155 – Composite Lumber

How to Work with Composite Lumber

Today I fight my strong wood bias and take time to talk about composite lumber. All the various plastic boards you will find on the market from wood flour and plastic slurry to polyethylene capped boards and fully plastic HDPE or PVC. What you should know about the differences and how you can actually work with this stuff.

You can cut and drill and even glue composite materials but the joints should not be considered structural.  Without wood grain fibers you don't have any of that backbone and you will find that most plastic lumbers are quite flexible.

Thanks to Matt for his question about making a picket fence out of composite lumber to get me started on this entire topic.