Bamboo for Woodworking

There are a lot of people touting bamboo as the material of the future. But the question I care about as a woodworker is pretty simple:

Is bamboo actually a good material for woodworking projects?

I’ve never worked with bamboo as a “wood-type” material before, so I decided to stop guessing and actually put it through a few real shop tests. We all see bamboo everywhere now, especially in cutting boards. They’re inexpensive, they’re tough, and they hold up well. But a cutting board isn’t the same thing as furniture parts, joinery, and machined edges.

So I went looking for bamboo boards or plywood I could treat like a normal woodworking material.

Bamboo: What is It, How to Find It, and Pricing

The first thing to understand is that bamboo isn’t wood at all. It’s a grass. Bamboo starts out round and hollow, which means it can’t be milled the way hardwood can. To make it usable, it has to be processed. The stalks are cut down, split into sections, usually eight or sixteen, then planed flat and glued together into square or rectangular strips. Those strips are then laminated into boards or plywood-style panels.

That’s why bamboo products always look like they’re made from narrow pieces, because they are.

Finding usable bamboo stock was harder than I expected. Most of what’s readily available is very thin material, around 3 to 5 mm thick, which might be fine for laser engraving or decorative work, but not for building furniture. What I eventually found was 3/4-inch bamboo plywood.

The piece I bought measured 8 inches wide by 30 inches long, and I used it for all the tests that follow.

This bamboo plywood isn’t built like typical five- or seven-ply plywood. It’s essentially a three-layer panel. The top and bottom faces are each about 2 mm thick, thicker than a traditional veneer. The center core runs in the opposite direction and is made up of narrow strips (roughly 5 by 10 mm) all glued together.

It’s a very dense material with surprisingly few voids, although I did find some. Visually, it looks decent. To someone who doesn’t know what they’re looking at, it probably passes for wood, mostly.

You see bamboo used this way a lot in flooring. Many so-called “hardwood” floors are actually laminated products with bamboo as the wear layer. It’s durable, consistent, and can be color-altered by caramelizing it in an oven. Staining may also be possible, depending on the product.

One thing that can’t be ignored, though, is the price. This bamboo plywood was not cheap. I paid about $35 for an 8" × 30" piece, which works out to roughly $28 per board foot. That’s more expensive than any plywood I buy and more than many hardwoods, even some exotic ones.

Now, bamboo products are still relatively new in woodworking markets, and new materials tend to be expensive at first. If bamboo is ever going to be taken seriously as a woodworking material, the price will need to come down to something most of us can justify.

Test 1: Cut Test (Rip + Crosscut)

The first and most obvious question is: How does it cut?

I put it on the table saw and did both ripping and crosscutting to see what kind of edge quality I’d get.

My takeaway was pretty straightforward: it cuts like a lot of other dense materials. On the crosscut, I did get a little bit of tearout, which is common when you’re cutting across grain, especially when you’re dealing with a layered product.

Test 2: Hand Plane Test (Stanley No. 5)

A lot of woodworkers don’t hand-plane much anymore, but I still think it matters. If a material tears out badly or behaves unpredictably with a plane, that tells you something about the grain and density.

So I tried hand planing with a Stanley No. 5.

It planed really smoothly. The best comparison I can give is that it felt a lot like planing maple—dense, close-grained, and clean.

Then I flipped the board around and planed from the other direction. The grain is extremely straight, and as long as you’re planing with the grain, you can go either direction without splintering problems.

Test 3: Routing Test (1/4" Roundover)

Routing is another common machining operation, so I set up a 1/4" roundover bit in a trim router and routed two edges:

• one pass with the grain
• one pass across the grain

And yes, because this is plywood-style construction, routing “across the grain” on the face still means you’ll hit a core layer going the other direction. That’s part of what I wanted to observe, which was how it behaves as the bit transitions through layers.

When it was done, both edges came out pretty smooth. The cross-grain edge had a little more roughness, which I’d expect because of the porosity and the way the material is built. But here’s the part that surprised me:

It was actually smoother than routing cross-grain on pine.

This edge would only need light sanding to clean it up. With pine, you’re more likely to get a rougher surface that needs heavier sanding.

Test 4: Nails and Screws

One of the first things I wanted to know was how bamboo plywood handles fasteners. Is it easy to assemble? Or is it going to fight you every step of the way?

To keep things simple, I used two small offcuts and fastened them together, first with brads, then with screws.

I started with brad nails. Right away, I could tell this material is harder than typical pine or MDF. My first nail actually went in crooked. The second one seated better, but it definitely took more effort than I’m used to. Not a dealbreaker, but just something to be aware of.

Next, I moved on to screws. I used standard coated decking screws, basically drywall screws with a protective coating. I drove one screw with a proper pilot hole and countersink, then tried another without any pilot hole at all.

With the pilot hole, the screw went in cleanly and easily. No drama, no surface damage, and the head seated properly.

Without a pilot hole, it was a different story. There was noticeably more resistance. The impact driver had to work hard, and by the time the screw was fully driven, it was actually hot from friction. Even then, the bugle head didn’t sit flush. It was proud by about a sixteenth of an inch.

That tells me two things. First, pilot holes are absolutely necessary with bamboo plywood. Second, the surface hardness is significantly greater than softwood plywood and even most hardwood plywood. The closest comparison I can think of is Baltic birch (sometimes sold as appleply) which is also dense and tough to drive into.

The upside is that hardness usually translates to durability. If fasteners are harder to drive, they’re also more likely to stay put over time.

Test 5: Stains

Another big question was finishing, specifically, how well bamboo takes stain.

To get a fair comparison, I stained three pieces side by side:

• bamboo plywood
• pine
• luan plywood

I used the same stain on all three: a mid-tone reddish color called cognac.

