Planking out of plywood

Back to the hobby after a few years of teaching my babies to sleep through the noise of sawdust being made...

I'm building a headboard similar to this. Using ash and I have my nominal 4x4 posts glued up and ready for joinery. Yes, heavy.

Question-- I'm thinking about ripping the big 3/4" thick plywood panels into 6" planks, then mixing them up as they slide in their dadoes for a more rustic look. This is high quality (i.e. non-BORG) plywood so I think I could sand them a bit to take the edges off, but obviously no edge-gluing. Maybe then nail some furring strips on the back of the plank-panels to stabilize. The whole assembly of planks would be floating.

Would this be a neat look or a plan for disaster?

TIA!
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I think this is a reasonable plan. Break the edges lightly as you suggest (a slight 1/16" to 1/8" round over looks nice) and maybe add a few biscuits/dominos/loose splines (no glue with any of these options) to keep them aligned so that the edges don't reveal themselves. You shouldn't need furring strips on the back. Use loose splines if no other alternative is available - clean and light and easy.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sam Murdoch

I think this is a reasonable plan. Break the edges lightly as you suggest (a slight 1/16" to 1/8" round over looks nice) and maybe add a few biscuits/dominos/loose splines (no glue with any of these options) to keep them aligned so that the edges don't reveal themselves. You shouldn't need furring strips on the back. Use loose splines if no other alternative is available - clean and light and easy.

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Thanks Sam, I'll give it a shot!

You might want to consider running tongue and groove on the edges of your "boards" a putting a fine bead of glue on the "back" side of the tongues when you assemble everything. Plywood is more stable than regular boards but it isn't as "stiff" and if you want this to last a long time then I think you will need a little glue to stiffen things up. A few years of reading in bed will put some long term stress on unsupported plywood "boards"

My thoughts run to better safe .....