Commercial plywood is a significant branch of man-made boards and the largest type of board produced and sold among the three major board in the wood industry: plywood, particleboard, and fiberboard. With the further improvement and enhancement of plywood’s superior qualities, it has become increasingly popular in modern home furnishing.

What is Commercial Plywood?

The raw materials for commercial plywood production are trees and tree trunk. The production process involves slicing logs into veneers or peeling timber blocks into thin sheets, which are bonded together with adhesives to form three-layer or multi-layer board materials. Usually an odd number of veneers are used, and the fibers of adjacent layers of veneers are glued together at right angles to each other.

The picture above clearly shows the structure of commercial plywood, which is like a sandwich.

Types of commercial Plywood

  • Weather-resistant and Boiling Water Resistant Plywood:Durable, heat-resistant, and capable of steam treatment, commonly used as cement formwork.
  • Water-Resistant Plywood:Can be immersed in cold water and short-term hot water.
  • Moisture-Resistant Plywood:Can be immersed in cold water for a short time, commonly used in indoor environments such as kitchens and bathrooms.
  • Non-Moisture-Resistant Plywood:Suitable for dry indoor applications.

Production Process of commercial Plywood

No matter how the structure and performance of plywood change, they are all extended from ordinary plywood. It can be said that the production process of ordinary plywood is the basis. For this reason, we must have a deeper understanding of its production process.

1.Rotary Cutting Section

As one of the core stages in commercial plywood production, the rotary cutting stage utilizes equipment such as log cutoff saws, log debarkers, and veneer lathes. The cutoff saws include chain saws, hanging cutoff saws, and balanced circular saws.

Rotary cutting is a typical and crucial process for manufacturing commercial plywood, providing the basic structural units for the board. The process flow is: log cutoff → log softening → log debarking → rotary cutting → veneer sorting.

2.Veneer board Drying (Drying)

Wet veneers require drying after peeling. Veneer drying is the most energy-consuming stage in plywood production, accounting for more than two-thirds of the total thermal energy consumption. This process promotes the expulsion of moisture from the wood cell walls, The surface and bottom boards need to be dried to a moisture content below 16%, and the core boards need to below 14%.

In addition, it is crucial to note that veneer drying is a preliminary preparatory process and an important process for adjusting the moisture content to adapt to production and application of commercial plywood. The industry generally agrees that drying veneers to a moisture content of around 12% before gluing is the most cost-effective solution for hot pressing plywood.

3.Veneer board Repair, Splicing, and assembly

During the growth of trees, there are natural defects such as knots and bark. The veneers after peeling have natural defects and processing defects. After grading, the veneers need to be repaired and spliced ​​vertically and horizontally to meet the requirements of plywood production.

When splicing veneers, the grade should be consistent and the front side should be uniformly facing down; when splicing longitudinally, the ends should be staggered and aligned to reduce overlap and core separation, and the long and medium boards should be spliced.

4.Adhesive Preparation (Glue Mixing)

Adhesive serves as the bonding agent between veneers, mainly composed of amino synthetic resins, hardeners, fillers, and modifiers. The bonding strength between veneers is a crucial indicator for measuring the bonding performance of plywood, which comes from the solid effective components of synthetic resin. Commonly used amino resins include urea-formaldehyde resin and phenol-formaldehyde resin, the most widely used is melamine-modified urea-formaldehyde resin.

5.Veneer Gluing, Mat Forming, and Pre-Pressing (Cold Pressing)

Gluing, mat forming, and pre-pressing are continuous operations. The correct process flow after wet-dry veneer grouping is gluing first and assembly later, which can be completed in one go to achieve the integration of gluing and assembly. This arrangement ensures a compact workstation, smooth workflow, and high efficiency. The piled boards after assembly are also pushed directly into the pre-pressing machine through the roller table to achieve rapid pre-pressing.

6.Mat Repair, Hot Pressing (Bonding), and Aging

Mat repair is the final remedial measure before hot pressing. Defects such as overlapping cores on the base layer or even the next adhesive-coated layer must be repaired. Hot pressing of slab solidifies the adhesive and makes the bonding strength of veneer layer meet the requirements. In general, temperature, pressure and time are the core three elements of commercial plywood hot pressing. In addition, the loading and unloading sequence, speed and pressure curve over time of the slab are also very important points to pay attention to during the hot pressing process.

7.Puttying and fixed thickness sanding of the base board

The well-cured rough board enters the puttying and sanding process; putty repair is generally done manually, and sanding is fixed thickness sanding, using a single-sided or double-sided wide belt sander.

8.Surface plate veneer, sanding, cutting

Surface plate veneer process: surface and bottom assembly → glue mixing → gluing → assembly → cold pressing → repair and cold pressing → hot pressing → sanding.

The surface plate is sanded using a single-sided multi-sand frame wide belt sander. The sanding should ensure that the board surface is smooth, with clear texture and good finish.

Edge cutting is to cut the hot-pressed rough board into standard size, remove the loose parts on the four sides, and make them parallel and regular. In addition to meeting the national standard requirements, the length and width dimensions and deviations, diagonal differences, and board edge verticality must be appropriately tightened or relaxed according to customer requirements.


We are a high quality commercial plywood supplier from China. Based on the above introduction, you have a certain understanding of commercial plywood. If you need good quality and cheap commercial plywood, or have any other questions, you can contact us