Woodworking with Parallam

[Martin Roper]

Has anyone here tried working this manufactured wood? It creates some cool effects.

 

[gamiller3rd]

Nice work with a unique look

 

[Brian Patterson]

Love the end grain - you’ve really mastered the look in your pieces.

 

[Mark Johnson]

Very interesting. Where do you find this wood?

 

[mkepke]

Looks cool..must be brutal on edged tooling with all that glue as the binder. The turnings especially (since the tooling is usually only HSS).

-Mark

 

[Martin Roper]

Love the end grain - you’ve really mastered the look in your pieces.

I just grabbed these pics off the internet. They intrigued me which is why I asked about it.

Very interesting. Where do you find this wood?

Go to the Weyerhaeuser Where to buy site and type in your zip code. It's commonly used in the building industry.

It comes in a variety of sizes:

2.0E Parallam® PSL header and beam sizes: Widths: 2-11⁄16", 3-1⁄2", 5-1⁄4", and 7" Depths: 9-1⁄4", 9-1⁄2", 11-1⁄4", 11-7⁄8", 14", 16", and 18"

1.8E Parallam® PSL column and post sizes: 3-1⁄2" x 3-1⁄2", 3-1⁄2" x 5-1⁄4", 3-1⁄2" x 7", 5-1⁄4" x 5-1⁄4", 5-1⁄4" x 7", 7" x 7"

 

[Jeff]

Martin, did you make all of the things in your pictures? How are they finished?

Parallam is the name from Weyerhauser. A pretty interesting product.

 

[Martin Roper]

Martin, did you make all of the things in your pictures? How are they finished?

No, but I'd like to!

Cool video.

 

[Oka]

Almost any building supply will carry paralam. Often you can get drops for cheap since they are so short.

Last time I got some was 6 years ago, one of my friends (a GC) told me the stuff has gotten really pricey now.

 

[23tony]

Building, yes, but never thought about doing woodworking with it. Might have to rethink that!

 

[Gotcha6]

Almost any building supply will carry paralam. Often you can get drops for cheap since they are so short.

Last time I got some was 6 years ago, one of my friends (a GC) told me the stuff has gotten really pricey now.

So pricey that in some cases a steel I beam is cheaper.....

 

[Martin Roper]

I might be able to get some leftover pieces pretty cheap. If I get it I'll post it and maybe some of you can play with it too.

Everything I've read about it suggests that to get a smooth finish you'll have to fill voids with epoxy like working with aged, cracked or stressed wood. I've never done that, but I'm sure some of you do it fairly regularly.