A Gallery of Engineered Wood

Joe Harmon's School Project

Under construction at North Carolina State University by Joe Harmon and crew as a graduate project, the Splinter is a high-performance, mid-engined supercar built extensively of wood composites. Wood is used everywhere possible including the chassis, body panels, and large percentages of the suspension components and wheels. The car has a target weight of 2500 lbs and has a modified Cadilllac Northstar engine making over 600 hp. Brilliant engineering and innovative technology. He's got a great website showing how they're doing it. You gotta take a look...amazing.

Go Joe!

De Havilland Mosquito

The 400 mph British De Havilland Mosquito had a monocoque fuselage shell composed of a sandwich of birch plywood skins over a balsa core. The wings were built with birch plywood ribs and spars, covered with a thin plywood skin. They didn't put guns on it because it was so much faster than the German fighters, thanks to its twin V-12 Rolls Royce Merlin engines, the same engine used in the North American P51 Mustang. It was the most successful fighter/bomber of WWII; over 7500 were built and it was in service until 1963.

Scheherazade

Leonardo bridge, Norway

Leonardo Da Vinci designed this bridge in 1502, but it was never built. In 1996, Norwegian artist Vebjorn Sand saw a model of it and campaigned for it's construction in Norway. Following a tradition of wooden bridges in Norway, it's built of laminated Norwegian pine. The bridge opened to bicycle and foot traffic in October 2001, spanning the four lanes of highway E-18 between Oslo and Stockholm.

Photo- Leonardo Bridge Project

Sequoia F.8L Falco

Constructed with frames of spruce and an outer skin of Finnish birch plywood, the Falco was designed by the Italian designer Stelio Frati and originally sold as a certified aircraft. In the 1980's, the design was adapted to kit form and it is now an owner-built aircraft. A strong aerobatic performer, it is widely considered to be one of the best handling, strongest, and most aesthetically pleasing designs ever made available to home builders.

Borgund stave church, Borgund, Norway

Ok, maybe it's not 'engineered', but it's nearly 1000 years old, so obviously they knew what they were doing. The church was built in the 1100's (pre-dating Gengis Khan) with post and beam construction and has never had a major reconstruction or change of structure! There are 25 or so of these ancient churches still in existance.

Wood, baby.

1903 Springfield rifle stock

I know, I know, it's a gun. Weapon of war even. But still, it's a great example of wood's toughness. The walnut stock was given a light coat of linseed oil and sent off to battle. This one even appears to have some curly figure; they should send it over and we'll bring it to life. Wait, no, it's not a bicycle.