Plyboo?

[Steve Griffin]

I'm interested in this product, and would love to hear any comments about it.

Plyboo does have a funny name (sounds like what Casper the Ghost would use on his house). Is there anything I should be afraid about?

I have a client who may be interested in a kitchen with bamboo panels in a shaker style door with dark hardwood frames. So 1/4" would be used. Also, I'm building a house for myself and might use it the same way, or perhaps use the 3/4" as a flat panel contemporary door.

How stable is it? How well does it take stain? And more importantly, how well does it NOT take stain and look with a clear finish? How does it age? (Darken, lighten etc) Are there any alternative products out now?

Thanks! -Steve

[Myk Rian]

A simple Google search for plyboo gets your answers.
http://calibamboo.com/productfaqs.html

[David DeCristoforo]

"Plyboo" is a brand name and is sold by Smith and Fong. There are other bamboo products available but they are all very similar.

http://www.calibamboo.com/
http://www.morningstarbamboo.com/
http://www.bamboohardwoods.com/ etc....

My experience is that these products are "not bad" to work with but you have to plan around the fact that there is no "solid stock" to speak of. There is a limited selection of "stranded lumber" type pieces but these are mostly in the form of stair nosings and the like. The material tends to be somewhat "splintery" but cuts fairly cleanly with good quality carbide tooling.

The panels are generally well manufactured but can have a mind of their own when it comes to staying flat. I always include a "caveat" about not guaranteeing these materials since they are relatively new on the market and untested as far as long term stability and durability goes.

Bamboo is quite porous so it takes finishes similar to a ring porous hardwood like oak although the pores are much smaller. I have not tried staining bamboo so I can't offer any information there.

[Steve Griffin]

Thanks David. I appreciate your input.

Myk--I've already done some reading, including the manufacturers website:
http://www.plyboo.com/products/bamboo-plywood.html

But, believe it or not, I actually want comments from Sawmill Creekers with real world experience.

[Jamie Buxton]

The stucture of both wood and bamboo is fibers which run the with-the-grain direction, and kinda glued together in the other directions. The "glue" is not as strong as the fibers, which is why it is easy to split wood along the grain, but tough to break it across the grain.

In my experience, the "glue" in bamboo is not as strong as the glue in wood. That gives bamboo two characteristics which you need to watch out for. First, a little ding on a sharp edge will raise a splinter. I always wear gloves while I'm working the stuff. Easing the edge removes the danger, and you really must do that before you let anybody else handle it. Second, if you try to plane the stuff, you can get rip-out very easily. Wood will allow you to plane slightly against the grain. Bamboo is much less tolerant.

[Jamie Buxton]

You didn't ask, but I'm a little skeptical of the "green creds" of bamboo. The suppliers point to how quickly it grows, and suggest that harvesting it is better than harvesting trees. From that, they claim that it is good for the planet.

However, the stuff grows on the other side of the world, and is shipped here by dinosaur juice, whereas trees grow in our own backyard. And there's a lot of processing necessary to cut up bamboo stalks into little pieces and glue them together to make sheet goods. In some ways, the price of bamboo sheet goods supports my skepticism. In my dealers, a sheet of 3/4" bamboo costs about $200. Premium hardwood-veneer plywood in those same dealers costs $50 to $100, depending on species and cut. Why does the bamboo cost so much? At least some of it may be because of the production costs and shipping costs.

[Steve Griffin]

Good points on "Green" credentials of the product Jamie. The house I'm doing the kitchen for is not particularly attempting to be green. Partly because of the environmental movement, the term "hypocrite" is starting to get a bad name.:rolleyes:

Attached is a shot of a vanity in my house which sort of has the look they are attracted too. It's actually mahogany and aspen, but I think bamboo could make for more interesting panels. Framing the panels with a hardwood certainly takes away most of the concerns about stability and splinters.

-Steve

[Rob Sack]

I have used the product quite a bit. Generally, it has been great to work with, except for the fact that a full sheet is quite heavy and handling a full panel will save you a trip to the gym. Generally the panels have been quite flat and have remained flat after cutting, indicating proper moisture content and panel construction. That being said, I have been shipped panels with significant differences in the thicknesses of the outside faces, and predictably, the panels were not flat, and when cut, the pieces were equally warped. It is my understanding that Plyboo is manufactured in China where manufacturing standards are not always consistent. Hopefully, with increased interest, more suppliers will be willing to provide this material and as a result, the increase in competition will provide lower prices and more consistent quality.

