Weight of various woods

[kliu]

I was just replacing the wood for my desk keyboard tray from particle wood to birch ply.

For just a 12" x 30" board, the difference in weight was significant! The birch ply is so much lighter (and better looking!). I assume the particle board is heavier due to all the glue?

Besides particle wood and MDF, are most real woods and plys fairly similiar in weight?

[LCHIEN]

no, some woods are very dense and others not.
No sure of the range but there are specificationas of the density for wood types on the net.

At one end of the range, Balsa, then basswood are low density,
on the other end, woods like ebony are very dense.

UPDATE:
Here's a link to a site that has densities for 30 different species, it's in metric but they give a pounds/cu ft conversion factor.
http://www.simetric.co.uk/si_wood.htm
This one includes MDF:
http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2000/ShirleyLam.shtml


I note that ebony is approx 5 times the density of Balsa for example.
Lignum Vitae is even denser than Ebony by about 1.2

But most of your woods are .5 to .7 Specific gravity
or around 30-45 lbs/cu ft.
(to convert kg/cu m to pounds/cu ft divide by 1000 and multiply by 62.4)

[kliu]

Thanks for the links. Just what I was looking for!