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Plyboo is one of the brands owned by Smith&Fong Co., a privately held building materials company based in San Francisco. Plyboo was launched as a brand in 1993 by Smith&Fong, the first U.S. company to sell imported bamboo flooring in North America. Although Smith&Fong Co. is the parent company, Plyboo has come to be how the company is primarily identified.
Dan Smith and James Fong founded Smith & Fong in 1989 as a design/manufacturer of art-craft quality bamboo pieces. The company's puzzle boxes, trays and tea canisters were sold at Gump's in San Francisco, the New York Museum of Modern Art, the Chicago Art Institute and other boutiques and retailers nationwide. Four years later Smith & Fong converted a Chinese tea-processing plant to produce bamboo flooring and worked out a distribution agreement with a Bay Area-based flooring distributor. Under the name Plyboo, Smith & Fong was the first company to bring bamboo flooring to the US market. The first product was an amber flat-grain flooring that is still in stock today. In 1996, Angus Stocks joined Smith & Fong as an equity partner. The company leased its own space and took possession of its inventory. A second color of bamboo flooring (natural) was added, and the company introduced architectural-grade bamboo plywood to the marketplace. Smith & Fong incorporated in 1997, and spent the remainder of the 1990s adding more bamboo flooring and plywood options to its Plyboo offerings. In 2000, the company launched bamboo strand flooring; in 2001, Smith & Fong introduced coconut palm plywood and flooring under the Durapalm brand, and bamboo plywood production moved to a 4’x8’ dimension.
The company ventured into the sports floor market with PlybooSport in 2006 with its first installation in Dallas, Texas, where Smith & Fong first launched its flooring business 13 years prior. [1] In 2007, Smith & Fong announced it would be converting its manufacturing operations to run urea formaldehyde-free adhesives (PlybooPure™) on its plywood, flooring and veneer lines. Plyboo's product lines are now available urea formaldehyde-free throughout North America. All Smith & Fong products undergo third-party lab-testing for emissions compliance. The products pass the California Air Resources Board (CARB)'s formaldehyde regulations for composite panels. All standard PlybooPure flooring and sheet goods have passed California's Section 01350 volatile organic compound (VOC)-emissions testing. CA01350 is the strictest indoor air quality criteria in existence. Most Smith & Fong products earn the U.S. Green Building Council's LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Credit MRc6 for Rapidly Renewable Materials, EQ 4.4: No Added Urea Formaldehyde for plywood and EQ 4.3 for flooring.[ citation needed ]
In 2008, Smith & Fong obtained the world's first non-wood FSC (Forrest Stewardship Council) certification for its bamboo resource in China, providing third-party validation of a truly sustainable industry. [1] [2] Later that year PlybooPure FSC-certified bamboo flooring was selected as a "Top-10 Green Building Product" by BuildingGreen, publisher of Environmental Building News, the architecture and design industry's most respected source of information on sustainable building and design. [3]
Today Smith & Fong Plyboo offers more than 50 types of bamboo plywood, about 25 choices of bamboo flooring, and a variety of tambour paneling and bamboo veneers. The company also manufactures a full line of coconut palm products under the brand name Durapalm that includes flooring, plywood, paneling and veneer.
Plywood is a material manufactured from thin layers or "plies" of wood veneer that are glued together with adjacent layers having their wood grain rotated up to 90 degrees to one another. It is an engineered wood from the family of manufactured boards which include medium-density fibreboard (MDF) and particle board (chipboard).
Flooring is the general term for a permanent covering of a floor, or for the work of installing such a floor covering. Floor covering is a term to generically describe any finish material applied over a floor structure to provide a walking surface. Both terms are used interchangeably but floor covering refers more to loose-laid materials.
Engineered wood, also called mass timber, composite wood, man-made wood, or manufactured board, includes a range of derivative wood products which are manufactured by binding or fixing the strands, particles, fibres, or veneers or boards of wood, together with adhesives, or other methods of fixation to form composite material. The panels vary in size but can range upwards of 64 by 8 feet and in the case of cross-laminated timber (CLT) can be of any thickness from a few inches to 16 inches or more. These products are engineered to precise design specifications which are tested to meet national or international standards. Engineered wood products are used in a variety of applications, from home construction to commercial buildings to industrial products. The products can be used for joists and beams that replace steel in many building projects. The term mass timber describes a group of building materials that can replace concrete assemblies.
Oriented strand board (OSB) is a type of engineered wood similar to particle board, formed by adding adhesives and then compressing layers of wood strands (flakes) in specific orientations. It was invented by Armin Elmendorf in California in 1963. OSB may have a rough and variegated surface with the individual strips of around 2.5 cm × 15 cm, lying unevenly across each other and comes in a variety of types and thicknesses.
Medium-density fibreboard (MDF) is an engineered wood product made by breaking down hardwood or softwood residuals into wood fibres, often in a defibrator, combining it with wax and a resin binder, and forming it into panels by applying high temperature and pressure. MDF is generally more dense than plywood. It is made up of separated fibres, but can be used as a building material similar in application to plywood. It is stronger, and more dense, than particle board.
Boise Cascade Company, which uses the trade name Boise Cascade, is a North American manufacturer of wood products and wholesale distributor of building materials, headquartered in Boise, Idaho.
