wood/foam/wood sandwiches are very lightweight and strong.
But apart from the higher cost, they also have some disadvantages.
The first is the connection of the panels. While metal panels can be welded, screwed or riveted, and wood can simply be glued, doweled, nailed or screwed, this is a bit more challenging with sandwich panels.
The second issue is force application. Such a panel is strong as a planar member and can support a lot of load. But point loads can be critical. The same is true for any connections that need to be made, whether between multiple panels or even between fittings.
In short, workmanship is more demanding and less forgiving. Specialty adhesives can help, but they are expensive and often have a limited working time with 2K adhesives. There can be special fittings that solve such problems, but the prices are usually beyond.
Wood is a patient, (comparatively) inexpensive and easy to work with material. It takes some effort to make it resistant to water, grease and sweat. But it is (at least for me) a pleasure to work with. And wherever you need a handle or other piece of wood, you just take a screw and you're done.
The trick is in the sizing and construction. Most vertical structures are fine with 9 mm thickness. Horizontal structures are often strong enough at 12 mm, and in drawers even 9 mm or 5 mm can be enough. 19 mm is almost never necessary.
With additional design measures, even a horizontal bed can be built with 12 mm. It depends very much on the imagination, skill and patience of the builder.
The nice thing with wood is that you can easily scale it down to almost any requirements and space restrictions.
Imagine the beam below at a height of 50 mm. It takes a fretsaw or a handrouter - and time. The strength is just incredible.
I once built an RC controlled airplane from wood. It had a wing span of 139 cm, had a battery, two servos, an RC-receiver with antenna and all the linkages for the rudder and ailerons. It weighed 99 grams.
Here is a nice website which visualizes the principles of wooden lightweight constructions (although this is for
much larger loads).
Leichter bauen und zugleich die Produktivität erhöhen
www.albrechtloeser.de
typo
