There is no shortage of board advice online. Most of it is written by people who have never had to explain a cupped kitchen carcass to a client, or watched a shuttering sheet blow apart on the third pour. What follows is the difference between a spec sheet and a working notebook.
A sheet that behaves in a Gauteng workshop in July is not the same sheet that survives a Durban summer. Advice here is written around local humidity swings, local supplier stock, and the sheet sizes you actually get handed at the yard.
Suppliers around Gauteng, KZN and the Western Cape get named by trade name only when a board is worth mentioning. Nobody pays to be listed, and nobody pays to be left out. If a cheap import sheet fails, that gets written down too.
Cutting plans come from shelving runs, kitchen carcasses, van fit-outs and site formwork, not from a generic nesting tool. Kerf width, grain direction and edge-banding allowance all get counted before the first pass on the saw.
Void content, glue line and veneer quality show up on the edge of a sheet long before they show up on site. The notes here explain what to look for at the yard, so a bad stack gets rejected before it reaches the bench.
Shopfitters working to a deadline and DIY woodworkers building a first van conversion get the same plain language. Terms like WBP, moisture content and sanding grade are explained where they matter, not buried in a glossary.
Send in a photo of a delaminating sheet or a cut list that will not nest, and it may be taken apart in the next post. That is how most of the trickier topics here started, including the notes on cheap boards and coastal sealing.
If you want the longer version of how a board gets chosen, the step-by-step process notes walk through it from yard to finished panel. For anything specific to your own job, the contact page is the place to send a photo or a cut list.
Founders and small shop owners usually land here with a half-finished cut list and a sheet already paid for. These three notes pick up where the board selection stops: grade choices, nesting layouts and how the same panel behaves in Durban versus a dry Highveld winter.
Grade comparison
Where WBP glue earns its price and where an interior board is the smarter call. Includes what to check on the edge of a sheet before you pay for it.
Open the grade notesCutting plans
Nesting layouts for shelving runs, kitchen carcasses and van panels, with kerf width and edge-banding allowance worked in so offcuts stay reusable.
See the layoutsClimate and finishing
Why the same sheet cups in a week on the KZN coast and stays flat in a dry winter inland. Sealer choices, moisture checks and storage in tight workshops.
Read the sealing notesMore board selection and site notes sit in the full notebook, or send a photo of a delaminating sheet and it may get worked through next.