Particle board humor

[Mark Elmer]

Hi all,

I belong to a penturners club that meets every other month on the first Thursday. Coming home from this months meeting I passed Ikea and it occurred to me that our meeting in April will be on April Fool’s Day. And I want to give everyone a couple of turning blanks of “Ikea®wood.”

Often when we attend these meetings woodworkers will bring surplus materials that they have to trade and often they are free for the taking. The other night for example a friend of mine gave me some IPE wood and he included an information sheet that he had found on the web. Here are the various attributes that were covered on the sheet.

Botanical name:

Common names:

Color:

Grain:

Texture:

Properties / workability:

Durability:

Finish:

Stability:

Bending:

Odor:

Sources:

Uses:

Tree:

Weight:

Drying:

Availability:

Cost

I want to come up with a “gag” sheet for particle board or “Ikea®wood.”

Does anyone want to take a crack at this?

[Jim Koepke]

Botanical name: detritusmostcheapous

Common names: discard, dross

Color: ocasionally

Grain: maybe

Texture: shelf paper

Properties / workability: crumbly

Durability: until someone sneezes

Finish: at your own peril

Stability: like a sand castle

Bending: over a barrel

Odor: plenty

Sources: dumpsters

Uses: not even fire wood

Tree: contaminated by most dogs

Weight: no thanks, I'm in a hurry

Drying: been there, done that

Availability: under foot everywhere

Cost: too much and 99 cents



jim

[Mark Elmer]

Jim,

LOL.

Thank you for getting us started. I think we can have some fun with this.

[John Coloccia]

Botanical name: fallus apartess

Common names: "That European Junk"

Color: white, black, most pastels. Occasional zebra stripe.

Grain: depends on the orientation of the stickers

Texture: internal texture is porous and flaky. External texture is is extremely hard and smooth.

Properties / workability: Very light wood. Usually grows in precise rectangular shapes. Once you get through the hard outer bark, the wood works rather easily (tearout can be a problem). One property of this wood is that it is practically impossible to damage a screw or twist off a head. The wood will fall apart long before any damage to the screw could possibly ever occur. Over the years, as more and more furniture made from this wood falls apart, the screws can be reclaimed. At some point, enough screws will have been reclaimed that screws will simply no longer need to be imported. For whatever reason, Scandinavian countries hate importing screws, apparently.

Durability: Completely immune from rotting and mold. Once assembled into a structure, will stand up well to normal everyday use, assuming you don't mind performing some basic, routine maintenance. Most maintenance is performed with toothpicks, glue and a screwdriver.

Finish: The bark is hard, almost chalk board like. This wood is usually used with the bark left on (wood conveniently grows in rectangular shapes). Once the bark is penetrated, it is nearly impossible to polish the wood to any sort of luster.

Stability: Extremely stable. Can be stored in a cardboard box right next to the kitchen for many many years with no detrimental effects.

Bending: Under most any load, yes. Dry bending is most common. A typical bending session is to suspend the wood between two supports and place a weight in the center (any television set works well). In a matter of a couple of months, the wood will have taken on a beautiful, graceful arch.

Odor: Faint cardboard/packing tape smell. This is typically replaced with a faint Formula 409 smell after several months of use.

Sources: Sweden, Finland, occasionally Norway.

Uses: Opinions vary from "useless" (USA/Canada) to "everything, including cars" (Most of Europe).

Tree: Varies in size from 1"X24" to 34"X34". Tree tends to grow in rectangular shapes. There is no visible root structure. Although there are no easily discernible leaves, the rectangular trunk actually acts as one gigantic leaf. Whatever moisture exists is stored in this trunk/leaf complex, which technically makes the fallus apartess a succulent.

Weight: Usually extremely light. Often times the packing material is heavier, or as heavy, as the wood itself, which raises the interesting possibility of creating the packaging out of wood. This would be akin to shipping an order of cardboard boxes within a larger cardboard box. Keep in mind, though, the superior durability and strength of cardboard. Self-packaging is an active area of research.

Drying: Paper towels, rags, shirt sleeves. Can be air dried.

Availability: Readily available.

Cost: Difficult to estimate. This wood is typically only sold in assortments, bundled with random hardware. It's suspected, though, that the cost is minimal.

[Gene Howe]

I can't add or improve on either of these fine treatises. Both appear to capture the true essence of this exceptional material and, are worthy of inclusion in Fine Woodworking's next article on woods.

One suggestion: You might include "Origin" in your data sheet. Especially for those concerned about deforestation and global warming.

[Mark Elmer]

Yes, I have to agree. These two posts have defined particle board or Ikeawood® pretty well. I guess we should be thankful. If wood waste wasn’t reclaimed and made into manmade lumber, supply and demand for dimensional lumber would make it all the more expensive than it already is.

[Gene Howe]

Yes, I have to agree. These two posts have defined particle board or Ikeawood® pretty well. I guess we should be thankful. If wood waste wasn’t reclaimed and made into manmade lumber, supply and demand for dimensional lumber would make it all the more expensive than it already is.

There was a time when that was true. Sadly, not so any longer. Some of the man made stuff uses "good" wood, run through a chipper. The "good" wood is just material that's marginal for commercial use. Still good enough for MY purposes, though.

[Lee Schierer]

There should be a cautionary note about using the material anywhere where moisture or relative humidity is likely to be present.