Was Plywood Used
 

There are a few threads that pop up regarding wood questions. Purely out of curiosity, was plywood used in any parts of the original construction of any of the 'A's?

Re: Was Plywood Used
 

Plywood could have been used, it was invented 3500BC by the Greeks and patented in 1865 by a guy named John Mayo. I have an early set of floor boards that are made out of planks. There is a story that Ford used old shipping crates but I doubt that. Shipping crate wood is warped and cracked and was most likely used as fuel. Ed

Re: Was Plywood Used
 

Plywood is original stock for front floors in 1930 & 1931 cars.

Re: Was Plywood Used
 

Jan'29 Sport Coupe,Michigan hardwood floorboards

Re: Was Plywood Used
 

have never seen "original" plywood floors in any A.


only planks

Re: Was Plywood Used
 

I think my late '29 Tudor has a rear plywood floorboard. It certainly looks old enough to be original, and had anti-sqeak lining tacked around the edges.

Re: Was Plywood Used
 

Found some in the front seat frames that was on the sides of the seats that attached to the door frame. Mine were dry rotted at the bottom and had to make new ones. Used Baltic birch plywood and sealed with poly urethane.

Re: Was Plywood Used
 

Re: Was Plywood Used
 

I believe I have an original plywood floorboard, will post photo later today, stay tuned.

Re: Was Plywood Used
 

The floorboards in my ‘29 Tudor are plywood. I’m the second owner, it was unrestored when I bought it, and have owned the car since 1961, so I’m pretty sure they’re original.
Weren’t the panels on woodies plywood?

Re: Was Plywood Used
 

At least the lower floorboard on my 30 Town Sedan, which I believe to be original, is plywood.

JayJay

Re: Was Plywood Used
 

The 150A/B & 225 also used plywood in the body.

Re: Was Plywood Used
 

This is an original

Re: Was Plywood Used
 

I know this is somewhat out of context because it was a third party body, but I had a standrive milk truck that had plywood in some of the body construction. The plys were quite thick and as some of the glue had deteriorated so you could see it well.

Re: Was Plywood Used
 

Go the the Model A Judging Standards and Restoration Guidelines Area 11 page 5. Revised 2016. "In March 1929, plywood floorboards began to appear."

Re: Was Plywood Used
 

Good info, wasnt sure there would be any response. Somewhat related I had a 1913 English made motorcycle, the floor boards in the sidecar were plywood. Common sense and logic would have made me think it was used.

Re: Was Plywood Used
 

I had a plywood floor in my 29 Roadster that looked VERY original. Used it for a template to replace it with birch.

Re: Was Plywood Used
 

Hi,
I heard that Henry Ford would save and re-use wooden crate materials for fabrication of the wooden floors back in the day.
I saw it on a car show and a old school model a owner was talking about that.

Re: Was Plywood Used
 

I have heard this many times. I know ZERO about car production, but I do know a little about wood. I would think it would be easier (thus cheaper) to have wood to be used in the production of the vehicles a known commodity and prepped accordingly. Breaking apart pallets/shipping crates, pulling nails (I doubt they used screws), then sorting into useful sized piles seems counter intuitive to me. I would think compared to the amount of wood used in the production line, 'scrap' lumber from crates would amount to very little.

Re: Was Plywood Used
 

All true, and today this would make little sense. Especially since nowadays we would just order up several hundred Conex containers of premade floorboards and have them shipped from overseas. However, consider the times when raw material cost likely made up a much higher percentage of the car's value, labor was not as comparatively expensive then as it is now. I'm sure this could be quantified but doggone if I have any numbers to do so.

JayJay