Talk:Plywood

Uses and Installation/ "Houses were being built with a majority of plywood products after the 1930s."

What does this mean? That, by the 1930s, some houses has been built of which the majortiy of materials were plywood and plywood products?

Dating using and conservation with respect to plywood adhesives
History/ "Hide glue was the first glue used, replaced by vegetable glue. Vegetable glue was inexpensive for plywood and was easy to store and manipulate. Casein glue was the first water-resistant glue for plywood introduced in the United States. Soybean glue became the glue of choice for plywood until 1931 when Germany introduced synthetic resin in sheet form, which offered greater water resistance. Phenolformaldehyde began being reproduced domestically in 1935 and became the standard glue in the plywood business."

1. Are there simple tests for these adhesives? Bracketing dates for the use of the various adhesives might be useful in dating some building components. Seems like such a test would involve destruction of some material to get at the inter-ply adhesive.

2. Some old closets, cabinets, and built-in drawers have a persistent funky smell that I think might be rotting glue. (Some hollow papier-mache decorative pieces are stunningly foul when broken or opened a century after their manufacture.) The positive identification of the smell with its source would be a useful start in combating these odors. Rodent urine may be the culprit in some locales, but others, such as hallway telephone niches and shallow in-wall cabinets do not seem especially attractive as habitats.

3. History/ "The quality of the glue used to attach the wood pieces was used to define the quality of the plywood." Implying simultaneous use of different glues. Were the names used as here (hide-glue plywood, vegetable-glue plywood, etc)? Did quality comport with newest on market, or were earlier glues ever the better product superceded by a newer low-cost alternative?