Hydraulic Press vs Strongest Wood | Can It Survive 100 Tons?

[00:00:02]In the comments, I am very often asked to crush ironwood with a press. For those not in the know, let me explain.

[00:00:06]Ironwood or lignum vitae is one of the hardest and most durable types of wood.

[00:00:11]This dense as It is so dense that it has such a specific gravity that it even sinks in water. Considering that this block is neither impregnated nor covered with any decorative materials, it has a beautiful clear texture. Thanks to its mechanical properties and decorative appearance, this wood has found wide use in the production of expensive branded items.

[00:00:36]Considering its small dimensions, this block has quite an indecent cost.

[00:00:41]Honestly, I don't really understand all these woods. You could even say I don't understand them at all. So, I need to consult a specialist. I want to crush a piece of ironwood with a press. Not just crush it, but understand how strong it is compared to other types of wood.

[00:01:00]>> Well, we need to cut squares 3 by 3 cm, select other types of wood, take birch for example, oak, alder, ash, and conduct an experiment. [music] But I think in this experiment, the artificial type of wood will win. That's MDF.

[00:01:17]>> What is this?

[00:01:20]>> MDF is medium-density fiberboard.

[00:01:22]>> So, this is already a pre-compressed thing.

[00:01:24]>> With polymer material. Well, the experiment should be conducted both along the fibers and across them.

[00:01:31]>> Oh, he cut a heck of a lot of these cubes. Actually, no. It's all correct.

[00:01:37]Two samples for each type of wood. In the video, we will only show the most interesting results obtained. First, let's weigh some of them.

[00:01:48]The strongest types of trees that grow in our latitudes are ash, weighing 14 g, and oak, 17 g. What weight will iron wood show?

[00:02:05]No bud, 27 g. That's almost twice as heavy as oak. First up will be pine. It is the most common coniferous type of wood. It probably won't be able to withstand any significant load. By the way, this is how pine looks compared to iron wood. We will record the maximum load after we see a noticeable change in shape occurs. So, by me others was from university and this is always happening and I can along the grain.

[00:02:47]3,900 kg. Well, I don't even know if that's a lot or a little. For now, this is the first test sample, so we'll take it as a standard.

[00:03:08]So, pine across the grain.

[00:03:22]Across the grain, it doesn't hold the load at all. It take a force of 200 kg, the shape already began to change it significantly. Although she block did not suffer as serious damage as along the grain.

[00:03:49]You can notice that resin has been squeezed out.

[00:03:55]The second test subject is birch along the grain.

[00:04:18]In principle, it withstood almost the same load as the pine.

[00:04:27]Now, let's crush a piece of birch across the fibers again to make sure that across the fibers the wood holds less load.

[00:04:40]Yes, across the grain the wood handles the load poorly. It's even unclear at what load the deformation began. It feels like it started at the moment of contact.

[00:04:53]I think there's no point in testing them across the grain. The third sample is ash, naturally along 4,200 kg. This is more than pine and birch, but not significantly more. Yet still, it withstood a bit more load. So, I end then dry sign.

[00:05:21]The fourth sample is oak along the grain.

[00:05:26]Great hopes are placed on oak as oak is a common name symbolizing strength and hardness.

[00:05:34]Uh quite good. Oak withstood almost 5 tons. That's 1 and 1/2 times more than pine or birch.

[00:05:53]>> Well, now it's finally the turn of iron wood. What load will it withstand?

[00:06:14]>> 5 and 1/2 tons. That's more than oak.

[00:06:21]Doing our experiment, we found out that ironwood is indeed rightly considered one of the strongest and most durable types of wood.

[00:06:34]>> Since this type of wood won the test, let's also check the second block across the grain.

[00:07:10]As in the first cases, across the grain it holds a smaller load.

[00:07:24]And now we will test the artificial type of wood that Papa Carlo talked about.

[00:07:29]This is MDF. It seems like it's not quite wood, but also wood because 90% of it is still made of wood and the remaining 10% are various impregnations and resins. This cube is assembled from several parts of laminate and has exactly the same dimensions as the cubes we tested earlier.

[00:08:10]The load that the ironwood held has already been surpassed.

[00:08:30]It really shattered with quite a bang.

[00:08:40]I didn't even notice right away. It's good that the camera had a light filter.

[00:08:44]It was shattered by pieces of this MDF.

[00:08:49]If there hadn't been a filter, it seems there wouldn't have been a camera lens, either.

[00:08:57]It's good that I have another MDF cube just like this one.

[00:09:01]Let's apply a load of 100 tons to it and capture it all with a high-speed camera.

[00:09:32]In slow motion, you can see that the splinters from these trees are flying at quite a decent speed. No wonder they broke the glass on the camera.

[00:09:47]>> So, what I think in this experiment, the artificial type of wood will win. It's MDF. MDF, who knows? You'll cut all this out, right?

[00:10:00]>> Yes.

[00:10:01]I don't know. Not necessarily.

[00:10:04]>> What? I'm already >> Are you recording?

[00:10:05]>> Oh, so what?

[00:10:06]>> You'll cut it out. We'll go ahead.