here in New England and I figured I'd sand them and round over the edges for paint.
Not so fast Cowboy! This Bamboo plywood hates to be sanded. When you do,. tiny fibers jump out of the surface and are impossible to sand away. They are so small I figured they would lay down with the primer or I'd have to burn them off.
Next was the router to round over the edges.
This is not my first rodeo working with wood. I owned a fine cabinet shop for years. Built much of the furniture in my house. Built a number of wooden boats and cedar strip canoes over the years. If I might brag, I'm a pretty good woodworker.
So I set my router up to round over the edges. Remember those fibers? They wrap around the router bit and tear the bamboo veneer off!!!
And the routed edge itself is very rough. No amount of sanding really brings it smooth.
What a mess! Now I have two options.....Rebuild with quality (expensive) baltic birch or veneer these cabinets. I'm leaning towards surface planning a bunch of walnut or mahogany I have to 1/4" and covering them with it. Or carpet them......
Regardless, be careful if you find some of this Bamboo Plywood and think you will be able to finish it like a good Baltic Birch or some other substrate.
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Hi Dave, First time I've ever been exposed to Bamboo Plywood. No experience with it......And it shows!
This is reason 237 why I hate woodworking. The last batch of 3/4" birch plywood I bought here in Ontario Canada splintered on every cut and was just poor quality in general.
I have a lot of envy for you guys that can actually manage to make really nice things out of wood.
EDIT: I just realized this was about bamboo plywood, I haven't used that but I'm sure the experience is equally awful lol.
I have a lot of envy for you guys that can actually manage to make really nice things out of wood.
EDIT: I just realized this was about bamboo plywood, I haven't used that but I'm sure the experience is equally awful lol.
That’s different than the plyboo I am used to spec’ing for my speakers which appear to be solid laminated and cured sheets made from strips (not sheets) of bamboo. More like a cutting board. It cuts and routes nicely on a CNC. Here is detail from a small 2 way speaker I designed.
I've got some nice mahogany that I'm going to plane down to 3/16 and veneer them........I still like the bamboo ply for its structural strength. And the cabinets are extremely solid......
I used a router with a "Hole Jig".........But THAT router bit did not have a ball bearing. The ball bearing on the roundover bit grabbed those fibers and ripped them out along with the veneer......
From the looks of it, that's not bamboo at all. Core looks like tropical softwood and the veneer is pressed stranded something...
Decided to cut the front off the cabinet......edge glue some African Mahogany and a strip of Poplar.....Cover the sides with 1/4" MDF......Using 3M 5200 Sealant/Adhesive to bond the MDF to the cabinet leaving around a 1/16" of the resilient material between the bamboo plywood and the MDF. We're getting there! (But with all this work, it would have been easier to throw these in the fire pit and start over!)
