Plywood in ancient times

It is unknown who exactly and when first came up with the idea of splitting wooden logs into sheets, and to whom we owe the emergence of plywood. However, historians have recognized the oldest plywood item as a chest found during excavations in Egypt, dating back to the 15th-16th centuries BC. Even then, they knew how to not only save rare valuable resources but also deceive others - the inner layers were glued with cedar, while the outside was covered with black wood. It is impossible to speak about the emergence of mass technology and popularity of the material based on this finding, as it remained the only one. But the fact that over two thousand years ago, some carpenter used a glued structure, not solid wood, which is fundamentally no different from modern plywood - is a fact.

Products made of plywood from later periods of history were found in Ancient Greece and the Roman Empire, which is logical. Just like in the floodplain of Egypt, there was a shortage of wood reserves there, so craftsmen had to find ways to reduce the cost of finished products. And gluing allowed not only to use raw materials most efficiently but also to combine less valuable species with more valuable ones.

Plywood international: English press and Russian plane

Plywood, both in the past and now, is made of multi-layered sheets, which are manufactured by gluing veneer. Throughout the centuries, this process was completely manual, and only at the end of the 18th century, an Englishman named Samuel Bentham invented and patented a pressing machine for gluing veneer under high pressure.

Modern factories are equipped with hot pressing machines

He also holds the patent for a planing machine, which further increased the production rate. However, obtaining veneer by planing was a very labor-intensive and economically inefficient process due to the large amount of waste. This hindered the development of this direction in woodworking.

The year 1819 became significant in the history of the development of global plywood production - a subject of the Russian Empire, Professor Fischer, invented a machine for peeling wood using a knife. Unlike planing, peeling made it possible to remove the thinnest layer of veneer in the form of a ribbon from the log and produce plywood with almost no waste. This means that with the creation of the machine, production becomes cheaper, the dependence on the dimensions of logs is eliminated, the quality of the material is improved, and the range is expanded. For a long time, plywood production worldwide was called the Russian method, using peeled veneer.

And when planed veneer stopped being used altogether, this clarification lost its meaning.

Arborite: modern plywood

Now the equipment is more advanced, production is mechanized and automated, the share of manual labor is minimized, but fundamentally since the invention of the "plane" nothing has changed. However, modern plywood appeared not when Bentham and Fisher invented their machines, but sixty years later. In 1880, the Russian designer-inventor of Serbian origin Ognislav Stepanovich Kostovich opened the "Arborit" factory. The material made at the factory was also called arborite, but it was real plywood, made from several glued layers of peeled veneer with a cross direction of fibers, which gave it increased rigidity and strength.

Initially, Kostovich needed plywood for his own needs - he designed flying models of helicopters, airplanes and ornithopters, and then took up the creation of a real airship. He had a frame made of arborite, and many other parts of the structure, and such a responsible unit as a transmission shaft. That is, the inventor had no doubts about the strength and reliability of the material. Since parts for the airship and other inventions could not be produced by mass production, and money had to be earned, the factory began to specialize in various packaging. Barrels, boxes, chests, suitcases, as well as building components, disassembled houses, and, as an experiment, plywood pipes were produced. Thus, products made of plywood appeared in the country for a wide range of consumption.

A few more important milestones in the development of plywood production:

• 1890 - plywood furniture by the carpenter Luther, presented by the merchant Makarov, was awarded a gold medal at the International Exhibition in Madrid.
• 1894 - construction of the first factory for the production of sheet plywood from peeled veneer near St. Petersburg.
• 1896 - construction of a factory in Zelenodolsk.
• Early 1914 - in pre-revolutionary Russia, there were 48 plywood factories with a total capacity of 258.5 thousand cubic meters per year. The Russian Empire was the leader in the export of plywood, with Britain in second place. The share of the domestic market is minimal, only products made of solid wood are in demand instead of plywood.

Mechanization at enterprises was conditional, plywood sheets were made by workers - peeling machines with manual feed, presses with manual hydraulic pump, manual sawing of blanks and plywood itself. The gluing was done by the "wet" method, the glue was also applied to the sheets manually, with brushes or brushes. During the civil war, half of the factories were destroyed, plywood production at the remaining enterprises was reduced to one-tenth. But progress did not stand still and by 1928 almost all the factories were not only restored, but also modernized. Instead of the wet method, dry gluing was now used. There was widespread production of specialized aviation plywood. By the end of the second five-year plan (1937), plywood production in the Soviet Union was automated, starting from peeling machines and ending with crushers for waste. And the total annual output of the material tripled and amounted to more than 600 thousand cubic meters. Modern factories also do not stand idle without orders.

Today, plywood is used in almost all industries. It is used to make furniture, shelves, and storage systems. In private construction, it is mainly used as a rough finishing material and for formwork. However, more and more often, plywood interiors can be found in the projects of young designers. It is also used to make frames for houses, and even complete houses. And these are not temporary structures for seasonal use, but solid buildings for comfortable living, attracting with their quick assembly and reasonable cost,For this purpose, construction plywood is used.