I WOOD for Woodworkers
Take your woodworking to a new level
We’ve prepared this overview of I WOOD grooved wood specifically for woodworkers, so you can see how incorporating I WOOD grooved wood in your projects can make your shop more productive and financially rewarding. From home building to furniture and toy making, the possibilities are limited only by your imagination. You can manufacture the grooved components, manufacture I WOOD kits, design new kits, and/or assemble and customize the kits. You can sell your work on iWOODMarket, at craft fairs, or from an online store.
You can easily manufacture I WOOD grooved wood with a planer as demonstrated in this video or start with a router as we explain later. Take a look at this one-minute video here:
I WOOD in your Woodshop
One of the aims of Treecycling is to create a new group of people interested in one of the oldest professions — carpentry. The more people making their own furniture and homes, using the most environmentally sustainable building product — wood, the better. Less plastic, less cement, less metal can’t be wrong.
The benefits of grooving wood have been appreciated for thousands of years and the beauty of the result is apparent when you look at grooved wood flooring – proof that grooved wood works!
The visual results are wonderful but almost impossible for all but the most competent woodworkers to duplicate in a home workshop. These retail products show however, that wood can be machined to these exacting specifications. The flooring is usually grooved on all four sides and often on the bottom as well. The bottom grooves tend to reduce warping and twisting and the grooves in the 4 sides must be exactly the same so that the surface you walk on is perfectly smooth. Moisture content in the drying of the wood is also critical in the manufacturing and installation processes.
I WOOD grooves are standardized to 3 different sizes, as explained elsewhere in our literature. They can be made in all faces of the wood and can be mixed and matched to suit different end uses.
The I WOOD grooves are not as exact as the grooves in flooring have to be. We have built-in a little bit of “wiggle” room to allow for “minor operator error”, moisture variation, and room for glue.
Getting Started
Starting to use I WOOD grooved wood can be a little bit like learning to use an update on a computer program. Everything is a little different, and it takes some time to appreciate the advantages. Some things are obvious. The grooves provide extra strength by interlocking with wood braces and dowels. They also provide a ledge if used as a shelf, which keeps items from falling off.
Cutting time with a saw is reduced by up to 30 percent and you can stack more wood in your workshop. The list goes on and on as you start to enjoy the new design possibilities.
Guinness used to have an advertisement that went, “I haven’t tried it so I don’t like it.” For most people, Guinness never became their favorite drink. We think the opposite will happen when you use I WOOD
The I WOOD family of grooved lumber can be produced by woodworkers at any skill level using existing tools and machines. Beginners can start making their own creations at little cost especially if they purchase wisely from the web.
You can start working with I WOOD as a hobby, or you might already be thinking of ways that grooved wood can be used to make your creations stronger and easier to build. Tools are available to suit your skill level and applications. We even have plans for toolboxes and workbenches and workshops that will help you to reach whatever level you wish to get to while keeping your tools safe and organized!
I WOOD Grooved Lumber
Most I WOOD Grooved Lumber will be manufactured from lumber that was previously milled to standard dimensional sizes: 2×4, 1×2, and 3/4″.
2X4: Most wood used for construction framing is dimensional standard 2X4 lumber (or the metric equivalent). I WOOD’s 2I4 or 2C4 can be substituted for the 2X4 in the majority of cases.
1X2: The I WOOD product line derived from the 1X2 board has the same advantages described above and is primarily used for smaller projects, such as furniture.
¾″ Strips: I WOOD uses ¾” strips for toys and models as well as for facing the ends of plywood or particleboard that are unfinished. This makes the edge banding process much simpler and leaves a better-looking wood finish to the edges of boards and plywood as well as covering the end grain of traditional boards. This finish stands up much better than edge banding.
I WOOD Grooved Lumber, made with 2x4s, 2x3s, and 1x2s
C WOOD: Used extensively for buildings and furniture. Other uses range from dunnage needed for shipping purposes to log cabins. C Wood can be used for interior and exterior railings and handrails. Also used for laminated beams
I Wood: Used in many areas ranging from studs in full-size homes to interior partitions.
D Wood: Various specialty uses such as for formwork for concrete and certain roofing situations.
Q Wood: Used to join two pieces of I Wood or C Wood together when extra strength is required, such as for posts or rafters. It is useful when making laminated beams for extra long rafters, etc.
U and V Wood: Used as interior structural members in structures.
I WOOD Grooved Lumber made with 2X2s and 4X4s
H Wood: Used for corner posts and roof beams and garden functions such as posts, parts of picnic tables, etc. Tile glued to the grooves lends a different look. Greenhouses made from H wood are functional, attractive, and competitively priced.
M Wood: Used for making very strong, solid wooden walls with the components, one on top of the other similar to the way log houses are made. One variation of the M is to leave one side of the shape rounded showing the original shape of the log.
O Wood: Used as short brackets to connect studs and rafters together when building the trusses for emergency buildings and smaller garden and storage structures.
