A lot of people want to know which material is stronger or which one is superior to the other one. But there are so many types of both that head-to-head comparison is pretty much impossible. Let’s make a primer or in a basic overview of how newcomers can understand these two products. Where is the most frequently used and what their independent strengths and why they exist.

    The regular wood, also call dimensional lumber, its literally wood cut and seasoned straight from a tree to create dimensional lumber, timbered logs are passed through a milling process to reduce them to usable size and shapes. Usually, long flat boards with square edges and we tend to mill things to fairly standard lengths, widths and thickness hence the term dimensional for many years throughout human history all lumber in the world was either dimensional lumber or rough-cut logs.

    Plywood is an engineered wood product that first showed up in the 1800s, but was not mass-produced until about the 1950s. Plywood is made in mills by peeling trees, from the outer edge inward to produce long, thin layers of wood. These layers are stacked and glued together under tremendous pressure to form wide, flat panels.To solve the problem of limited board width. Before plywood production, boards could only be as wide as the trees that were timbered. Wider panels had to be formed by edge-joining boards, which is difficult and laborious.While it is possible to cut very wide boards from large trees, they are limited in size by the size of the log, are very heavy, and are difficult to machine and finish. Plywood, on the other hand, comes in 4*8 sheets and can be cut to any size you like! They are very flat and the veneer is smooth.

    Plywood is also strong and stable. It's not prone to splitting like dimensional lumber, single texture, long-term use will naturally produce fault lines, the entire board may crack from the nail hole.The various layers of plywood are cross-laid in alternating patterns to counteract weaknesses between layers. Plywood panels are also much lighter and easier to work than the same size dimensional lumber.Compare the firmness, plywood is not strong as dimensional lumber. And plywood tends to be thin. If it's a structural job, dimension lumber is a better choice, usually can use as structural beams.

    The above is the basic difference between ordinary wood and plywood. Both products have their own advantages. Only when they are used in the right place can they play their role better.