I already knew pine wouldn’t be a great performer as it tends to blotch, and luan usually stains very evenly. Bamboo was the wildcard.

The results were honestly better than I expected. The bamboo accepted stain very evenly and looked noticeably better than the pine. Compared to the luan, it wasn’t better or worse. It was just different. The color wasn’t as red, but the stain brought out the grain nicely and looked intentional, not muddy or uneven.

That’s worth noting, because many bamboo flooring products get their color from caramelization during manufacturing, not stain. But at least with this plywood, staining is absolutely a viable option.

Test 6: Water

The next test was moisture. 

I submerged several samples in about 3/4 inch of water for nearly 20 hours:

• bamboo plywood
• softwood plywood (1/2")
• pine
• oak

Before soaking, I measured each piece so I could track expansion afterward. What I really cared about wasn’t whether the wood absorbed water (all wood does) but how much it expanded.

The bamboo plywood started at 0.760 inches thick and ended at 0.769 inches. That’s only 0.009 inches of expansion, which is excellent.

The softwood plywood expanded roughly 4½ times more than the bamboo. Pine did even worse, wicking water all the way up the board through capillary action and expanding by about 0.038 inches. Oak, despite being a hardwood, expanded the most of all.

What this tells me is that while bamboo does absorb moisture, it remains remarkably dimensionally stable. That’s a big deal. Expansion and contraction are what cause glue joints to fail, fasteners to loosen, and cracks to form over time.

From that standpoint alone, bamboo plywood clearly outperforms many traditional materials.

Structural Questions: Voids and the Core

One thing I did notice fairly quickly is that this bamboo plywood does have voids in the core. In a few spots, those voids actually go all the way through the panel. What it looks like to me is that the core is made in sections and then assembled, and in some places those sections didn’t line up perfectly.

Structurally, could that matter? It depends on how you’re using it. The strength of this plywood really comes from the outer layers, which are each about 2 mm thick. If you were trying to span a long distance (something like subflooring) that could be an issue. But for the kinds of projects most of us build as woodworkers, it’s probably not a dealbreaker.

Still, I wanted to know how well it actually holds together when glued.

Test 7: Glue Strength

One concern I had going in was how well bamboo would glue. Standard PVA wood glue relies on soaking into the pores of the wood to form a strong bond. If bamboo didn’t allow that penetration, it would seriously limit its usefulness.

To test this, I glued up four samples:

• bamboo plywood, long grain
• bamboo plywood, end grain
• pine, long grain
• pine, end grain
  

I made sure to get full glue coverage without overdoing it. According to glue manufacturers like Titebond, you only need about 0.006 inches of glue thickness. On end grain, I applied a bit more since it tends to soak up glue faster.

After clamping everything overnight, it was time to see what would fail first: the wood or the glue.

I don’t have a hydraulic press or lab equipment, so I used what I call the hammer method. I started with a 16-ounce hammer, dropping it from about a foot. Then I moved to a 3-lb sledge. When that wasn’t enough, I added swing instead of just dropping.

What I found was reassuring. Just like pine, the long-grain bamboo joints failed in the wood, not the glue. That tells me the glue bond itself is stronger than the bamboo fibers in that orientation. With end grain, it took significantly more force to cause failure, and again, the bamboo held up extremely well.

Overall, the bamboo plywood performed as well as, or better than, pine in glue strength. From a structural standpoint, I don’t see glue joints as a weakness with this material.

Building a Simple Box

At the end of the day, all the tests in the world don’t matter if the material is miserable to work with. So I built a simple mitered box to see how bamboo plywood behaves in an actual project.

I started by confirming my miter gauge was square, then set the blade to 45°. I cut four equal pieces and taped them together using painter’s tape, which is a simple but effective clamping method for boxes.

One thing I noticed right away was that the bamboo soaks up glue fairly quickly, which tells me it’s more porous than it looks. That’s something to keep in mind during assembly. You may need a bit more glue than you’d expect.

After letting it dry overnight, the results were very good. The corners were tight, the joints were clean, and the assembly process felt very much like working with other engineered wood products or hardwood plywood.

There was some minor splintering, but nothing unusual and nothing that couldn’t be addressed the same way we already deal with plywood: painter’s tape on cut lines, scoring cuts, or using a zero-clearance insert.

The finished box looked good. The material has a clean, modern appearance, and from a purely practical standpoint, it’s absolutely workable.

Final Thoughts on Bamboo for Woodworking

After putting bamboo plywood through all these tests—cutting, planing, routing, fastening, gluing, staining, soaking, and actually building something with it—I’d say this:

It performs very well as a woodworking material.

It cuts cleanly, takes glue well, holds fasteners securely (with pilot holes), stains nicely, and remains impressively stable when exposed to moisture. From a durability standpoint, it’s strong and predictable.

The one major downside is still the same one I mentioned at the beginning: price.

The piece I bought worked out to roughly $27–$28 per board foot, which is more expensive than many hardwoods, including some exotics. Ironically, finished bamboo products like cutting boards are often cheaper than the raw material itself, which tells me the wholesale pricing is much lower than what hobbyist woodworkers are paying.

That gives me some hope. If manufacturers can bring the price down and offer larger sheet sizes, I can absolutely see bamboo plywood becoming a realistic option for shop furniture and fixtures, utility furniture, kids’ furniture and playroom pieces, and possibly even outdoor or patio furniture, thanks to its dimensional stability

Will it replace traditional wood? No. The grain is simple, and it doesn’t compete with woods like walnut or olive when it comes to visual character. But not every project needs dramatic figure.

If the price comes down and availability improves, bamboo could become a useful addition to the material choices we already have. It’s not a replacement, but another tool in the arsenal.

And when that happens, I’d say it’s absolutely worth a serious look.