Material choice explains most of the price difference between two wooden toys that look similar in a photograph. It also decides how the item survives a drop test, how it feels in the hand and how the finish behaves over years of play.
1. Pine
Soft, light and inexpensive, with a visible grain. Pine suits larger structures - play kitchens, easels, play frames - where strength comes from the thickness of the section rather than the density of the wood. It dents more easily than hardwoods and takes a printed surface finish less evenly, which matters if you want a precise colour match across a range.
2. Beech
The default timber for solid toys: blocks, peg puzzles, pull toys, small vehicles. Beech is dense, machines cleanly, holds a smooth sanded edge and takes paint and dye evenly, which is why it is the standard choice for coloured blocks. It is heavier than pine and more expensive per cubic metre, and heavy solid pieces are also more expensive to ship.
3. Plywood
Layers of veneer glued crosswise. Plywood is stable in thin sections, which is exactly what a puzzle board or a flat panel needs, and it resists warping when the ambient humidity changes. Edge quality is the trade-off: a raw plywood edge is not attractive in a premium product, so it is usually sanded and sealed or covered by a frame.
4. MDF
Dense fibreboard is uniform, cheap and takes printed surfaces beautifully, which makes it common in puzzles and in painted toy components. Two things to check: the formaldehyde emission class of the board, and edge durability, because MDF chips if it is knocked. For children's products we use low-emission board and seal the edges.
5. Bamboo
Fast growing and visually distinctive, and often chosen by buyers with a sustainability story to tell. Bamboo is harder than most toy timbers and can splinter at the edges if it is not machined and finished carefully, so it tends to appear as flat panels - board games, counting frames, trays - rather than as small detailed parts.
6. How material meets testing
Surface coatings are tested for heavy metal migration, and solid wood is tested for accessibility of any parts that could break away. Denser timbers generally hold fixings and joints better, which reduces the risk of a component coming loose in the mechanical tests. Material is also recorded in the test report, so a mid-project switch from plywood to MDF is not a cosmetic change - it can invalidate the testing you have already paid for.
The site states the material and finish of every item on its specification - for example "solid wood and leather" or "plywood and eco-friendly paint" - because that is the information testing labs and buyers both work from. See toy safety standards for the test list, /knowledges/181.html for how material interacts with age grading, and our factory page for the finishing lines. FSC chain of custody is available on request for buyers with a timber policy of their own.
The production route those materials pass through - cutting, material inspection, sanding, coating and assembly - is set out in how wooden toys are made, with the sanding rounds covered in wooden toy sanding.
Two sets from the range that show these timbers in use: wooden building blocks TS 6003 and block set TS 6004.
Board-type products, where plywood or MDF panelling carries the hardware, are covered from the buyer side in busy board sourcing: age grades, small parts and custom sizes.
How species, thickness and material yield move the unit price is set out in what drives the price of a wooden toy order.
Beech and plywood, the two materials above, are what the Montessori wooden toys range is cut from.
Two of the timbers above are compared in detail elsewhere: rubberwood against beech for the solid parts, and plywood against solid wood for the panels.
Larger flat structures, such as the wooden drawing board, are where that pine is used most.