I WOOD Grooved Boards
When the shorter side(s) of the board is grooved, we call these boards I WOOD Grooved Boards. I Wood Grooved Boards typically have a male groove on one side of the board and a female groove on the opposite side. These grooves are ¼” deep in the standard I WOOD shape. They lock together the same way that tongue and groove flooring boards are assembled.
Moisture contents vary considerably so the grooves in the I Wood boards have to allow for some “wriggle” room so care still has to be but this is not nearly as difficult as joining 2 smooth-sided boards together.
The potential for creating boxes and other items gets even more exciting when you rout grooves into all of the ¾” edges of the board (or edges of other board sizes)
I WOOD Grooved Boards can also be manufactured in angular shapes: Isosceles 45°, hexagonal 30°, and octagonal 22 ½° to create enclosed shapes
Making the Groove
You can manufacture I WOOD furniture kits without a Planer/Molder by purchasing the grooved lumber and boards from a master TRM. Once you get into the I WOOD “groove” you will see the opportunity to greater profitability if you manufacture the I WOOD grooved lumber and boards directly.
Router Tables and Molder/Shapers
Router tables are the start of the manufacturing process for people interested in taking advantage of the I WOOD concept. The table shown is designed specifically for routing I WOOD male and female component parts “On Demand”. Once properly set up the male and female grooves will match perfectly when glued requiring little or no planeing or sanding. A little like using a pencil sharpener.
A 10 HP Molder/Shaper will give you the capacity to proficiently manufacture the I WOOD components for structures and other kits using 2×4 lumber and 3xe timber. The Woodmaster 21″ Multi-Duty 5 HP Planer/Molder ($3,500) set up with the six blades/knives shown below will produce all I WOOD grooved and grooved boards. An efficient shop could produce up to 10 structure framing kits of various sizes in a day – sufficient quantities to make a good living for a few people. The 21” Woodmaster can produce these shapes and can be fitted with multiple blades producing product at up to 48 feet a minute. This is very significant when trying to keep inventory to a minimum.
Blades
All of the I WOOD family of shapes are produced by three custom I WOOD blade sets, one male shape, and one female shape for each of the three sizes of lumber we traditionally use.
| Small | 3/4″ stock |
| Medium | 1X2 stock |
| Large | 2X4 stock |
A small businesses can be set up with a workshop for under $1000.
You have the option of using the I WOOD website at www.iwoodkits.comand iWOODMarket to buy or sell I WOOD grooved components and your wood crafts (Starting late 2021).
We plan to help you with everything you need for starting a business, from designs for buildings and furniture, to brochures, supplier lists, promotional suggestions, mobile and permanent workshops, templates, jigs, and manufacturing suggestions.
Additional benefits of I WOOD to Woodworkers
If you choose to get started by using I WOOD precut component parts to make furniture, you can create hundreds of different pieces of furniture without the necessity of having a woodshop with expensive tools that create dust, noise, and perhaps, when used inappropriately, health hazards.
I WOOD grooves add a new dimension to wood with the angles creating attractive shadow lines and other features.
The lighter weight of products made from I WOOD reduces shipping costs.
I WOOD grooves on ¾” lengths produce excellent edge finishing material for plywood and particleboard that is considerably stronger and more attractive than the traditional ribbon banding.
I WOOD grooved wood is a remarkably good solution to making smooth running drawers slides and runners.
Sourcing from urban forests
Material from urban forests is often quite suitable for precutting into I WOOD component parts. The groove speeds up the drying process, reduces warping, twisting and splitting. Precutting components makes it possible to use wood discards that would otherwise be burnt or thrown into the landfill. Smaller trees and some of their branches can often be used. Urban trees often have grains and colors in them which compete very favorably with many of the tropical hardwoods that are being cut down in developing countries and causing major environmental problems.
You can be a valuable part of the process
Please share your comments, ideas, and suggestions so that we can realize the full potential of the I WOOD approach, and preserve our valuable forest resources.
What we have presented here is a starting point from a carpenter’s point of view. Carpenters say “good enough” and call out for “rough openings”. Wood deserves better. We are reaching out to you because, ideally, I WOOD furniture and building kits should be designed by woodworkers and we can leave the assembly to the carpenters and hobbyists.
Want to know more?
Download additional I WOOD guides at https://iwoodkits.com/about-us as PDF or Word files, for more information about using I WOOD for your woodworking projects, adding to your income by manufacturing I WOOD grooved wood, and selling I WOOD kits and your woodcrafts on the iWOODMarket.
Be sure to visit Treecycling.com and iwoodkits.com for more information on the many ways that I WOOD can be utilized and further developed. We welcome your ideas and inquiries. Email Chris at chris@iwoodkits.com.
Go to https://iwoodkits.com/in-the-groove-newsletter for the latest I WOOD news. Subscribe to In the Groove and receive a complimentary copy of the groundbreaking e-book, I WOOD – the Grooved Wood by Christopher Scott.
