Deathmetalconga
Platinum Member
Umm... ok.
Fun fact: Plywood is constructed of thin sheets of WOOD glued together! Complete different from MDF or chipboard. Hence the name "ply" meaning a layer (single-ply heads, anyone?) and "wood" meaning... um... wood?
</sarcasm>
Now, if you're talking about SOLID wood drums, yes they are much rarer but generally considered a lot more difficult to make due to the difficulty in guaranteeing the quality of the wood used in their construction. Spaun are an Australian company who make solid wood drums, as well as block and plywood shells.
I'd count stave, block and steambent as being in the whole wood category; natural whole wood drums are indeed rare.
Particle board and oriented strand board are processed wood products, as is plywood. Yes, processed wood products are made mostly from wood, sometimes very high-grade wood. But there are also a lot of binders, like glue, as well as shaping and forming using heat and pressure. That's where the processing part comes in. Steambent, stave and block shells undergo much less processing and have vastly less glue compared to ply.
That's not knocking plywood at all; plywood has superior strength and workability and lower cost than whole wood construction (including steambent, stave and block), which is more prone to cracking and warping. Some of the best drums ever made are made from processed wood products like plywood and particle board.
While plywood is made with wood, it is not the same as natural whole wood, although manufacturers really want you to think plywood is wood. Wood is wood. Plywood is plywood. I am not inclined to confuse them.