Performance of Oak-Cottonwood Plywood Bonded with a Softwood Plywood Phenolic During 10 Years of Exterior Exposure

This work was started in 1972 to demonstrate that hardwoods could be used to extend the raw material base for construction plywood. A second more timely reason to consider hardwoods now is their location. Ninety percent of the volume is east of the Mississippi River, close to a large number of potential consumers. This proximity of raw material and consumer implies lower transportation cost for the product. To demonstrate the suitability of hardwoods, plywood panels were fabricated from northern red oak and eastern cottonwood. The adhesive used was a commercial phenolic resin, used for southern pine plywood. The panels were placed on exterior exposure at Madison, Wis., and samples were withdrawn and tested over a 10-year period. After 10 years of exposure, the adhesive bonds still exceeded the 85 percent minimum wood failure requirement of the Product Standard PS 1-74.

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