[David DeCristoforo]

"That being said, I have been shipped panels with significant differences in the thicknesses of the outside faces..."

That has been my experience as well. What's worse, it's not like one face is thinner than the other equally over the whole sheet which might offer some predictability as to how the pieces cut from that sheet would warp. Rather, the faces can vary randomly so that in one area one face is a sixteenth thicker than the other but in another area it's reversed even though the overall thickness of the sheet remains consistent. I have had door pairs cut from these sheets warp differently every day of the week. So you come in on Monday and the inside top corners are off the cabinet. On Tuesday, the inside top corners are touching but the bottom corners are off. The next day, all of the corners are touching but one panel is bowed in at the center and the other is bowed out. On Thursday, it's just the opposite. And on it goes. This is not an exaggeration! It may not be "typical" but it can happen.

I would also second Jamie's questioning of the environmental advantages of bamboo products. The level of processing needed to turn large grass stalks into "plywood" sheets and "solid" lumber could easily be significant enough to offset the "sustainability" of the raw material itself.

[Howard Acheson]

>> How well does it take stain? And more importantly, how well does it NOT take stain and look with a clear finish?

Bamboo can not be stained in the normal sence of staining. Being a grass means is has no side pores that can absorb liquid. So, oil based and waterbased stains will not work well. You can use a gel stain and apply it heavily sort of like a paint. However, my one experience with it is that the gel stain will chip rather easily because finishes do not adhere as well to bamboo as they do to wood.

I would suggest you get some and experiment with it yourself.

[Jamie Buxton]

As to staining, most bamboo plywood suppliers offer it in "natural" and "caramel", or some word like that. There's even one at my dealer which is dark brown, but I don't remember the maker. So you can start with some choices in color.

Another way to "stain" it is to use a colored lacquer. The pigment is encased in the lacquer, and the colored lacquer adheres to the substrate just as well as clear lacquer. See these threads for some of that ... http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=100032
and http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?p=1010004#post1010004

[Steve Griffin]

Thanks Everyone!

I think I'm comfortable enough with the product now to offer it to the client. If they are interested, I'll certainly get some samples for final approval. With the stability issues several have mentioned, I think I'm not at all interested in using it as 3/4" flat panels, but only as 1/4" panels in a hardwood frame.

In any case, it will be a good learning experience to get some samples and play with them a little.

Really appreciate all the help,

-Steve

[Bradley Schmidt]

Hi Steve,

My company, Oriental Bamboo, is an importer & distributor of bamboo boards. I have visited many bamboo board factories in China, numerous times. I could not help myself but to comment & hopefully clear up a few of the comments posted (I'll try not to be biased :)).

Staining:
Broadly speaking, there are two types of "colors" available; natural - a yellow "Pine" colored board, this is the natural color of the bamboo, and carbonised - this extra manufacturing process steams the bamboo strips at pressure, causing the bamboo strips to caramelize into a coffee color. Carbonised bamboo is NOT stained, you can saw through a carbonised board and the color will be consistent throughout.

We find that the natural bamboo boards are harder than the carbonised boards, whereas the carbonised boards are more moisture tolerant.

Contrary to some of the comments about staining bamboo, our experience is that the bamboo boards stain very well & evenly, without the differing absorption rates experienced on other solid woods due to fiber density differences (e.g. knots). We have many clients who oil, wax, stain, paint technique (e.g. lime wash) and veneer our bamboo boards. The above said, the bamboo fibers are dense, so stains do not penetrate the surface very deeply. Often, our clients stain, then apply additional UV & hardener finishes over the stain.

