Compared with Plywood and Particle board

Compared with Plywood and Particle board

Plywood is an assemblage of wood veneers bonded together to produce a flat sheet. Widely use for furniture.

Particle board is an engineered wood product manufactured from wood chips, sawmill shavings, or even sawdust, and a synthetic resin or other suitable binder, which is pressed and extruded. 

Let’s compare them, and take a look at the differences between plywood and particleboard:

Which is stronger and more durable?

Considering that plywood possesses a cross-grain pattern from which it derives much of its strength, plywood is clearly stronger and more durable than particle board. Plywood becomes even stronger and more durable with the strong adhesives used in its manufacture.

Which one have the smooth surface?

While plywood is generally stronger, the surfaces of particle board are usually smoother. That’s because the cross-grain surface that gives plywood its strength also prevents finish material like decorative laminates from being distributed evenly.

We can try to smooth plywood out with sanding machine, but it cannot match the kind of surface smoothness that particle boards can provide. With its smoother surface, particle board allows decorative laminates and other finish material to make the finished product look more stunning.

Which resists moisture better?

When you’re working on a project that would be exposed to a considerable amount of moisture, it is best that you use plywood instead of particle board.

While regular plywood is not exactly waterproof—but we also have the marine plywood, compared it, particle boards fare worse as they easily swell and expand with the moisture. When this happens, particle boards loses most of their strength as well. Worse, particle boards that are swollen with moisture become heavier, and this increases safety risks.

Which one is cheaper?

For plywood and particle board, they have their own advantages plywood has over particleboard, but price is still one of the biggest considerations, particle board is cheaper makes it still quite popular among furniture manufacturers and home owners. Normally, particle board costs about half or even less than plywood or solid wood.