What is Decorative Hardwood Plywood?

Hardwood plywood is an interior, engineered wood product known for its natural beauty, strength and stability. It’s made by gluing multiple layers (or “plies”) of wood together.

It’s available in standard panel sizes with a variety of core materials, but always with hardwood veneer on at least one face. The veneer faces can be specified prefinished with a durable clear or tinted finish, or with raw veneer faces for custom staining and finishing.

Hardwood plywood is a convenient decorative solution for projects inside the building envelope where the warmth and beauty of wood is desired, whether your project calls for custom colors and finishes or the perfect consistency of color and character offered by prefinished panels.

Why Hardwood Plywood?

Beauty and Biophilia

Humans’ innate preference for nature and natural materials like wood is known as biophilia. Research points to physical and mental health benefits for people in spaces that make use of these materials, while architects, designers, and tradespeople find them comfortable to work with. Attractive and warm to the touch, the patterns and characteristics found in natural wood make every project uniquely beautiful and always familiar with a long history in furniture and interiors.

Environmentally Responsible

North American hardwood plywood panels are an environmentally responsible choice for several reasons. They are climate positive (i.e., they have a negative carbon footprint), are sourced from sustainably harvested resources, are largely biobased, and replace less sustainable materials. See more below.

Strength

Pound for pound, veneer core plywood is stronger than steel in static bending strength due to its cross-layered structure, according to the Decorative Hardwoods Association.

Efficiency

Plywood manufacturing makes better use of wood resources than solid wood because it uses more of the harvested log, “democratizing” clear, high-grade grain character, which would be very costly to achieve and scale with solid lumber.

Versatility

Hardwood plywood comes in a variety of thicknesses with choices of finishes to suit any project. Plywood can be bent (gently) or kerfed (aggressively) as well, making it useful for all kinds of interior applications, from furniture (grand piano cases) and paneling (curved walls) to cabinetry, millwork, and furniture.

Durability

Veneer core plywood furniture and cabinetry can last for decades when properly designed, fabricated, and maintained to stand the test of time (and changing tastes).

Where is Hardwood Plywood used?

APPLICATIONS

• Kitchen cabinets, built ins

• Commercial and residential millwork

• Furniture

• Closet and storage systems

• Decorative wall panels

• Boat/RV interiors and industrial panels for lamination

Hardwood Plywood Properties and Performance

Hardwood plywood is assigned a grade for both its front face (AA, A, B, C, D, and E) and its back (1-4). AA-1 signifies the highest quality, meaning both sides can be seen, but it’s not always necessary to specify the highest premium grade. A grade of B4 would be more affordable and could work well in a project where the back will not be visible, and the end user wishes to see more of the natural character of wood. Sources are listed below, and the Decorative Hardwoods Association publishes a buyers’ guide (PDF download) of American-made hardwood plywood products that are certified to North American standards.

Hardwood plywood is more stable and durable than solid stock. Plywood comes in sheets—typically 4’ x 8’— and is available in a variety of thicknesses, typically from 5/32” to 1-1/2”.

Depending on which adhesive and core type is used, hardwood plywood can be engineered for special performance properties like:

• Exterior Moisture resistance

• Density/screw-holding power

• Spanning Properties

• Machinability

• Light weight

• Laminating surface properties

• Different thicknesses and dimensions

Material Makeup and Manufacturing

Hardwood plywood is a strong and stable engineered wood product made with at least one decorative veneer surface and a core consisting of an assembly of layers or plies of veneer, or veneers in combination with lumber, particleboard, MDF, hardboard, or special core, in which the adjacent layers or plies are at approximately right angles.

Veneer Faces

The face and back veneers are typically made from North American hardwood species such as alder, ash, birch, cherry, maple, oak, poplar, pecan, hickory, and walnut.

Variety of Cores

Veneer core plywood contains three or more layers of veneer glued together at 90-degree angles. Other core types include medium density fiberboard (MDF) core, particleboard core, combination core (typically 3- or 5-ply veneer core with MDF crossbands) plywood, and edge-glued lumber core.

Resin Systems

The most common resin systems used to bond together the elements of hardwood plywood panels are urea formaldehyde (UF), soy (PAE), and polyvinyl acetate (PVA).

How most North American veneer core hardwood plywood is made:

• Responsible manufacturers start by regionally sourcing sustainably harvesting logs from well-managed forests and woodlands, including small private holdings by families held as investment, cut perhaps once a generation.

• The bark is removed, and logs are cut to a suitable dimension for peeling on a lathe (typically, a little over 8' or 10' for core veneer).

• Logs are peeled on an industrial lathe that turns the log into a ribbon-like sheet of veneer in seconds.

• Sheets of veneer are sorted by grade and sent to a dryer to cure.

• Wood waste is captured for paper manufacture, composite wood production, or to be used as fuel in pellets, briquettes, or as pulverized boiler fuel to offset use of hydrocarbons.

• The wood veneer sheets are then stacked into a plywood “sandwich,” typically with the grain of each layer perpendicular to its adjacent layers.

• Plywood sandwiches are pre-pressed to tack sufficiently for loading into a hot press (like a large collapsing pizza oven).

• Pressed panels are then patched and sanded before passing through a quality inspection process, which separates them by grade.