We have a number of clients who use the bamboo boards for it's superior technical characteristics. They manufacture furniture, kitchens & cupboards in a way that only an experienced professional will be able to tell that the item is manufactured from bamboo boards. I've included a photo bamboo board used in a bathroom due to it's moisture characteristics.

http://www.oriental-bamboo.co.za/Images/bamboo-bathroom.jpg

Working with Bamboo:
Rob is correct in pointing out the fibrous nature of bamboo boards, yes, it does splinter, and I agree with his recommendation of wearing protective gloves when working with the product. Using sharp & quality tools minimises the splintering. And yes, the boards are heavy, making a standard 8x4 board unwieldy, but will save you a few trips to the gym. Many clients of ours submit a cutting list to the timber merchants & have the boards pre-cut before delivery to help them overcome this problem. This issue becomes especially relevant when working with the 30 mm & 40 mm boards. On the thicker boards, the weight requires that the boards be carefully manipulated on the table, as keeping a constant speed through the blade is tricky & failure to do so can cause scorching & skew cuts.

Bamboo is hard, harder than Red Oak, so think "hard" when choosing your tools and working with the product. I recommend hardened tip blades and motors that are not going to slow down when encountering a dense fiber "wood".

One of the really nice things is that bamboo "works" well, we even have clients using cnc & water jet cutting to get some really fancy effects and are very happy with the results.

Also, you need to keep in mind that most bamboo boards have an "A" and a "B" side. On the "A" side, the bamboo strips are matched to minimize color variations, whereas the strips are not color matched on the "B" side. The picture of the bathroom above shows the "B" side of a board.

Quality:
Manufacturing bamboo boards IS NOT AN EASY task. Having visited many factories, I have discovered that there are a whole host of different ways of achieving the end result. In the end we have decided to run two product lines for boards. DIY & Specifier boards. The DIY boards are cheaper & one can expect slight variations in strip thicknesses and under certain conditions, slight bowing of the boards. The Specifier boards go through a few extra QC & manufacturing steps that result in a higher quality and are lot less prone to bowing. It really comes down to "you get what your pay for". If anybody is interested I'm more than happy to detail the manufacturing steps and the important things to look for when making a decision as to which board to buy. It is really not as simple as "they are manufactured in China where manufacturing standards are not always consistent". Many factories have very high manufacturing standards, yet still have problems with bowing boards.

We find that bowing is more of an issue with the 6 mm, 16 mm & 20 mm boards. We have chosen to only supply boards that use a cross laminated construction, as this provides a more stable product. The processes used in the manufacturing of the bamboo boards has a SIGNIFICANT impact on the likelihood of the board bowing. Many manufacturers skip critical steps in order to cut costs & increase profits, resulting in the product getting a bad reputation, when in fact it is often the result of pure profiteering.

Keep in mind that if you are going to apply a coating on the bamboo boards, to make sure both surfaces are coated. If you only coat one side, you'll have differing moisture absorption rates resulting in bowing of the board.

I have run our Specifier boards through multiple dishwasher cycles without any bowing of the board at all.

I have spent quite a bit of time at Plyboo's factory in China, they are a high quality factory with ISO & CE standards implemented throughout. The machinery they use is of the highest quality (mostly of Dutch & German origin) and the glues they use are high quality European glues that conform to international dangerous emissions standards. The cleanliness of the factory is impressive considering the amount of product they manufacture. The working conditions are also very good.

Eco-friendly (green):
There is enough material elsewhere on the Internet detailing the multi-faceted green aspects of bamboo, so I won't go into this in any detail. But I need to address the comment made by Jamie; Transport by ship is well established as one of the most efficient (green wise) means of transport of bulk materials. There are numerous studies published on this topic. In the majority of cases, the transport impact on bamboo's green credentials is insignificant compared to the many other factors that contribute to the green footprint of bamboo boards vs solid timber. Remember bamboo is hand harvested (using machetes, not machines as is often the case in solid wood plantations), the processing factories are at the source as well. The majority of factories are within a 150-300 km away from the major shipping ports.

I do agree with Jamie in that there are many unscrupulous vendors jumping on the "green" bandwagon. And there are definitely those that aren't "green" but market themselves as such, even in the bamboo boards trade.

The process of cutting the bamboo into stalks is not machinery heavy, and much of the energy required in the manufacturing process is derived from bamboo waste.

Cost:
Keep in mind that bamboo boards are largely "finished". No need to chop up cubes, process to planks & laminate to get your boards (and all the costs involved). Essentially, bamboo boards are the solid wood equivalent of a MDF type board.

I also have some additional info on our web site (http://www.oriental-bamboo.co.za/) if anyone is interested, also don't hesitate to ask questions, I'll see if I can give you an informed reply.