Materials

Wood

Pine – Versatile soft wood with a good finish, easily bruised without proper care.

Jarrah – Dark Australian hardwood, less forgiving than pine and also less affordable.

MDF – Very cheap, very easy to use option with potential health risks associated with the sawdust produced during project work.

Plywood – Provides a more consistent strength, reduces warping tendencies, provides a finish that may not suit particular aesthetics.

Sustainability – Softwoods such as pine tend to be more sustainable due to the rate of growth of softwood trees in comparison to hardwood. Both are also able to be repurposed into MDF boards with a resin, and reused for similar projects.

Metal

Steel – High strength material with low cost, used widely in construction and industrial projects.

Copper – High electrical and heat conductivity, generally used in electrical wiring in housing and other products for this reason.

Aluminium – Malleable material useful for its lightweight nature and resistance to corrosion, vital component in the aerospace industry.

Sustainability – These metals are each uniquely sustainable, steel in the way that it is able to be infinitely repurposed as steel (given adequate quality and lack of erosion/damage), copper in many of the same ways but also its superior conductivity and retention of energies in its systems, and aluminium with the large recycling industry due to its wide use in products ranging from drink cans to aeroplanes.

Plastics

Acrylic – incredibly malleable material which can be easily shaped with thermoforming processes, very cost efficient material

Corian – Often used in kitchens for its use in bench-top surfaces, can be worked in a similar fashion to hardwoods in terms of tools used and flexibility

V-Lite PVC – lightweight material due to its foam formed process, used for applications such as POS displays and advertising, and representative models.

Sustainability – The sustainability of plastics is notoriously lacking, both due to the fact that hard plastics are difficult to recycle and repurpose, as well as the lack of plastic recycling incentives that Australia offers (hard plastics in particular)