18-05-2011, 08:15 AM
Nice work Joe!
I always find it uplifting to see items that have languished brought back into use, and often, for purposes that were not their original intention.
As to plywood, most of what is available from DIY stores and timber merchants is construction grade ply - not furniture grade. It has lots of voids and often, is faced with cheap soft, redish coloured veneer - probably luan or some such thing. Generally used for flooring, shuttering and so forth. The birch plywood that most of us recall from years ago, which is furniture grade, is known as 'birch through and through'. You can get it from places such as Arnold Laver. Most of the plywood I have is the construction grade stuff, and comes from my 'skip diving' exploits when at our elder son's home in London, which we go to several times a year. There are always serveral skips in the streets en route to our granddaughrers' school, so as we walk them to school, I scout the skips for likely offcuts to snaffle on my return, when my arm shoots out and retrieves useful pieces in the blink of an eye. Trouble is, my son's house is just around the corner from Nick Clegg's house, where there are armed police posted. (Our 9-yr old twin granddaughter's are in the same class as Nick's son, and one of ther twins, with an eye to the future, has offered him her hand in marriage, and has told him she'll bear him several children. He needs to watch out - she's very assertive and usually gets what she wants!). I always walk past thee cops feeling very shifty with an armful of plywood, and Jennfer several yeards in fron t of me. You know that feeling when you walk past Customs along the 'Nothing to Declare' channel, trying to not make eye contact!
I like to think that the police are only on the lookout for terror suspects - not skip ratting old buffers. So far, I've got away with it!
David
I always find it uplifting to see items that have languished brought back into use, and often, for purposes that were not their original intention.
As to plywood, most of what is available from DIY stores and timber merchants is construction grade ply - not furniture grade. It has lots of voids and often, is faced with cheap soft, redish coloured veneer - probably luan or some such thing. Generally used for flooring, shuttering and so forth. The birch plywood that most of us recall from years ago, which is furniture grade, is known as 'birch through and through'. You can get it from places such as Arnold Laver. Most of the plywood I have is the construction grade stuff, and comes from my 'skip diving' exploits when at our elder son's home in London, which we go to several times a year. There are always serveral skips in the streets en route to our granddaughrers' school, so as we walk them to school, I scout the skips for likely offcuts to snaffle on my return, when my arm shoots out and retrieves useful pieces in the blink of an eye. Trouble is, my son's house is just around the corner from Nick Clegg's house, where there are armed police posted. (Our 9-yr old twin granddaughter's are in the same class as Nick's son, and one of ther twins, with an eye to the future, has offered him her hand in marriage, and has told him she'll bear him several children. He needs to watch out - she's very assertive and usually gets what she wants!). I always walk past thee cops feeling very shifty with an armful of plywood, and Jennfer several yeards in fron t of me. You know that feeling when you walk past Customs along the 'Nothing to Declare' channel, trying to not make eye contact!
I like to think that the police are only on the lookout for terror suspects - not skip ratting old buffers. So far, I've got away with it!
David