• Once approved, the finished hardwood plywood panels are packaged and shipped to fabricators.

• As part of the production process, each plant participates with a Third-Party Certifier (TPC) to ensure EPA TSCA Title VI requirements for conformity are met, including testing to verify emissions are below thresholds established (below 50 parts per billion formaldehyde.)

• Assurance is provided to fabrication through distribution Chain-of-Custody paperwork.

Environmental Details

Climate Positive

Hardwood plywood, like most wood-based materials, is a climate positive material. Trees capture atmospheric CO2 through photosynthesis and store the captured carbon, which isn’t released until it decomposes or burns.

The chemical makeup of dried wood is 50 percent naturally captured carbon, which means a 65-lb. sheet of hardwood plywood stores 32.5 lbs. of naturally captured carbon; a 95-lb. sheet of MDF-core plywood stores 47.5 lbs. This is more carbon than is released in the production and use of these panels, which is the definition of “climate positive.”

Recycled Materials

Hardwood plywood’s engineered composite cores start out as a recycled product. MDF cores are made from the wood fiber leftover from harvested solid wood lumber; particleboard cores come from wood waste and lumber production by-products combined.

Managed Forest Resources

Wood itself is an infinitely renewable resource when taken from managed forests and private woodlands, which are the source of nearly all wood harvested in North America. The U.S. contains 8 percent of the world's forests, and there are more trees than there were 100 years ago. According to the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), “Forest growth nationally has exceeded harvest since the 1940s. By 1997, forest growth exceeded harvest by 42 percent, and the volume of forest growth was 380 percent greater than it had been in 1920.”

Long-Term Durability

When finished properly, decorative veneer surfaces add beauty and durability to prolong the life of the material to decades of use, when properly maintained.

United States Green Building Council LEED® Green Building Certification Credit

Hardwood plywood offers the following LEED v4.1 credit opportunities. Check with your supplier to confirm certification.

Indoor Environmental Quality

EQc Low-Emitting Materials

Applies to all particleboard; medium density fiberboard; hardwood plywood with veneer, composite, or combination core; and wood structural panels or structural wood products. Points eligible if at least 75 percent of all composite wood, by cost or surface area, is certified No-Added Formaldehyde (NAF) or Ultra-Low-Emitting Formaldehyde (ULEF) per CARB ATCM 93120 or U.S. EPA TSCA Title VI.

Materials & Resources

MR Credit: Sourcing of Raw Materials

Responsible Sourcing of Raw Materials (1-2 points)

Composite wood products can contribute to achieving these points by being:

• Certified: Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) or other USGBC-equivalent.

• Recycled Content: sum of ISO 14021 compliant post-consumer recycled content plus one-half of the ISO 14021 pre-consumer recycled content, based on weight. The recycled fraction of the assembly is then multiplied by the cost of assembly to determine the recycled content value.

More on how working forests and wood products store carbon and mitigate climate change

Demand for North American-grown products composed of wood promotes healthy forests, reduces wildfires, protects water resources, supports wildlife diversity, and produces safe and sustainable products that create economic and employment opportunities for rural, underserved communities.

When there is a steady demand for wood products, forest sector operations ensure that forests will remain productive in the future, creating a long-term tool to address climate change.

These benefits are recognized by the Federal Government. According to the U.S. Forest Service, “While trees grow in the forest, they store carbon dioxide from the atmosphere in their trunks, branches, stems, leaves, roots, and soil.

“So, when trees are sustainably harvested, wood continues to store carbon in the thousands of products we use every day, from paper products to lumber to energy generation. Trees then regrow, repeating the cycle…When people use wood-based products in place of fossil fuel-intensive products — like steel, concrete, or plastic — there is a permanent benefit to our atmospheric home.”

It is estimated that total forest carbon storage in the U.S., including that stored in finished goods, is 58.7 billion tons (PDF download). According to EPA data, each year, forests and harvested forest products capture between 600 and 700 million tons of greenhouse gas (GHG) equivalents, offsetting roughly 12 percent of U.S. annual GHG emissions.

Wood products make up 47 percent of all industrial materials in the U.S. but consume only 4 percent of the total energy to manufacture those materials. In contrast, manufacturing materials from aluminum, glass, plastic, cement, or brick can require as much as 126 times more energy than wood.

All of this stacks up to strong environmental performance for decorative, wood-based products. For example, A recent Life Cycle Assessment and Environmental Product Declaration for wood flooring published by the Decorative Hardwoods Association and the National Wood Flooring Association clearly demonstrates the climate benefits of wood products compared to alternatives. These studies and those for competing materials show that by using engineered wood flooring instead of alternatives like vinyl plank faux wood floors, builders and architects can reduce total global warming potential across the full life cycle by 82 percent.

Hardwood Plywood  Suppliers

• Cahaba Veneer & Plywood, Inc.

• Chesterfield Wood Products. Inc.

• Columbia Forest Products, Inc.

• Commonwealth Plywood, Inc

• Darlington Veneer Company, Inc.

• Eastern Panel Manufacturing, Inc.

• GL Veneer Company, Inc.

• Howell Plywood Corporation

• Husky Plywood, Inc.

• Laminate Technologies

• Lignin Holdings, LLC

• Manthei Wood Products

• The Murphy Company