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Sourcing Wood + Conversion to Imperial

Posted: Tue May 12, 2020 5:00 pm
by akjzmaderaEU
Hi Everyone,

I'm new to PS Woodworking and, despite some general carpentry experience, am relatively new to woodworking. We just purchased plans for both the Plywood Workbench and the Modular Workbench and I have a couple of questions for all of you:

1. In the provided cutting lists, reference is made to "Hard Plywood" and "Soft Plywood" of varying thicknesses. Does anyone have more clarity on the kinds of plywood products that would work well? We live in North America and the products we have access to may be different than in EU and elsewhere. I am planning on using the "Baltic Birch" for the "Hard Plywood" but am not sure what do use for the "Soft Plywood." What do you think?

2. Living in North America, we also need to confront the delta between metric and imperial measurement systems. If anyone else has successfully dealt with that problem, I'd certainly appreciate any tips you can offer.

All right,

Thank you,

- Jay

Re: Sourcing Wood + Conversion To Imperial Measurements

Posted: Wed May 13, 2020 8:14 am
by Suso
hello Jay,

birch plywood is perfect to use as hard plywood. For the soft plywood you can use Cedar, Douglas, Pine, Spruce, Redwood, Poplar, Okumen etc...Here you'll find more info:

you can change the measurement system to imperial on SketchUp under the command "window/model information," although it's not completely effective at converting. In Autocad, under "format /units" you can change units easily. Of course, all Pdf sheets will still be in metric system.

Here you'll find more info about the conversion:

Re: Sourcing Wood + Conversion To Imperial Measurements

Posted: Thu May 14, 2020 11:23 am
by akjzmaderaEU
Gracias. Seguimos adelante.

Re: Sourcing Wood + Conversion To Imperial Measurements

Posted: Sun Jan 31, 2021 11:52 pm
by TommyH27
I have a related question to this topic...I'm also new to woodworking.

Can I use Poplar plywood in the Modular Workbench where it requests hard plywood?

Or will I run into issues later with contraction/shrinking of the frame components please?

Thank you

Re: Sourcing Wood + Conversion To Imperial Measurements

Posted: Mon Feb 01, 2021 8:02 am
by Suso
you can also use soft plywood. You will have a lighter and little less robust module, but I think enough to make woodworking projects

Re: Sourcing Wood + Conversion To Imperial Measurements

Posted: Mon Feb 01, 2021 11:57 pm
by TommyH27
Thank you!

Re: Sourcing Wood + Conversion To Imperial Measurements

Posted: Wed Feb 10, 2021 10:39 pm
by TommyH27
Suso, I had one other question please on the Modular Workbench:
-What is Piece 14 please? The diagram points to the top but I believe it's on the back of the bench
Thank you...I'm making progress on my bench!

Re: Sourcing Wood + Conversion To Imperial Measurements

Posted: Thu Feb 11, 2021 9:10 am
by Suso
hello Tommy,

It is one of the three spacers for the rear tool holder. Remember that in SketchUp you can easily locate all the pieces in the layers section:

Image

Re: Sourcing Wood + Conversion to Imperial

Posted: Thu Feb 11, 2021 5:16 pm
by TommyH27
Thank you!

Re: Sourcing Wood + Conversion to Imperial

Posted: Fri Apr 22, 2022 2:51 pm
by Andrej
Hi, I am new to woodworking and I want to build your modular workbench and table saw stand plans. With the current high plywood prices I can get much cheaper rough sawn oak, (european) beech or soft pine wood. Would it be much harder to joint my own boards and build your style workbench with non-plywood? If yes, what type of wood would you recommend? Thank you!