According to historic records, wood laminates have been in use way back since 2600 BC by the Egyptians. It has protected the Pharoah’s tombs for thousands of years, yet have been useful for the ancient elite by adorning ornate dining tables and interior furniture. Wood laminates have earlier been a part of premium antiques for affluent family households across culture from Egyptians, Chinese, Roman, Russian and Indianic. Surprisingly, it even saved a war between Ptolemic Egypt and the mighty Romans when the Egyptian Queen, the legendary Cleopatra, presented a uniquely magnificent wood laminate table to Julius Caesar as a gesture of appreciation. Such stories sing the deep connections of this multipurpose engineered wood in human civilisation.
Modern history has stories of composite wood usage as well. The Chinese, the Czarist Russia, the English, the French extensively used wood laminates for vanity furniture, chests, doors etc. However, for long these engineered wood artifacts had been the utility of upper echelon of the society until the technique became familiar in the Americas.
By early 19th century plywood was used for industrial purposes. The 1840s-1890s saw increased interest in ‘Moulded Plywood Furnitures’ which facilitated variety and innovation of design. Early plywood pioneers including engineer Samuel Bentham (British mechanical engineer, theorist) & Immanuel Nobel (Swedish national, inventor of Rotary Lathe and father of Alfred Nobel) paved way for various techniques of moulding plywood, a technique later improvised and patented at the US offices between 1858 and 1865. The John Belter technique (NY-1858) greatly supported mass production.
The combined incentive of highly reduced cost, light-weight framework, strength and flexibility poised plywood as a viable alternative for metals including cast iron both for structural and design uses. In 1867 London built a full scale elevated underground railway vehicle entirely out of moulded plywood tube. The moulded plywood idea was so impressive that it was later used as water-canoes and also played a significant role in the World War I contributing to the light weight ‘monocoque fuselage’ of the then fastest Fighter Plane aptly nick named ‘the Mosquito’.
However, plywood those time weren’t the flat boards that we see today but tailored moulded wood. The mass scale production and use of early type plywood flat boards were pioneered by a Russian Company (A.M. Luther). The Great Depression in America, and the scarcity of resources made general public to switch to plywood for their household infrastructure. Coupled with advancements in the wood treating technique, adhesives, production machinery the plywood catapulted itself to a full-fledged business sector with impact in every corner of the world till today, from Ships to houses, and from automobiles to the humble tea-table.
In India Plywood industry and Tea industry had a brotherly relation. Plywood was almost predominantly used as tea-chests in the Assam region famous for British favourite tea estates during the 1920s. Initially plywood tea-chests were imported. But the ongoing geo-political circumstances, WW-II and subsequent regional regulations gave rise to emergence of Indian plywood manufacturers with their production footprints first in Assam (ASMT - Margherita 1920) and later in Kerala (Malabar Kallayi-1945) followed by West Bengal, Bihar, Andamans, UP, J & K, Punjab etc.
Amongst the major manufacturing groups of the world, Asian countries are led by China (PRC), Myanmar, Laos, and other timber rich countries. Although Indian plywood industry registers about INR 12000 Crore in revenue annually, it is majorly discontinuous and unorganised sector.
