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Materials

Plywood

Plywood is a board made from thin wood veneers glued together with the grain of each layer at right angles to the next, giving strength in both directions.

Also known as plywood sheathing, structural plywood, birch plywood, spruce plywood, ply

Cross-laminating the veneers makes plywood strong, stiff and dimensionally stable. Structural plywood is used to brace walls, as floor and roof decking and behind the inner board where heavy items will be fixed to the wall.

It is stronger and more moisture-tolerant than OSB but usually more expensive. Grades are set by wood species, glue type and surface quality, from rough sheathing to finished birch faces.

Related terms
OSB (oriented strand board)OSB (oriented strand board) is a structural board made from layers of wood strands glued and pressed together, with the outer layers aligned for strength. Sheathing boardSheathing boards are the large sheets (OSB, plywood, particleboard, gypsum) fixed to a timber or steel frame to close it, brace it and form a surface. Racking resistanceRacking resistance is a wall’s ability to resist sideways forces, such as wind, without distorting from a rectangle into a parallelogram.
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