The Romagni's wrote:
>
> Thanks to all for the feedback. Not knowing much about woodworking, I'd
> be curious to hear more about why the solid dash is a poor choice. With
> walnut, a hard wood, it seems to me that it would be a fine choice. Not
> that plywood is bad, just another good choice.
>
> Joe, it seems that the weight of the gauges is so slight that there is
> no way the solid walnut dash would crack. What happened???
>
Plywood distributes the forces applied to it better than a single piece
of wood. With a single piece, the grain is the weakest point. With
plywood, the alternate plies have the grain running in opposite
directions. THus stronger because each ply counteracts the weak point
of the next. One other point, Plywood won't warp, for the same reason.
In My case, I had to plane the wood down enough to get it into the gap
that was provided for a metal insert roughly 1/32" thick. It became too
thin to support even the relatively light instruments. If I choose to do
another wood insert, I will veneer the metal plate!!!
Joe Curry '63 Spit
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