A bamboo floor is a type of flooring manufactured from the bamboo plant. The majority of today's bamboo flooring products originate in China and other portions of Asia. Moso bamboo is the species most commonly used for flooring.
Particle board – also known as particleboard, low-density fibreboard (LDF), and chipboard – is an engineered wood product manufactured from wood chips and a synthetic resin or other suitable binder, which is pressed and extruded. Particle board is often confused with oriented strand board, a different type of fiberboard that uses machined wood flakes and offers more strength.
Laminate flooring is a multi-layer synthetic flooring product fused together with a lamination process. Laminate flooring simulates wood with a photographic applique layer under a clear protective layer. The inner core layer is usually composed of melamine resin and fiber board materials. There is a European Standard No. EN 13329:2000 specifying laminate floor covering requirements and testing methods.
Louisiana-Pacific Corporation, commonly known as "LP", is an American building materials manufacturer. It was founded in 1973 and is currently based in Nashville, Tennessee. LP pioneered the U.S. production of oriented strand board (OSB) panels. Today, LP is the world's largest producer of OSB, and manufactures engineered wood building products. LP products are sold to builders and homeowners through building materials distributors and dealers and retail home centers.
Urea-formaldehyde (UF), also known as urea-methanal, so named for its common synthesis pathway and overall structure, is a non-transparent thermosetting resin or polymer. It is produced from urea and formaldehyde. These resins are used in adhesives, finishes, particle board, medium-density fibreboard (MDF), and molded objects.
Fiberboard is a type of engineered wood product that is made out of wood fibers. Types of fiberboard include particle board or low-density fiberboard (LDF), medium-density fiberboard (MDF), and hardboard.
Columbia Forest Products is the largest manufacturer of hardwood veneer and hardwood plywood in the United States. Founded in 1957, it is headquartered in Greensboro, North Carolina. It specializes in decorative, interior veneers and plywood panels that are used in high-end cabinetry, fine furniture, architectural millwork and commercial fixtures. The company distributes its products primarily through a network of wholesale distributors, mass merchandisers and OEMs. Since 1976, the company has been completely employee-owned and currently has 10 manufacturing facilities throughout the U.S. and Canada. At the end of 2006, Columbia converted all of its standard hardwood plywood production to produce formaldehyde-free panels called PureBond. In 2007 Columbia added PureBond formaldehyde-free particleboard to its product range.
Aerolite is a urea-formaldehyde gap filling adhesive which is water- and heat-resistant. It is used in large quantities by the chipboard industry and also by wooden boat builders for its high strength and durability. It is also used in joinery, veneering and general woodwork assembly. Aerolite has also been used for wooden aircraft construction, and a properly made Aerolite joint is said to be three times stronger than spruce wood.
Kirei Board is an engineered panel product of the company Kirei USA, constructed from the left-over, post-harvest stalks of the sorghum plant.
Sustainable flooring is produced from sustainable materials that reduces demands on ecosystems during its life-cycle. This includes harvest, production, use and disposal. It is thought that sustainable flooring creates safer and healthier buildings and guarantees a future for traditional producers of renewable resources that many communities depend on. Several initiatives have led the charge to bring awareness of sustainable flooring as well as healthy buildings. Below are examples of available, though sometimes less well-known, eco-friendly flooring options. The Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America recommends those with allergies to dust or other particulates choose flooring with smooth surfaces – such as hardwood, vinyl, linoleum tile or slate.
Tego film is an adhesive sheet, used in the manufacture of waterproof plywood. It is applied dry and cured by heat, which allows for high-quality laminates that are free from internal voids and warping. Tego film plywoods were used in aircraft manufacture in Germany during World War II, and the loss of the plant during a 1943 bombing raid was a serious blow to several aircraft projects.
Molded plywood is the term for two- or three-dimensionally shaped products from multiple veneer layers that are glued together through heat and pressure in a pressing tool. The veneer layers are arranged crosswise at an angle of 90 degrees. Molded wood is used for flat furniture components such as seats, backrests and seat shells. When the veneer layers are arranged in the same direction, it is called laminated wood. It is used for armrests and chair frames. After pressing, the blanks are processed mechanically. A particular feature is the ability to produce different variations of shapes from the blanks. Due to its immense strength and low weight, molded wood is particularly suitable for interior decoration, seating furniture, bed slats, skateboards and vehicle construction.
Haskelite is the brand name of a plywood, once made by the Michigan-based Haskelite Manufacturing Corporation. It was made from waterproof glue developed by Henry L. Haskell. The moldable plywood was originally called Ser-O-Ply. It was used in the construction of various vehicles including military tanks, boats, airplanes, buses, trucks, and automobiles. The plywood was manufactured with different characteristics depending on particular needs and then given a brand name.
The Haskell Manufacturing Company was a manufacturing company. It was located on Rowe Street about a mile north of downtown Ludington, Michigan. Their main product was haskelite, a plywood made from a waterproof glue developed by Henry L. Haskell in the early 1900s. The plywood was veneer wood panels of different thicknesses and was used to made novelty items, furniture, and paneling for construction. The thinner plywood was molded into shapes for body parts of airplanes and transportation vehicles. It was manufactured with different styles and types to fit particular needs.