Laminated plywood or solid lumber for uprights for a loft bed?

[Mark]

I love the look of exposed plywood and am in the process of building a loft bed for each of my kids. Clean 2x6's for the uprights would work fine but I was wondering about just laminating some plywood into 2x6's (actually 1.75" or 40mm if using Europly or even Chinese ply from HD) for the uprights as the surfaces will be cleaner and be able to expose the ply edges as a design. My concerns are that the laminated plywood uprights will not have the dimensional strength of lumber... true? Aloha, Mark

 

[Brice Burrell]

Europly might be fine, Chinese ply from HD, no way.

 

[peter halle]

Europly might be fine, Chinese ply from HD, no way. 

Mark,

I will agree with Brice.  In as situation like this the glue and the glue between the plys is so important.  The chinese ply from HD is suspect at best, dangerous at worst.  Suggestion for you,  I don't know if you have access to a lumber yard, ask about 1.75 x 5.25 manufactured headers.  They might have several types ranging from LVL, to parallam, to gluelam.  Done for you.

Just a suggestion.

 

[Dane]

I've made structural beams from ply before.  They are quite strong- a good glue bond is essential.  Alternately, you could back up the glue bond with some bolts or stainless screws.  It would look good with the exposed ply.  Just use carriage bolts and recess them with a forstner bit, very strong and certainly strong enough for a bed.  There is a guy who I saw at the Dwell show in LA that makes entire houses using plywood, so strength is not the issue.  That said, the crap from HD is not a good idea from an indoor air quality standpoint.  If your HD stocks it, the Columbia Purebond is a perfect material for this-at 50.00 a sheet it would likely even be cheaper than lumber.

Check the Canadian Plywood association site out.  http://www.canply.org/english/literature_media/plyplans.htm  The even have a free downloadable plan for a bunkbed that looks pretty good.  I would even substitute a double layer of ply for the 2x4 that they use for rails. 

 

[Dane]

Check it out.  Ply everything.  http://greggfleishman.com/structures.html

 

[Mark]

Gregg Fleischman's stuff is super cool. If the dimensionality of the plywood is consistent then making a couple of router jigs could generate endless designs. A new library in Seattle has similar kinds of furniture in the kids area. Honestly, not super comfortable but for loved the exposed simple slotted joints. Thanks for the link! Good point about using cheap ply from China for kids furniture. We've got a good distributor of hardwood ply here and I'll see if they stock either Europly or the Purebond stuff.

 

[bruce-ter]

check out www.kerfdesign.com for some ideas on plywood furniture and cabinets, a Seattle company.  Nathan did some bathroom cabinets for me and I like them more and more.
Bruce

 

[Mark]

Have always been a big fan of kerfdesign's work and first saw their stuff at a shop in Ballard when we used to live in Seattle. Noticed they've gone to using CNC which is perfect for the precision they need to create their work. Good stuff indeed!